Overview

More than a century and a half have passed since Walden was first published, and the world is now a very different place. Lakes are changing rapidly, not because we are separate from nature but because we are so much a part of it. While many of our effects on the natural world today are new, from climate change to nuclear fallout, our connections to it are ancient, as core samples from lake beds reveal. In Still Waters, Curt Stager introduces us to the secret worlds hidden beneath the surfaces of our most remarkable lakes, leading us on a journey from the pristine waters of the Adirondack Mountains to the wilds of Siberia, from Thoreau's cherished pond to the Sea of Galilee. Through decades of firsthand investigations, Stager examines the significance of our impacts on some of the world's most iconic inland waters. Along the way he discovers the stories these lakes contain about us, including our loftiest philosophical ambitions and our deepest myths. For him, lakes are not only mirrors reflecting our place in the natural world but also windows into our history, culture, and the primal connections we share with all life. Beautifully observed and eloquently written, Stager's narrative is filled with strange and enchanting details about these submerged worlds—diving insects chirping underwater like crickets, African crater lakes that explode, and the growing threats to some of our most precious bodies of water. Modern science has demonstrated that humanity is an integral part of nature on this planet, so intertwined with it that we have also become an increasingly powerful force of nature in our own right. Still Waters reminds us how beautiful, complex, and vulnerable our lakes are, and how, more than ever, it is essential to protect them.

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Reviews

Curt Stager is an eloquent story-teller. He guides us not only into the fascinating ecological worlds that dwell within lakes, but also demonstrates that our own nature, both biological and cultural, cannot be understood apart from our many interconnections with these living waters. -- David George Haskell, author of The Songs of Trees and The Forest Unseen Curt Stager is as fine a teacher as I have ever encountered, both in the classroom and on the page. You will learn something new in every paragraph of this book, and the vivid writing will make it stick in your brain. For those of us who love the planet's lakes, this is like a long, cool drink of the freshest water. -- Bill McKibben, author of Radio Free Vermont

"""'There is nothing like a lake to reflect and reveal the world.' So declares ecologist Curt Stager, whose lyrical evocation of ‘living waters’ offers geological and biological revelations."" -- Nature"

Author Information

Curt Stager is a professor of natural sciences at Paul Smith’s College in New York. New York State’s Carnegie-Case Science Professor of the Year in 2013, he cohosts Natural Selections on North Country Public Radio and has published in periodicals such as Science, National Geographic, and The New York Times.

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