Earth Works: Selected Essays

by Scott Russell Sanders

Overview

In the hands of award-winning writer Scott Russell Sanders, the essay becomes an inquisitive and revelatory form of art. In 30 of his finest essays—nine never before collected—Sanders examines his Midwestern background, his father's drinking, his opposition to war, his literary inheritance, and his feeling for wildness. He also tackles such vital issues as the disruption of Earth's climate, the impact of technology, the mystique of money, the ideology of consumerism, and the meaning of sustainability. Throughout, he asks perennial questions: What is a good life? How do family and culture shape a person's character? How should we treat one another and the Earth? What is our role in the cosmos? Readers and writers alike will find wisdom and inspiration in Sanders's luminous and thought-provoking prose.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780253000958
Publisher:	Indiana University Press
Publication date:	02/01/2012
Pages:	376
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Scott Russell Sanders, Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at Indiana University Bloomington, is author of 20 books of fiction and nonfiction, including A Private History of Awe, Writing from the Center (IUP, 1995), and A Conservationist Manifesto (IUP, 2009). Among his honors are the Lannan Literary Award, the John Burroughs Essay Award, and the Mark Twain Award.

Table of Contents

Preface
The Singular First Person
At Play in the Paradise of Bombs
The Men We Carry in Our Minds
Doing Time in the Thirteenth Chair
The Inheritance of Tools
Under the Influence
Looking at Women
Reasons of the Body
After the Flood
House and Home
Staying Put
Wayland
Letter to a Reader
Buckeye
The Common Life
Voyageurs
Mountain Music
Wildness
Beauty
Silence
The Force of Spirit
The Uses of Muscle
A Private History of Awe
A Road into Chaos and Old Night
Words Addressed to Our Condition Exactly
Honoring the Ordinary
Speaking for the Land
The Mystique of Money
Buffalo Eddy
Mind in the Forest
Notes and Acknowledgements

What People are Saying About This

Kathleen Dean Moore]]>

Like the building stones of his beloved limestone country, Scott Russell Sanders's enduring essays are beautifully carved from the material of the Earth and its layered lives. The reach of Sanders's incandescent mind will remind readers of Ralph Waldo Emerson. The fierce eloquence of his defense of what is right will remind them of Thoreau. The warmth of his open heart is signature Scott Russell Sanders. This collection of Sanders's finest work will become a classic of American thought.

Kathleen Dean Moore

Like the building stones of his beloved limestone country, Scott Russell Sanders's enduring essays are beautifully carved from the material of the Earth and its layered lives. The reach of Sanders's incandescent mind will remind readers of Ralph Waldo Emerson. The fierce eloquence of his defense of what is right will remind them of Thoreau. The warmth of his open heart is signature Scott Russell Sanders. This collection of Sanders's finest work will become a classic of American thought.

Orion - H. Emerson Blake

More than any other writer of his generation, Scott Russell Sanders has consistently, and insistently, asked his readers to consider what it means to be a citizen of the Earth.

Lewis Hyde

The many things that Scott Russell Sanders cares about—social justice, family, our place in nature, the ways in which culture and place reflect one another—are all woven together wonderfully in this collection of essays. Here is a voice to dispel confusion and keep us well rooted.

Lewis Hyde]]>

The many things that Scott Russell Sanders cares about—social justice, family, our place in nature, the ways in which culture and place reflect one another—are all woven together wonderfully in this collection of essays. Here is a voice to dispel confusion and keep us well rooted.

From the Publisher

An "Englewood Review of Books" best book of 2012 Author Scott Russell Sanders is the national winner of the 2010 Indiana Authors Award

Preface

Works serves here as both noun and verb. Like all works of art, my essays are products of Earth, as are you, as am I, and we are able to wonder and sing, to spend our brief time under the sun, only because Earth works miraculously well,
providing us a benign habitation in the void of space.Scott Russell Sanders, from the Preface

Editorial Reviews

"More than any other writer of his generation, Scott Russell Sanders has consistently, and insistently, asked his readers to consider what it means to be a citizen of the Earth."—H. Emerson Blake, Orion

"An "Englewood Review of Books" best book of 2012 Author Scott Russell Sanders is the national winner of the 2010 Indiana Authors Award"—

"Like the building stones of his beloved limestone country, Scott Russell Sanders's enduring essays are beautifully carved from the material of the Earth and its layered lives. The reach of Sanders's incandescent mind will remind readers of Ralph Waldo Emerson. The fierce eloquence of his defense of what is right will remind them of Thoreau. The warmth of his open heart is signature Scott Russell Sanders. This collection of Sanders's finest work will become a classic of American thought."—Kathleen Dean Moore, author of Wild Comfort: The Solace of Nature

"The many things that Scott Russell Sanders cares about—social justice, family, our place in nature, the ways in which culture and place reflect one another—are all woven together wonderfully in this collection of essays. Here is a voice to dispel confusion and keep us well rooted."—Lewis Hyde, author of The Gift and Common as Air

"[The essays in Earth Works are . . . a rich mix of beautifully crafted and progressive pieces that engage the reader in a long conversation. They are best read slowly, providing time to consider Sanders' propositions, his keen insight and lessons, his critical questioning."—Terrain.org

"It's hard to think of a writer today who is better at finding and expressing the profound nature discovered in such simple gifts as a shared meal or a walk in the woods."—indianalivinggreen.com

"Nature, in all of its manifestations—physical, spiritual, geographical—runs through everything that Sanders writes and supplies the materials for much of his vivid and compelling imagery, as well as his inpiration and concern."—Bloom

"[T]he essays of Earth Works are full of energy, hope and life."—Englewood Review of Books

"By turns somber and snap-out-of-it buoyant, these elegant artifacts of restless inquiry cover subjects as intimate as the author's sexual awakening and his father's alcoholism, as broad as the origins of the universe and the disarray of contemporary hyper-urban society."—The Indianapolis Star

"In language that's patient, probing and precise, Sanders . . . has, over the past 30 years or so, built a body of work articulating what it means to live during this time on planet Earth and, particularly, that part of the planet called the American Midwest."—NUVO

"Collectively, these essays invite the reader to gaze more clearly at the world outside his own window—a reminder, as Sanders puts it, that all there is to see 'can be seen from anywhere in the universe, if you know how to look . . . '"—Barnes & Noble Review

"Among the thirty essays it contains, Earth Works offers a thought-provoking mix of old and new. The nine new pieces included in the back of Earth Works . . . are themselves worth the sticker price."—The Fourth River

From the Publisher

Among the thirty essays it contains, Earth Works offers a thought-provoking mix of old and new. The nine new pieces included in the back of Earth Works . . . are themselves worth the sticker price.

The Fourth River

In language that's patient, probing and precise, Sanders . . . has, over the past 30 years or so, built a body of work articulating what it means to live during this time on planet Earth and, particularly, that part of the planet called the American Midwest.

NUVO

[The essays in Earth Works are . . . a rich mix of beautifully crafted and progressive pieces that engage the reader in a long conversation. They are best read slowly, providing time to consider Sanders' propositions, his keen insight and lessons, his critical questioning.

Terrain.org

By turns somber and snap-out-of-it buoyant, these elegant artifacts of restless inquiry cover subjects as intimate as the author's sexual awakening and his father's alcoholism, as broad as the origins of the universe and the disarray of contemporary hyper-urban society.

The Indianapolis Star

Collectively, these essays invite the reader to gaze more clearly at the world outside his own window—a reminder, as Sanders puts it, that all there is to see 'can be seen from anywhere in the universe, if you know how to look . . . '

Barnes & Noble Review

[T]he essays of Earth Works are full of energy, hope and life.

Englewood Review of Books

Nature, in all of its manifestations—physical, spiritual, geographical—runs through everything that Sanders writes and supplies the materials for much of his vivid and compelling imagery, as well as his inpiration and concern.

Bloom Lauren M.

It's hard to think of a writer today who is better at finding and expressing the profound nature discovered in such simple gifts as a shared meal or a walk in the woods.

indianalivinggreen.com

"Nature, in all of its manifestations—physical, spiritual, geographical—runs through everything that Sanders writes and supplies the materials for much of his vivid and compelling imagery, as well as his inpiration and concern."

Bloom

"Like the building stones of his beloved limestone country, Scott Russell Sanders’s enduring essays are beautifully carved from the material of the Earth and its layered lives. The reach of Sanders’s incandescent mind will remind readers of Ralph Waldo Emerson. The fierce eloquence of his defense of what is right will remind them of Thoreau. The warmth of his open heart is signature Scott Russell Sanders. This collection of Sanders’s finest work will become a classic of American thought." —Kathleen Dean Moore, author of Wild Comfort: The Solace of Nature

Kathleen Dean Moore

"More than any other writer of his generation, Scott Russell Sanders has consistently, and insistently, asked his readers to consider what it means to be a citizen of the Earth." —H. Emerson Blake, Orion

Orion - H. Emerson Blake

"The many things that Scott Russell Sanders cares about--social justice, family, our place in nature, the ways in which culture and place reflect one another--are all woven together wonderfully in this collection of essays. Here is a voice to dispel confusion and keep us well rooted." —Lewis Hyde, author of The Gift and Common as Air

author of The Gift and Common as Air - Lewis Hyde

"Collectively, these essays invite the reader to gaze more clearly at the world outside his own window—a reminder, as Sanders puts it, that all there is to see 'can be seen from anywhere in the universe, if you know how to look... '" —The Barnes & Noble Review

The Barnes & Noble Review

"It's hard to think of a writer today who is better at finding and expressing the profound nature discovered in such simple gifts as a shared meal or a walk in the woods." —indianalivinggreen.com

www.indianalivinggreen.com

"More than any other writer of his generation, Scott Russell Sanders has consistently, and insistently, asked his readers to consider what it means to be a citizen of the Earth." —H. Emerson Blake, Orion

— H. Emerson Blake

Orion