Post by sasha on Feb 7, 2024 8:02:43 GMT -5
So often I've heard of people talking about books that changed their lives - books on philosophy, spirituality, or novels with heroines or heroes whose lives influenced those of the reader. I've kept bashfully quiet because I couldn't think of any that have personally affected me - until now.
Neil Jorgensen's "The New England Landscape" was a quiet epiphany for me. I encountered it in my early 20s, a period in my life when I was beginning to revel in finally being free of the demands of academia; and even though now locked into the 9-to-5, the time outside those hours was my own. Jorgensen's book was a biography of sorts, describing the countryside in which I'd lived all my life, but from a deeper (literally) perspective. It explained in clear, layman's language the geological forces that had shaped the hills and valleys with which I was so familiar, and why certain areas exhibited features unique to their environments. It was a peek under the hood that made sense, revealing an underlying logic to why, for instance, sandstone bluffs dot south central MA, while granite dominates just a few dozen miles to the north. It was full of those "So that's why!" moments. It added a dimension of wonder to my day trips to interesting places.
A few years later, I ran across another of his, "Southern New England", on the ecology of the region so named. (I live at its northern edge, so much of the material was still relevant to my situation.) The primary take-away for me was the notion that a specific set of geological /hydrological conditions favors some forms of plant life more than others, and that variety will form communities within conditions favorable to their existence. So obvious in retrospect, perhaps, but almost every chapter had some kind of "Aha!".
Man, I loved those books.
In the latter, he alluded to a companion guide for Northern New England which I kept watch for, but apparently it never got written.
Neil Jorgensen, "A Guide to New England's Landscape", Barre Publishers, Barre MA, 1971
"Southern New England: a Sierra Club Naturalist's Guide", Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1978
Neil Jorgensen's "The New England Landscape" was a quiet epiphany for me. I encountered it in my early 20s, a period in my life when I was beginning to revel in finally being free of the demands of academia; and even though now locked into the 9-to-5, the time outside those hours was my own. Jorgensen's book was a biography of sorts, describing the countryside in which I'd lived all my life, but from a deeper (literally) perspective. It explained in clear, layman's language the geological forces that had shaped the hills and valleys with which I was so familiar, and why certain areas exhibited features unique to their environments. It was a peek under the hood that made sense, revealing an underlying logic to why, for instance, sandstone bluffs dot south central MA, while granite dominates just a few dozen miles to the north. It was full of those "So that's why!" moments. It added a dimension of wonder to my day trips to interesting places.
A few years later, I ran across another of his, "Southern New England", on the ecology of the region so named. (I live at its northern edge, so much of the material was still relevant to my situation.) The primary take-away for me was the notion that a specific set of geological /hydrological conditions favors some forms of plant life more than others, and that variety will form communities within conditions favorable to their existence. So obvious in retrospect, perhaps, but almost every chapter had some kind of "Aha!".
Man, I loved those books.
In the latter, he alluded to a companion guide for Northern New England which I kept watch for, but apparently it never got written.
Neil Jorgensen, "A Guide to New England's Landscape", Barre Publishers, Barre MA, 1971
"Southern New England: a Sierra Club Naturalist's Guide", Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1978