The Paradise Notebooks: 90 Miles across the Sierra Nevada

Review\n"The Paradise Notebooks is a gift to the heart and mind, integrating poetry with geology, philosophy with hydrology, spirituality with geography. A beautiful book to help us understand, respect, and deepen our relationship with the natural world." -- John Muir Laws, author of The Laws Field Guide to the Sierra Nevada\n"We need a literary antidote to darkness. Not to read this book is damnable folly." -- Annie Dillard, author of For the Time Being\n"Full of stunning writing, The Paradise Notebooks takes the reader on a journey through the Sierras, weaving together the scientist as poet and the poet as scientist. Nature lovers are sure to enjoy this brilliant book." -- Craig Childs, author of Atlas of a Lost World\n"Its erudition is winged; its wisdom is granite. The combination is transcendent. If the Sierra Nevada could speak, this is what it might say." -- Jay Griffiths, author of Savage Grace\n"With extraordinary versatility, Nevle and Nightingale weave natural history, poetry, and meditations on High Sierra hiking into a compelling tapestry filled with jewels of insight and delight. Even the seasoned hiker will find new viewpoints on their favorite creatures and flowers." -- Tom Killion, co-author of The High Sierra of California\n"Science and poetry elevate one another in this collaboration, carrying us deep into curiosity and wonder. A work full of astute observation and beautifully worded description, showing us that close, loving attention and story-telling can be both devotional and enlightening." -- David George Haskell, author of The Songs of Trees\n"Nevle and Nightingale give us everything we'd desire as our literary companions on a 'skylark' across the Sierra Nevada. Delivering on their pledge to write with 'fearless generosity' and a 'fierce hunger for truth,' they admirably honor the spirit of these sublime mountains." -- Stephen Trimble, author of The Sagebrush Ocean\n"A call and response between a poetic scientist and a grounded poet, both of whom are enamored with, and awestruck by, the overpowering presence of the Sierra Nevada. Eloquent and sincere, this book resonates, like a bell, in both head and heart." -- Thomas Lowe Fleischner, editor of Nature, Love, Medicine\n"Nevle and Nightingale integrate the seemingly "strange bedfellows" of science and spirituality to offer new insights about this remarkable landscape. Their juxtaposition of poems with scientific explanations creates a unique way of knowing, clear as the crystal waters of these mountains." -- Nalini M. Nadkarni, author of Between Earth and Sky\n"This joyous, lyrical collection transports us to the Sierra Nevada no matter where we are. Nevle and Nightingale exquisitely capture those profound moments when we realize our interconnectedness with the natural world. A book I'll have in my backpack, wherever I am." -- Karen Amstutz, Lead Park Ranger, Yosemite National Park\nIn The Paradise Notebooks, Richard J. Nevle and Steven Nightingale take us across the spectacular Sierra Nevada mountain range on a journey illuminated by incandescent poetry and fascinating fact.
Over the course of twenty-one pairs of short essays, Nevle and Nightingale contemplate the natural phenomena found in the Sierra Nevada. From granite to aspen, to fire, to a rare, endemic species of butterfly, these essay pairs explore the natural history and mystical wonder of each element with a balanced and captivating touch. As they weave in vignettes from their ninety-mile backpacking trip across the range, Nevle and Nightingale powerfully reconceive the Sierra Nevada as both earthly matter and transcendental offering, letting us into a reality in which nature holds just as much spiritual importance as it does physical.
In a time of rapid environmental degradation, The Paradise Notebooks offers a way forward―a whole-minded, learned, loving attention to place that rekindles our joyful relationship with the living world.