The Pine Island Paradox: Making Connections in a Disconnected World (The World As Home) [Paperback]

Kathleen Dean Moore (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 4, 2005 | Series: The World As Home

Can the love reserved for family and friends be extended to a place? In her latest book, acclaimed author Kathleen Dean Moore reflects on how deeply the environment is entrenched in the human spirit, despite the notion that nature and humans are somehow separate. Moore's essays, deeply felt and often funny, make connections in what can appear to be a disconnected world. Written in parable form, her stories of family and friends — of wilderness excursions with her husband and children, camping trips with students, blowing up a dam, her daughter's arrest for protesting the war in Iraq — affirm an impulse of caring that belies the abstract division of humans from nature, of the sacred from the mundane. Underlying these wonderfully engaging stories is the author’s belief in a new ecological ethic of care, one that expands the idea of community to include the environment, and embraces the land as family.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Possessing the soul of a poet and the voice of a troubadour, Moore writes luminous essays about what it means to love a place not in the glib way one "loves" a cold drink on a hot day but passionately, a love that is so deep, so ingrained, it must be encoded in one's DNA. A university philosophy professor, Moore brings a refined sensibility to a worldview so precise that it can focus appreciatively on the delicate ballet of microorganisms swimming in a tidal pool, so expansive that it can relate that ballet to the ecology of the world as a whole. The paradox of an island, as Moore observes with elegiac remorse and wonder, is its apparent isolation, a solitude that conceals a teeming universe relentlessly threatened precisely because it remains unseen. Moore, with graceful insight and lyrical eloquence, reveals worlds that dare not be missed, revels in the joy of their discovery, and extols the rewards of their stewardship. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"...lyrically coaxes the moral, environmental themes from her nature narratives...Moore builds poignant and passionate arguments." -- News-Sun, August 5, 2004

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Milkweed Editions; First Trade Paper Edition edition (November 4, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1571312811
• ISBN-13: 978-1571312815
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #229,144 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!, October 23, 2004

By 

Ann Ueda (East Bay, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Pine Island Paradox (The World As Home) (Hardcover)

I had the pleasure of briefly meeting the author, Kathleen Dean Moore, and listening to her read a (too) brief selection of pieces from The Pine Island Paradox, her latest collection of essays. I was so moved by her approach to her work (she is co-founder and Director of The Spring Creek Project, devoted to expanding the connections between the environment, philosophy, and words) and her writing that I ran right out and bought this book.

I was not disappointed a bit. Ms. Moore has a gift for observations of the natural world and the ways western philosophy

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful book -- beautiful life, July 12, 2006

By 

W. Jamison "William S. Jamison" (Eagle River, Ak United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Pine Island Paradox: Making Connections in a Disconnected World (The World As Home) (Paperback)

This reminds me of "The Web of Life : A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems" by Fritjof Capra as well as his previous book "The Turning Point" on which the movie "Mindwalk" (by Bernt Amadeus Capra, with Liv Ullmann, Sam Waterston, and John Heard) was based. The difference is this book is not written by a physicist but by a philosopher whose engagement with her family and her environs is done in beautiful prose. Even an island is not an island.

What does it mean to love a person? What does it mean to love a place? The list (p. 35) is interesting and so both are similar. How many things I must love according to this list! But even though they all fit, would I say I really love my car? I suppose I am spoiled by C.S. Lewis' "The Four Loves" which I think gives us some wonderful ways of discriminating among different "loves" and keeping them clearly different in our minds. I suppose the issue would be in the degree of love -- number nine "desperately".

My favorite piece was about the bird hiding the nut in the backyard. What a great ending!

5.0 out of 5 stars The best book I've read in years, February 12, 2012

By 

Jeffrey R. Anderson "SpiritAsJeff : )" (Northern California, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Pine Island Paradox: Making Connections in a Disconnected World (The World As Home) (Paperback)

Kathleen Dean Moore may be a philosopher, but as an ecologist and a closet theologian, she explores some of the biggest questions that we, as humans, face. She is also a poet, and writes in a way that touched my heart and yes, my soul, in a way that had me ordering all of her books before I was halfway through with this one. Wild Comfort, Riverwalking and Holdfast all captured my mind and heart, and I found myself falling in love with the places that she explored, the people who accompanied her on her inquiry, and the inquiry itself. This is not my normal genre of reading material, but since reading Pine Island Paradox (actually I've read it about five times now) I am in seach of anything that comes even close to her writing. Buy this book. You're in for a real treat.