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Title: Wandering Through Winter: A Naturalist's Record of a 20,000-Mile Journey Through the North American Winter (American Seasons, 4th Season) by Edwin Way Teale, Ann H. Zwinger ISBN: 0-312-04458-5 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: May, 1990 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: "See, winter comes to rule the varied year"
Comment: The naturalist Edwin Way Teale wrote four books about his and his wife's 100,000-mile journey that crisscrossed America and its seasons: "North With the Spring" (1951); "Autumn Across America" (1956); "Journey into Summer" (1960); and "Wandering Through Winter" (1965). In nearly 1400 pages this quartet of books takes the reader off the beaten paths and onto a grand tour of the natural history of this country. The only other books I know of that are remotely similar to these are John McPhee's geological grand tour of the 40th Parallel, "Annals of the Former World" (formerly published as a four-volume set).
If Annie Dillard had abandoned Tinker's Creek and taken a pilgrimage across America, she might have written books comparable to Teale's opus magnus.
The author and his wife, Nellie are the grandparents everyone should have, pottering about the country, writing reams of lucid prose about their adventures. Teale's warmth and breadth of interests sustain our attention through the migration of a pod of gray whales, the discovery of hibernating poorwills in the lower Colorado desert, giant beavers on the Missouri, or a night in the 'sugarbushes' of New Hampshire. The pace might seem a bit stately to some readers, but Nature is stately. This is a trait that ought to belong to naturalists. It is the antithesis of the TV generation's notoriously short attention span.
Here then are the subjects in one chapter of the Teales' leisurely journey, "The Diamond Farm:" 'Plowing for diamonds'--'Two shining pebbles'--'A crop of precious stones'--'The volcanic matrix'--'Kimberlite rock'--'A quiet interlude'--'Diamond in the mud'--'The elegant searcher'--'Doodlebugs'--'A rare example of credulity'--'A turtle-carrying spaniel'--'Law of the White Queen'--'Sorghum molasses'--'Edge of the Ozarks'--'"Ridge runners"'--'Contracted names'--'The brown, historic river.'
Teale's black-and-white photographs form a meticulous record of their journey through an American winter, including one of Nellie in her hat, long coat, and stout walking-shoes amid wind-formed gypsum dunes. It is easy to fall in love with these books, and the couple who lived each chapter.
Rating: 1
Summary: Wandering Through Winter: A Naturalist's Record of a 20,000
Comment: This is truly one of the most boring books I have ever read! The entire book is written in plural "We", referring to he and his wife. They travel the Southwest and Texas and do not even enter snow country until the last few chapters. The author uses words like "hence" and "thus" and goes into elaborate and boring detail about every food they eat, and bird they see. The only redeeming aspect was that I learned about Bentley's amazing research and photography of snow flakes.
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