PSR Book Club-- Great Plains: America's Lingering Wild

I discovered this book the last time I was at the wonderful Indigo Bridge Books in the Haymarket. (Sadly, I missed the book signing they did there a couple of weekends ago.) Great Plains: America's Lingering Wild by Michael Forsberg is a book of photography, essays, and maps chronicling the beauty of the Great Plains. I had a chance to look through it a little, and I can tell you that it's a really gorgeous book. And I'm not the only one who was impressed:

(via the Amazon page)

It takes a big book to portray such an immense, complex place, and this spacious volume, vividly introduced by poet Ted Kooser, fits the bill. Intrepid photographer Michael Forsberg presents breathtaking images of wide-open spaces and portraits of wildlife from bison to butterflies, bobcats to frogs. Historical geographer David Wishart contrasts the lives of the region's Native peoples with the deleterious impact of settlers, who plowed up the grasslands, sending countless species into decline and losing precious topsoil to wind erosion. Wildlife biologist, rancher, and writer Dan O'Brien-flinty, funny, and skeptical-dissects the mythology of the Great Plains, the `monumental hubris, greed, and lack of common sense' that led to its near destruction, and, on the upswing, today's bold restoration efforts. In all, a quintessential and crucial American story, powerfully told. -Booklist

You can learn more about the book and Michael Forsberg from this Journal Star article.

P.S. It looks like the book is on promotion right now on Amazon, if you're looking to buy your very own copy for the sale price.