A Sand County Almanac
First published in 1949 and praised in The New York Times Book Review as a trenchant book, full of vigor and bite, A Sand County Almanac combines some of the finest nature writing since Thoreau with an outspoken and highly ethical regard for Americas relationship to the land. Written with an unparalleled understanding of the ways of nature, the book includes a section on the monthly changes of the Wisconsin countryside; another part that gathers informal pieces written by Leopold over a forty-year period as he traveled through the woodlands of Wisconsin, Iowa, Arizona, Sonora, Oregon, Manitoba, and elsewhere; and a final section in which Leopold addresses the philosophical issues involved in wildlife conservation. As the forerunner of such important books as Annie Dillards Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Edward Abbeys Desert Solitaire, and Robert Finchs The Primal Place, this classic work remains as relevant today as it was forty years ago.
Stats for nerds
5recommend
15mentions
11people
2016–2025years
40% recommend60% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Your writing is very reminiscent of Aldo Leopold's in 'A Sand County Almanac' (which is an equal delight to read)
- Reading essays by Aldo Leopold [0] really changed my perspective a bit. He has an essay from 1943 called "What Is a Weed?" [1], and I don't think before reading it that I'd ever contemplated that question in any depth.
He argues that it is a false premise "that every wild species occasionally harmful to agriculture is, by reason of that fact, to be blacklisted for general persecution [1]." He also argues that it's backwards to focus so much on weed control rather than weed prevention--many times weeds are the effect of some underlying cause (land misuse, etc.).
Anyway I really dig Leopold and his philosophy, if you've never heard of him give A Sand County Almanac [2] a try.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldo_Leopold
1: https://books.google.com/books?id=-StPpe04gS8C&pg=PA306&lpg=...
- It's worth remebering this last phrase "In that simple fashion does the man who outwitted the cleverest of animal criminals tell his story."
whilst reading Aldo Leopold famous short piece from A Sand County Almanac, Thinking Like a Mountain:
https://ia600707.us.archive.org/6/items/ThinkingLikeAMountai...
- Aldo Leopold, "Sand County Almanac".
In German: Josef Reichholf, "Mein Leben für die Natur".
- Eh I think there are at least a few notable differences compared to those list items. Most powerful one is storytelling. I’ve recently been reading a few books by naturalists (e.g. A Sand County Almanac, which is incredible) and that has changed my views far, far more effectively than any of the things you listed.
Other benefits video games might have even over a great story seem like they’d be notable: highly visual, and more interactive than books.
- I can't recommend Leopold's A Sand County Almanac enough. I first heard of it on HN, actually, and I'm so glad to see more of his work posted here. For another great essay by him, give Good Oak a read.
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