Review by Booklist Review
As McKibben hikes across the land he loves, setting out from tidy Vermont and heading into the wilds of New York's Adirondack Mountains, he rhapsodizes about gorgeous mountain vistas, pristine lakes, and deep woods. It's a boon to find the author of eight cutting-edge books about grave environmental concerns, including The End of Nature 0 (1989) and Enough0 (2003), in a hopeful state of mind, especially since McKibben, charmingly self-deprecating and funny, isn't only communing with nature but also visiting individuals committed to living "green," including organic farmers, a vintner, a beekeeper, environmental studies students, wildlands philanthropy promoter John Davis, and writer Don Mitchell. Thanks to their efforts, this once hard-used land is now restored and rebounding. As McKibben considers nature's "lessons in flux and resiliency," he also reflects on the evolution of environmental thought and his own eco-awakening, ultimately positing the possibility of our forgoing "hyperindividualism" and unbridled materialism to achieve a balance between the wild and the cultivated, and a sense of community that embraces the entire web of life. --Donna Seaman Copyright 2005 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this latest addition to the Crown Journeys series, McKibben, the author of bestseller The End of Nature, writes with his usual wry, approachable power about the Adirondacks, his chosen home. While hiking from Vermont?s Mt. Abraham to the wilder forests in New York, McKibben stops in at various ecologically-minded business concerns, including an organic winery and a prototype small college garden. He is accompanied by a who?s who of environmentalists, including the president of Greenpeace, USA, and a founder of the revolutionary Earth First! Journal. Because of his longtime friendships with his fellow hikers, McKibben is able to capture them at their best, speaking with great knowledge and love for nature. But none is more eloquent than McKibben, who writes, ?It?s a quiet day, nothing spectacular except the mushrooms sprouting obscenely in this wet summer, but quietly grand, just like this country [...] it?s the impressions that linger with me, the sense of the woods as a whole?the relief, the density, the changing feel underfoot and overheard.? Here is a nature writer who can consider all sides of an argument and happily end up uncertain of the precise solution, but sure of his nearly evangelical passion for the mountains he calls home. This book could single-handedly spur a rush of tourism to the Adirondack area?it?s that good. (Apr.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Review by Library Journal Review
In this entry of the "Crown Journeys" series (see also Roy Blount Jr.'s Feet on the Street, reviewed above), we join McKibben-a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books-as he treks from Mount Abraham, ME, to Lake Champlain, VT, to the Adirondacks in New York state. En route, he personalizes encounters, e.g., of the Lord's Prayer carved on a boulder, he muses "a pleasure to be walking instead of driving, slow enough to savor the rhythm of the familiar words." People are introduced, all of whom want to enhance and preserve nature by their presence; by farming organically or growing grapes and manufacturing wine, they are truly living by the land. McKibben's unique Vermont persona is reminiscent of fellow Vermonter, the novelist Chris Bohjalian; his subject also recalls Bill Bryson, who is equally fond of sharing his hiking adventures with readers. McKibben, however, may fail to win converts because he can seem mean-spirited and at times presents one-sided arguments. Only for large libraries and specialized nature and ecology collections.-Susan G. Baird, Chicago (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A short, lovely chronicle of a long hike, during which McKibben (Enough, 2003, etc.) meditatively reflects on the relationship between nature and humanity. He takes as his jumping-off point a stroll from Vermont to the Adirondacks, traversing land on both sides of Lake Champlain that he knows well. "I've not been able to drag myself away from this small corner of the planet," McKibben notes, wondering whether the no-name region should be called "Adimont" or, perhaps, "the Verandacks." As he chronicles his walk, he reflects on writing, on the place of agriculture in the curricula of liberal arts colleges, on Theodore Roosevelt's summer in the Adirondacks (where Vice-President Roosevelt was hiking when President McKinley was shot, ushering in "the greatest environmental presidency of our history," in McKibben's view). Some of the most wonderful scenes occur when the author meets up with friends, who all seem to lead lives found most often in Wendell Berry novels. McKibben slips in lessons about environmental policy and science, explaining, for example, the rationales and consequences of conservationists' decision in the last decade to work with people who have traditionally used the land they are hoping to conserve. His prose is so seductive, however, that readers will barely notice they are being instructed. In some ways, this is the most personal of McKibben's books thus far. He has invited readers into the place that has inspired his life's work of writing, politicking, and environmental activism--not the Amazon rain forest or a melting Arctic glacier, but the Adirondacks, which "even the New York State constitution" can't protect from acid rain or global warming. Yet Wandering Home is intimate without being confined: McKibben roams far, far beyond the Verandacks, beyond even the topic of the environmentalism, to touch on community, local economy, simplicity. Nature writing at its best. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
