by Kris Neri
Two years after the original publication of Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey, the first Earth Day was celebrated, on April 22, 1970. While there's no way to say for certain, I’d like to think that the first brought event about the second. I have to admit that I didn’t discover Abbey until sometime thereafter, so it’s the other way around for me. In any case, I’m glad that both the book and the day exist.
With ice shelves now falling off the north and south poles, with wolves about to be 
taken off the endangered species list and hunted for sport, with our urban and suburban landscapes continuing to expand, it sure doesn’t appear that mankind has made much progress in preserving the Earth over the past thirty-eight years.
But we have to keep trying. With Earth Day coming up later this month, I thought this would be a good time to share some nature-related reads.
Read or reread Desert Solitaire. I don’t care how many times you’ve already read it – read it again. I
guarantee you’ll discover things to think about that you missed before. And, read anything else by Abbey, fiction and nonfiction.
House of Rain: Tracking a Vanished Civilization Across the Southwest by Craig Childs is a wonderful book that conveys to the reader an amazing sense of place and appreciation of the Southwestern landscape, as well as its ancient peoples. It's a true story of historical detection, exploring the greatest unsolved mystery of the American Southwest, related to the disappearance of the Anasazi.
The Animal Dialogues: Uncommon Encounters in the Wild, also by Craig Childs, is a great way to reconnect
with our co-inhabitants of this planet. Each of the short narratives in The Animal Dialogues focuses on Child's own encounter with a particular species. Especially impressive is his ability to capture the nature of the wilderness and the individual essence of the animals he encounters.
Eating Stone: Imagination and the Loss of the Wild by Ellen Melloy is another worthy read that explores our relationship with the wild in a vivid study of desert bighorn sheep. Equally good is Melloy's The Anthropology of Turquoise: Reflections on Desert, Sea, Stone and Sky, which uses turquoise, both the color and the stone, to look at man's connection to the landscape.
Terry Tempest Williams’ Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place intertwines natural and manmade tragedies in a powerful way.
There are so many other books that deserve note, books that focus our attention on the importance of taking care of our planetary home, too many to list here. But I do have to suggest one more. A tiny book called The End of the Wild by the late M.I.T. professor, Stephen M. Meyer, which should serve as a wake-up call to all of us, builds a shocking case for what might be our last chance to save the planet. I believe this little book should be required reading for every person seeking or holding an elective office anywhere in the country, who might be in a position to make public policy decisions about our environment.
Happy Earth-centered reading. At least we have one day a year to focus on the needs of Mother Earth — 
not enough, but it's better than none at all. We only commemorate our actual mothers one day a year as well.
How will you celebrate this year’s Earth Day?
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