Ocean Book of the Month
Every month, The Ocean Project highlights a book focused on our blue planet or environmental sustainability. Books for all age groups will be covered, non-fiction and fiction, prose and poetry. If you have a suggestion, please let us know.
A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf
by John Muir
A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf takes you through John Muir's diary of his 1000-mile walking trip through the southern U.S. and over to Cuba. If you are so fortunate to incorporate his adventurous spirit and ability to pick up on sensory detail, you might just gain the passion for walking that can provide health and cut down on your carbon footprint. John Muir traveled as a young man on foot observing nature and the people. This book chronicles his adventure and holds many a reader's interest as it's written on the spot through the enthusistic eyes of a young man. Who doesn't want to relive the boundless energy of youth?
John Muir's words continue to provide perspective that is harder to gain today as we live in a more urban world. Like Henry Beston's book that the Book of the Month suggested you read in January, John Muir's book provides you an opportunity to experience the thoughts of an author who became highly aware of his personal conservation thoughts through his personal experiences from a significant time in history. If we want to look back and choose healthier ways of living from the experiences of those who walked before us, books like these provide much food for thought.
As one reader like yourself suggests:
John Muir was not only a brilliant naturalist and visionary, but was a better than decent science and adventure writer. This book is from Muir's younger days when he basically dropped out and went exploring. He walked from Wisconsin to the Gulf of Mexico, shortly after the Civil War, and literally slept wherever he felt like — behind hedges, along roadsides, and even inside the occasional house. His observations on the South's reconstruction are all the more insightful because they are unadulterated by any perceivable agenda, and have the overpowering reality of truth. While his time in the Sierras is what he is most famous for, and the mountains more rugged and inspiring, this pre-Jenkins Walk Across America is a tamer warm-up for reading his journals from Yosemite days. I highly recommend it as it gives the reader a bit of botany and a lot of background on Muir himself.
Reconnect yourself vicariously so you can help future generations reconnect with the astonishing variety of phenomena they can experience within earshot of the ocean.
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Find out how you can help do more at the Seas the Day action pages.
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Check out an on-line scanned and converted version of the book or Google's on-line scanned copy that provides you much of the book.
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If you are interested in reading this book but also want to be a conscious consumer, please visit your local library and check it out.
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If you have any suggestions for a future "Ocean Book of the Month", please let us know. Send us your favorite recent or not-so-recent read so we can share it with all!
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If you're interested in purchasing this book, and then perhaps passing it along to a friend to spread the word, we encourage you to buy locally and from an independent bookseller. Please click on one of the two logos below to purchase a good read and help The Ocean Project.
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