From Publishers Weekly
Environmental journalist Thomson, founding producer and senior editor of National Public Radio's Living on Earth, combines introspection with objective reporting in this engaging account of his six-month pilgrimage to Siberia's Lake Baikal, the deepest, oldest and supposedly purest body of fresh water on earth. Thomson includes everything from thoughts about his failed marriage and his relationship with his brother and fellow traveler James to colorful impressions of the people he meets as he documents his quest, shattering the myth of the lake's reputed capacity to cleanse itself. Researchers tell him that the air and water are full of thousands of tons of pollutants and contaminants from Baikal's paper mill and nearby farms, industry and power plants. Tiny filter-feeding shrimp do cleanse the water, but in the process they move the contaminants into the food chain and concentrate them, so the fish eaten by the people living around Lake Baikal now pose a serious health threat. Nevertheless, many Russians continue to believe that the waters of the Sacred Sea are pristine. Thomson's book is a lucid and sobering reminder of the destructive effects human activity has on the planet. Photos not seen by
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Review
"It's a portrait of a place, its people, and its problems. It's also an honest look at how far we have to go to get home again."--The Phoenix
"His account of the journey is a hybrid of environmental reporting and personal travelouge....Readers will enjoy his accounts of meandering across the Pacific on a container ship with his younger brother, camping among Siberian aspens and feasting on reindeer meat under the northern
lights."--Natural History
"Traveling through woods, streams, hills, mountains, and pristine lakes, they had quite a voyage, and this in-depth recapitulation is absorbing in its detail."--Booklist
"Sacred Sea tells the story of an unforgettable journey to an extraordinary place. More then a travelouge, the book is a meditation on faith and home and purity in a world makred by contamination and impermance. For anyone who has ever though of ditching it all and heading for the middle of nowhere,
Peter Thomson offers a lesson both unsettling and surprisingly hopeful:there is no esacpe from humanity."-- David Baron, Public Radio's The World
"The book is beautifully written and his descriptions make the landscape come alive: I couldn't help shivering when he jumps into the lake. As you travel with him you'll be transported far, far away - the perfect antidote to a dull day at the office."-- BBC Focus Magazine
"Thomson's book is a lucid and sobering reminder of the destructive effects human activity has on the planet."-- Publishers Weekly
"Exhaustively researched and lyrically written- a welcome addition to any library."-- Kirkus Review
"Recommended for public libraries and undergraduate institutions with environmental history disciplines."--Library Journal
"Recently divorced and living out of boxes ni his father's house in Boston...he quit his job as an environmental news producer for NPR and talked his younger half-brother into joining him on a round-the-world trip to a place where neither of them understood the language of the culture. The result is
this superb paean to a unique and bizarre ecosystem." --ew York Times
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