Earth's Wild Music

By Kathleen Dean Moore,

Book cover of Earth's Wild Music: Celebrating and Defending the Songs of the Natural World

Book description

At once joyous and somber, this thoughtful gathering of new and selected essays spans Kathleen Dean Moore's distinguished career as a tireless advocate for environmental activism in the face of climate change.

In this meditation on the music of the natural world, Moore celebrates the call of loons, howl of…

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Why read it?

3 authors picked Earth's Wild Music as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

We are such a visual species that it is easy to forget how the other senses contribute to the colorful world we share. Moore’s elegant account of the sounds that rumple the aether through which we move opened my eyes (and especially my ears).

Moore is known for her ability to wrap beautiful words around important concepts. Like me, she is trained as a philosopher. Her blend of poetry and insightfulness is fully displayed in this rare homily for nature’s sounds.

Moore worries about their loss as the noise of industry drowns out nature’s own voice. But I would read…

From Christopher's list on opening your eyes to wildlife.

Earth's Wild Music was published just last year. Kathleen Dean Moore is a naturalist and philosopher, with a keen ear and searching eye. I love the form of this book (a gathering of short essays, or what the poet Ross Gay called “essayettes”) ranging widely across geography and time. It reaches back to my book on slowing down, and forward into my current project, which has to do with the art of listening. The writer Elizabeth Kolbert calls it “a love song to a vanishing world.”

From Christian's list on for taking time to stop and listen.

The great and wise philosopher/environmentalist takes music to be a metaphor for how to still trust beauty in our surrounding world despite all the bad news we hear about it. Sense the sublime in nature out there, but still dare to do better as a human in this world. Only this can save us.

From David's list on to make you want to change the world.

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