The title cloud of Matt Donavan’s extraordinary nonfiction debut, A Cloud of Unusual Size and Shape, refers to the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius that in 79 AD buried the city of Pompeii under tw
The different faces of Charleston, South Carolina, have created curiosity and wonder among writers for centuries. In Literary Charleston and the Lowcountry, Curtis Worthington compiles this intriguin
San Antonians love Cary Clack for the sparkle of wit and wisdom he brings to them in his column in the San Antonio Express-News. But his style and sensibility make his work equally popular far beyond
In Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean, writer, sailor, and surfer Jonathan White takes readers across the globe to discover the science and spirit of ocean tides. In the Arctic, White shimmies
During the 1980s and 1990s, the Resource Institute, headed by Jonathan White, held an ongoing series of "floating seminars" aboard a sixty-five-foot schooner featuring leading thinkers and a
The Grand Canyon National Park has been called many things, but home isn't often one of them. Yet after years of traveling the globe, Nathaniel Brodie found his home there. Steel on Stone is Brodie's
In these thoughtful, richly personal essays, Marianne Boruch takes a fresh view on old poets, considering such questions as how the atomic bomb changed William Carlos Williams's poetry and how Edison
Every year people watch in shock as homes are destroyed and communities devastated by natural disasters. As the media arrives, the information that is reported is mainly statistical. The horror of liv
The phrase “an animal a thousand miles miles long,” attributed to Aristotle, refers to a sprawling body that cannot be seen in its entirety from a single angle, a thing too vast and complicated to be
Char Miller's essays cover a wide range of South Texas topics, from natural and environmental history to urban development to San Antonio's future. Miller uses simple subjects?the First Friday Art Wal
There are many books on the environment, but Wisdom for a Livable Planet stands out by using inspirational stories of successful activists to explore major environmental issues and offer proven solut
Central America is a fascinating evolutionary artifact. Three million years ago, the Panama land bridge emerged as a link between what is now North and South America, and as flora and fauna traversed
Through words and photographs, environmental scientist Gretchen C. Daily and photographer Charles J. Katz describe how one relict tree—the magnificent Ceiba pentandra in Sabalito, Costa Rica—carries p
In Death Watch, the National Book Award-winning poet Gerald Stern uses powerful prose to sift through personal and prophetic history and contemplate his own mortality. Characteristically audacious, un
Nelson Wolff, Bexar County judge and former San Antonio mayor, has been an active participant in the city’s political and business community for five decades. His first book, Transforming San Antonio,
After finishing an undergraduate degree in English, Caswell (creative writing and literature, Texas Tech U., Lubbock) began an unplanned career as an educator, teaching English in Japan for two and a
In this eclectic anthology, more than 20 scientists, nature writers, poets, and Zen practitioners, attest to how paying attention to nature can be a healing antidote to the hectic and harrying pace o
19th Century American Writers on Writing features essays, letters, poems, prose, and excerpts of interviews by 28 leading writers from throughout the century, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Sojourner
Reverential, celebratory, antagonistic, and even erotic, this remarkable collection of essays interprets the Psalms as a collection of poetry. Written by 14 acclaimed poets, the essays approach the P
Open Midnight weaves two parallel stories about the great wilderness?Brooke Williams’s year alone with his dog ground truthing wilderness maps of southern Utah, and that of his great-great-great-grand
A Kite in the Wind is an anthology of essays by 20 veteran writers and master teachers. While the contributors offer specific, practical advice on such fundamental aspects of craft as characterizatio
In the course of researching dogwood trees, beloved poet and essayist Christopher Merrill realized that a number of formative moments in his life had some connection to the tree named?according to one
The statues of Savannah's Monument Square are silent. The status of the solemn girl in Bonaventure Cemetery made famous in John Berendt's now legendary book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and
Gerald Stern’s poetry has been variously praised for its visionary quality, its scope and passion, but most especially for its wholehearted embrace of life. Stern’s special manner of joie
From honky tonk to high art, from Printer's Alley to the Parthenon, Nashville is a writer's town.There are many accents in Nashville: from the twang of country music and rockabilly to the well-bred t
In The Walk, William deBuys writes about personal loss and the power of the landscape to nurture the recovery of hope. The book consists of three interrelated essays that move from a period of strife
As the United States and China move toward an expansion of political and economic relations, interest in China and its culture has never been greater. Chinese Writers on Writing makes a contribution i
