The Woods Stretched for Miles: New Nature Writing from the South

Book Overview

The Woods Stretched for Miles gathers essays about southern landscape and nature from nineteen writers with geographic or ancestral ties to the region. This remarkable group encompasses not only such... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0820320889
• ISBN13: 9780820320885
• Release Date: April 1999
• Publisher: University of Georgia Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

What is nature? Everyone has a different view.

"There is no true wilderness here (in the Smokies), but there is wildness, honest and deep and as much as a man could hope for." Harry Middleton writes in one of the essays in this collection. He hikes up Hazel Creek and is upset because he sees two other anglers. I know the Hazel Creek trail. It is lovely but not wilderness.Most of the essays acknowledge that they are not talking aboutreal wilderness. One of my other favorites is "The Making of a Marginal farm" by Wendell Berry. His whole working life is wrapped up in overhauling a farm, while teaching at the University of Kentucky. Even he admits that you can't make a living farming on a small scale. Berry is part of the agrarian tradition. This essay is pushing the definition of nature. He did save the land from developers.Most of the essays are worth reading, as long as you accept that the authors are dealing with land that has been worked.

Excellent Book

The Woods Stretched for Miles is an excellent anthology of southern nature writing. The editor, Gerald Thurmond, has obviously searched far and wide to bring together a diverse group of writers. All of the selections are well chosen.