RaveThe New York Times Book Review...he takes his readers on an idiosyncratic and wonderful walk through his joy of nature. Like some of the greatest nature books, from Thoreau’s Walden to Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, it’s a personal book that describes McCarthy’s own journey while at the same time folding his experiences within a broader context ... The Moth Snowstorm is an inspiring book, and I salute McCarthy for his boldness. Rather than the dire, dry statistical projections often heralded to make the case for conservation, he turns boldly to joy — to imagination and emotion.
Juliet Nicholson
PositiveThe GuardianA House Full of Daughters joins a long line of publications about an extraordinary family, but it still manages to be original and illuminating ... Combining the scrutiny of a historian with the emotional attachment that only a family member can have, Nicolson searches for patterns of behaviour that have occurred down the generations. The stories she reveals are as intriguing as they are harrowing ... There are some sections in the book that would have benefited from pruning, but there are also lovely anecdotes.
Terry Tempest Williams
PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewThe Hour of Land isn’t a guidebook, taking readers through the nation’s most popular or most frequently visited parks — quite the opposite. Instead Williams embarks on an idiosyncratic journey through various landscapes (some empty, some crowded), delving, along the way, into the politics, activism, history and people that are also a crucial part of them ...Williams’s alarm at humanity’s calamitous impact on nature is indelibly imprinted in her writing ... Williams can sometimes get carried away by her anger at what’s being done (or not done) by the government, private companies and polluters. A few sections concerning acts of civil disobedience and environmental activists feel somewhat labored. But these are minor quibbles. The Hour of Land is one of the best nature books I’ve read in years.
John Dvorak
RaveThe Wall Street JournalA great storyteller with a keen eye for details, [Dvorak] takes his readers into volcano craters and across molten lava. There are parts in The Last Volcano where Mr. Dvorak’s descriptions of the intense heat almost singe the page.