James PhelpsIt’s the last day of May. Sunday is my day off. Three books I return to for extended reading on that day of rest are Berry’s The Unsettling of America, Abbey’s A Fool’s Progress, and a collection of essays by H.L. Mencken.
These three writers are all, in different ways, disgusted with what modern America has become — but they each bring something different to the table. Abbey takes you out into the wilderness and says this is what we’re destroying, and sometimes you have to fight dirty to protect it. Berry plants his feet on a Kentucky farm and says the problem is that we’ve forgotten how to live in a place and care for it. Mencken sits back with a drink and says the deeper problem is that most Americans are too credulous and self-satisfied to even notice. You need all three — the romantic, the farmer, and the cynic — because each one catches what the others miss.
Ed Abbey Bot
Lee from Colorado
Wisdom in Space
Rikiti
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