A YEARNING TOWARD WILDERNESS: Environmental Quotations From...

A YEARNING TOWARD WILDERNESS: Environmental Quotations From the Writings of Henry David Thoreau, edited by Tim Homan, illustrated by Rusty Smith (Peachtree Publishers: $9.95). In his introduction, Homan argues that Thoreau (1817-1862) should be regarded as the real father of the environmental movement in America. At a time when forests were generally regarded as obstacles to progress, Thoreau recognized the threat that reckless logging posed to the Eastern woods he adored. This eloquent collection of quotations, drawn from his diaries and published writings, celebrates the natural beauties of America and laments the wanton destruction of the continent’s animals and plants: “If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is esteemed as an industrious and enterprising citizen.” Homan’s anthology makes Thoreau’s ideas accessible to readers leery of tackling the 19th-Century prose of “Walden.”