The Man Who Created Paradise: A Fable (Ohio Bicentennial) [Hardcover]

Gene Logsdon (Author), Gregory Spaid (Contributor), Wendell Berry (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2001 | Series: Ohio Bicentennial

Gene Logsdon’s The Man Who Created Paradise is a message of hope at a time when the sustainability of the earth appears to many to be hopeless. The fable, inspired by a true story, tells how young Wally Spero looked at one of the bleakest places in America—the strip-mined spoil banks of southeastern Ohio—and saw in it his escape from the drudgery of his factory job. He bought an old bulldozer and used the machine to carve patiently, acre by acre, a beautiful little farm out of a seemingly worthless wasteland. This charming story is the purest distillation yet of what Gene Logsdon has been writing as a journalist and author through the course of some twenty books of nonfiction and hundreds of magazine articles. Environmental restoration is the task of our time. The work of healing our land begins in our own backyards and farms, in our neighborhoods and our regions. Humans can turn the earth into a veritable paradise—if they really want to. Noted photographer Gregory Spaid retraced the trail that Logsdon traveled when he was inspired to write The Man Who Created Paradise. His photographs evoke the same soulful yearning for wholeness, for ties to land and community, that infuses the fable’s hopeful, poetic prose. Seldom have words and images complemented each other so well.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Prolific environmental writer Gene Logsdon tells the inspirational story of a man who singlehandedly reclaims an Ohio farm from strip-mined land in this plainspoken short narrative, accompanied by Gregory Spaid's eloquent black and white photos and a foreword by Wendell Berry. Inspired by a true story, The Man Who Created Paradise: A Fable looks like a handsomely illustrated gift book, but it is also something more ambitious: an implicit call to readers to create their own small sustainable spaces.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

“This book is a work of social, ecological, and moral imagination—a reminder that we do not live in the only or the best possible world.”—Jedediah Purdy

“This, then, is a book of two visions: one of disease, one of health. Or to put it another way, Gene Logsdon has had the generosity and the courage to allow a vision of Hell to call forth in himself its natural opposite.” —Wendell Berry

“If you're feeling despairing, this book is the tonic. The American equivalent of Jean Giono's The Man Who Planted Trees, this slim volume should be read aloud at kitchen tables and over the radio until it becomes a national legend—a legend we might then try to live up to.”—Bill McKibben

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 68 pages
• Publisher: Ohio University Press; 1 edition (December 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0821414070
• ISBN-13: 978-0821414071
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 6.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,270,864 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Gene Logsdon farms in Upper Sandusky, Ohio. He is one of the clearest and most original voices of rural America. He has published more that a dozen books; his Chelsea Green books include Living at Nature's Pace, The Contrary Farmer's Invitation to Gardening, Good Spirits, and The Contrary Farmer.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A jewel, October 26, 2004

By 

nobis77 (Tennessee) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Man Who Created Paradise: A Fable (Ohio Bicentennial) (Hardcover)

This is such a small little book to have inspired me so much.

Logsdon writes even better than is usual for him. You can almost feel his own sickness as he surveys the disemboweled hills and sallow culture of a strip-ming community - smell the richness of earth and pasture as he turns down a gravel drive - and feel hope sprout where death had come.

The photos are perfect. The parable is immensely moving. Is it all true? I don't know, but it ought to be. It moved me to make it true in my little corner of paradise lost

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Tasty but tiny!, January 7, 2004

By 

Adam A. Laudie (Humacao, Puerto Rico) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Man Who Created Paradise: A Fable (Ohio Bicentennial) (Hardcover)

Mr. Logsdon's book is an easy, inspiring read. It left me yearning for a simpler life... and a thicker book! Stocked with full-page photos, the book consumes all of 15 minutes to read its 36 pages of text. I can highly recommend his books, but with this one, I felt it was over too quickly.

7 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One Empire's Spoils Is Another's Paradise of Spirit, November 10, 2001

By 

Just Vat1926 (Dayton, OH USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Man Who Created Paradise: A Fable (Ohio Bicentennial) (Hardcover)

Gene, I can't wait to meet you. And seriously, I'd better not wait any longer. I've known the country you describe. Comforting.

"Paradise" is no fable of spirit. It is inspirational and healing. No doubt you have met my father or at least aspects of a Walter, born in '26, tied to the farm no matter his circumstances. He farmed with a dozer and rather well at times. I write you here to tell the reclaimation of spirit and family. At 75 now he has built his planting 'rig' and is on top of the world with satisfaction.

We've always got along fantastic, he and I, but apart; deeply apart. I am determined now, to learn that dozer, that crane, that rig, to make a paradise from paradise lost. Hear the walls fall, the walls I put up, the walls I push away with his "Alice".

You and your generation are the "optomists supreme", practical and pragmatic to perfection. Cheeers!