| | A Sand County Almanac |  | Author: Aldo Leopold
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Category: Book
List Price: $2.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  74 reviews
Sales Rank: 1598268
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
ISBN: 0345321359
EAN: 9780345321350
ASIN: 0345321359
Publication Date: December 12, 1984
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| Customer Reviews:
 A Sand County Symphony - In Three Parts November 28, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
It's taken me awhile to get around to reading this classic, but some 50 plus years later it still pacts a powerful message. The message is pretty simple: we need an intelligent and harmonious relationship with the natural world. A land ethic which goes beyond a purely utilitarian principle and begins to walk towards the less tangible one of cooperation and esthetics. Leopold walks out on the subjective-thin-ice here, not so much armed with science, but using keen observation and a true sense of ecology (i.e., the relationship between habitat and critters).
Leopold's understanding of the natural wonders surrounding his rundown Sand County farmland, evolved way beyond his formal education and experience with the Forest Service. In fact, he doesn't seem to place a premium in education as the road to enlightenment here. I loved Leopold's take:
"A March morning is only as drab as he who walks in it without a glance skyward, ear cocked for geese. I once knew an educated lady, banded by Phi Beta Kappa, who told me that she had never heard or seen the geese that twice a year proclaim the resolving seasons to her well-insulated roof. Is education possibly a process of trading awareness for things of lesser worth? The goose who trades his is soon a pile of feathers."
Throughout this book, it's clear that Leopold didn't trade his awareness for anything at all. Here is a man completely aware of the world he lives in and brings us along for an entire year's experience in the Sand County of Wisconsin. The second part of the book, of which the book has three, is much broader in both setting and overall perceptive. In the essay "Thinking Like a Mountain" you get Leopold's often recounted sorrow in taking the life of a wolf and his sudden understanding that hunting such a fine predator as the wolf upsets a greater balance on the mountain.
In the third part, Leopold delivers a state-of-the-union on wilderness, conservation, and American attitudes toward wild places. His words--again written over 50 years ago--ring true today as they did then. Especially powerful are his comments about the "outdoor recreation industry" and their non-stop production of new "gadgets" (i.e., checked out amazon lately?).
A Sand County Almanac is a classic and will endure the test of time - for some years to come.
A book that suits all moods November 23, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The first part of this book, the actual almanac, is best read on a bright winter morning while sipping a cup of hot coffee after a stroll in the nearby fields. These essays are short, lively and the overall mood is cheerful, they really light up one's day.
The second part of this book, "sketches here and there", is best read on a flight or a bus ride. These essays are more sobering and maybe slightly depressing, with more lamentation of what beautiful things that have been lost or being lost. They give one the perspective of the place we (the human species) have in the grand theater of natural history.
The third part of this book, "the upshot", is best read when one ponders the relationships between man and earth, progress and the environment, etc.
Or you can just read it at any other time. It is a powerful book. One only wishes that the essays, especially those in the first part, were more and longer so we had more to enjoy.
My only gripe about this book is that (as the author admits himself) the author is full of "trigger itch". Only occasionally does he have some remorse (e.g. "Think like a mountain"), but overall he delights in it. I am not saying "all hunting is bad", but for a naturalist he sure kills a lot of animals. On the other hand, at least he is honest about it.
Also, I think the Oxford "Special Commemorative Edition" is worth the money as it contains an excellent review by Robert Finch.
My view October 7, 2007
Well written book. A. Leopold was an early messenger regarding people`s influence on nature and the risk of damage because of short-sighted politics/business. His description of his surroundings is vivid. One wonders how "his" landscape looks today!
5 Stars Indeed August 19, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I knew I would enjoy this book right from the start, when I found the following passages in the Foreward: "There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot..." and "For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television..."
If you can relate to those statements, you will love this book. Guaranteed. Aldo Leopold was a conservationist, but he was so much more. He was a visionary. Read those statements again, and when you realize that he wrote them back in 1948, you might be amazed. But as you read the book, you will come to understand how special he was. Facts or knowledge that we take for granted today (e.g., predators play an important role in a healthy ecosystem), Leopold was talking about them over 50 years ago. Time and again I found myself checking the copyright because I could not believe someone was actually thinking this way so long ago.
However, it's not just the ideas of Leopold that made him special. The way he wrote was special, too. His talent drew you in, even though he was writing about something that, by the sound of it, might be kind of dry. For example, in a section called "Good Oak," he connects the passage of years to the rings of a fallen tree that he is cutting for firewood. Starting with the 1940s he relates one environmental tidbit after another for decades or years: "Now our saw bites into the 1890s...when the last passenger pigeon collided with a charge of shot near Babcock." By the time Leopold is done cutting the fallen tree, the reader has received a fascinating and sobering account of what had transpired to the environment in the area of this oak tree for the previous 80 years. The way he used the backdrop of cutting the tree rings as "markers" of environmental mishaps was masterful. It is Leopold at his best, but fortunately, the book is full of writing like this.
It is divided into three sections. The first one follows a calendar year on his farm in Wisconsin, with Leopold relating little vignettes about chickadees, skunks, flowers, or whatever else he comes across. It is probably the most charming part of the book. Part two ("Sketches Here and There") contains short remembrances of Leopold's travels to different parts of North America. Unfortunately, the story usually has a "bad" ending - at least, for the environment or for a species (like the now-extinct passenger pigeon). But Leopold had a reason for that. He moves to part three, "The Upshot," where he spells out his ideas for saving the land and the wild things that live there. It is too much to discuss here, but Leopold again hits the mark. His goal was to try and change how Americans think about the use (and abuse) of our environment. Pehaps his biggest lament then, and mine now, is that not enough people care about what we are doing to the land.
That's why this book was published. The hope of this book was to change the hearts of the average American. It still is. Over fifty years later, it's still in print, and it's still relevant.
Five stars. Absolutely the best nature/environment book I've ever read.
 A sand county Almanac: and sketches Here And there by Aldo Leopoid February 27, 2007
1 out of 8 found this review helpful
was not a hard covered book recieved a paper back. I kept it only because I wanted to read it. arrived in good condition and in about 10 days
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Wildlife, nature and the Environment
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