THE TELLING DISTANCE: Conversations With the American...

THE TELLING DISTANCE: Conversations With the American Desert by Bruce Berger (Anchor: $11). In these eloquent essays, Berger describes his love for the deserts of the American Southwest and reflects on the effect humanity has had on the deceptively bleak landscape. His sharply focused observations enable the reader to view the desert as a microcosm of the constantly shifting forces of nature: Birds’ nests hidden amid cactus spines, a frog struggling to swallow a minnow and the odd, fibrous skeleton of a dead saguaro all have a place in the greater scheme of things. Berger’s lively sense of humor will probably win more readers to the conservationist cause than self-righteous postures many nature writers adopt. He shares his delight in birdwatching, but admits that excessive zeal has caused him to mistake pine cones, seed pods, insulators and a kayak paddle for birds. Watching a hiker stride into the desert, carrying every high-tech gadget available, he remarks, “As if ready for a spacewalk, he has cut the umbilical cord from Mother Technology only after she has packed his lunch--and he knows it. Irony, that flower of civilization, now runs through the wilderness like ragweed.”