Senses of Place (School of American Research Advanced Seminar Series)

I stumbled across this book in an small bookstore in Bluff Utah, and as a landscape painter had to have it. Few books have ever made such an impact on my ideas. Several of the essays are very compelling stories in their own right, while others(only one really)are difficult reading for a non-philosophy student. All were extremely worthwhile intellectually and added to the picture of this newish field, and since they are each by different authors one can pick and choose. They are also short, so anyone can make it through them. I particularly liked the diversity of cultures discussed, from the sound-scapes of Papua New Guinea to West Virginia coal mining communities, or the Apache cultures so eloquently discussed by Keith Basso. This book has become seminal to my thinking about landscape, and how I perceive the culture I live within. I am constantly recommending this book to people interested in the environment, in outdoor recreation, in art, and then refusing to loan it out since I don't want to lose it. If you've already read a great deal in the field of Landscape Anthropology, or the new Geology of Place, then perhaps this is more of an overview than is needed(although some people use it as a textbook), but if all you've read is Landscape and Memory(Simon Schama) buy this.

Full of wonderful visions/meditations of place and space. Though bit of a 'heavy' text (I wouldn't call this light reading), it is fascinating and great for those who are looking for a book that will open your eyes to new ways of thinking about our world. Great for those who are interested in identity and how that is connected with geography.