A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There

Written by Aldo Leopold and Barbara Kingsolver

Narrated by Cassandra Campbell

First published in 1949 and praised in the New York Times Book Review as "full of beauty and vigor and bite", A Sand County Almanac combines some of the finest nature writing since Thoreau with an outspoken and highly ethical regard for America's relationship to the land. As the forerunner to such important books as Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire, and Robert Finch's The Primal Place, this classic work remains as relevant today as it was more than seventy years ago.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Highbridge Company
• Release date: Apr 22, 2020
• ISBN: 9781696600729

Reviews for A Sand County Almanac

[Brock Bruce · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this book very much. Made me want to go right out into the Forrest!

[Pam Nelson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I am inspired! I will listen to this every year and mark how I have changed the way I think about nature.

[Bud Tyler · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A yearly read and alltime favorite. Gone before his time.

[patsymurray · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I found much of this book to be utterly charming and I loved the illustrations. I could see the animals and the landscape he describes and it made me feel wistful for everything we have lost in the natural world. I found the final essays to be dated and to no longer offer the insight they probably delivered in the forties.

[castlelass · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

“Conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land. We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity, belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”

Published in 1949, Aldo Leopold is an early conservationist, following in the footsteps of John Muir. The book is arranged seasonally in the essay format of an almanac. It is focused on the natural region of the author’s home in Wisconsin. It features lovely nature writing:

“On motionless wing they emerge from the lifting mists, sweep a final arc of sky, and settle in clangorous descending spirals to their feeding grounds. A new day has begun on the crane marsh.”

I very much enjoyed this book and recommend it to anyone interested in the history of conservation.

[treebeard_404 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Mark Twain said, “A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.” If you spend any time at all reading ecological literature, you will see A Sand County Alamanc referred to as one of the classics in the genre. But in this case, Twain is wrong. This is a wonderful book. Leopold has a wry style; never out-and-out funny, but enough to keep my smiling throughout much of the book. He also deploys references historical, philosophical, religious, and literary, giving the text a rich texture. But Leopold also has a deadly serious point to the book. And he makes his case well, which is why people have been reading this book for 70 years. I highly, highly recommend the book.

[wvlibrarydude · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Beautifully written. I can't believe this was written in the 1940s. Essential reading for those interested in conservancy or anything to do with the natural world around us. I will be returning to this book often to reexamine the world around us.

[mykl8s · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really felt I got to know Leopold, the part of himself he presented in this book.

[albertgoldfain · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Clear, concise, and convincing argument for land ethic / conservation.

[dairyqueen84 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This should be required reading for everyone because he was sounding alarms for the environment long before the idea of global warming. I wonder what Leopold would think of the climate change deniers today. Beautifully written and compelling.

[lgcullens · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I first read this in the early 1950s. One of the best books I've read in over three quarters of a century, and I've reread it numerous times over the years. Sad how we can read, and fail to grasp the simplest truths.

[donblanco · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book was the beginning of my environmental awareness. The author is not fanatical, but extremely practical. His insights are very personal, not academic. His writing borders on poetry. A very inspirational book!

[seriousgrace · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

There are certain books in the world you can't help but try to read all in one sitting. They draw you in and you can't find your way out of the pages until you reach the final words of The and End. A Sand County Almanac is one such book, especially as an audio read by Cassandra Campbell. Hour after hour would rush by as I got lost in Aldo's world. I could hear the calling of the birds in the fields, the rattle of dried leaves in the oak trees signifying winter is on its way, and the gurgling rush of the stream as it stubbed its toes on rocks worn smooth. Leopold's observations were so warm I couldn't help but think if he were alive today, he and Josh Ritter would be friends.

[stbalbach_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A Sand County Almanac (1949) is a landmark book in modern environmental literature. It is personal and cozy, reminiscent of Peter Wohlleben (Hidden Life of Trees), the kind of book that leaves you feeling a bit changed looking at the world in a new and better way. The ideas expressed, that the environment is intertwined, was first observed by Alexander von Humboldt in the early 19th century. His ideas of rewilding are becoming more popular, Monibot's book Feral (2013) can be seen as a direct heir.

It's only amazing that given everything we know so little has changed. Leopold makes a strong case for personal responsibility and ethics ie. not mandated by the government, he was a conservative vision of environmental stewardship ca 1949. However 21st century conservatives have gone so far to the right not only do they disagree with environmentalism on the face of it, they actively encourage and seek outright environmental destruction, while disparaging sane and rationale classic American books like this one.

[4bonasa · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Aldo is what some would call an environmentalist wacko, which he certainly was. Typical government elitist who condemned the prior owner who couldn’t farm the land profitably and was forced to abandon the land . Mr, Leopoldo then purchased the land for pennies on the dollar. Aldo never understood that the hapless chap was a victim of Aldo’s employer’s ruinous monetary policy. Suitable for only the naive tree hugger. Three stars for being an above average coffee table cover.

[eldang-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I had been meaning to read this for a while, since it's such a sacred text to the environmental community and it didn't disappoint. It's really a compilation of Leopold's essays written over some years, in three parts:

The book starts with the actual sand county Almanac, which is a set of short observational essays representing one full year in the life of the farm he and his family retreated to on weekends. This was my favourite part of the book; above all else Leopold was a wonderful observer of nature and painter of scenes. There is some editorialising in this, but it's done with a rather light touch. More than anything else, it's a call to simply pay more attention to the rhythms of nature even as technology and urbanisation make it more and more possible to ignore them.

The middle part is a serious of descriptive and reflective essays written as Leopold travelled around North America. These are rather patchy, somewhat more editorial, and overwhelmingly sad. He had a very clear vision of what had already been lost to short-sighted overdevelopment, and how much more was on the cusp of being lost, and reading it 60-odd years later is actually quite upsetting. I like to tell myself that the destruction we've visited upon our own world was largely a product of ignorance, but essays like these are reminder of how untrue that is, at least for the "new world". We've had people calling this out for at least three generations, and yet we still have to fight the notion that nothing we do has any consequences.

The book closes with a set of much more prescriptive essays, about what should be done to halt the destruction. These made good for thought, but fall short of the perfection of his descriptive work. I found myself alternately agreeing, being made to think about concepts I hadn't considered before, and being frustrated by a few shortcomings:
- Leopold's vision doesn't scale to the size of population we have today. Perhaps in 1966 it would have worked to put brakes on urbanisation, but today we can't do that without turning entire continents into sprawling exurbia. I'm not sure if this was a blind spot of his at the time, or just something that hasn't translated to today.
- At times his focus on wilderness and emptiness is too narrow, and misses bigger systemic problems, such as the consequences of urban/suburban households all driving out to their dachas or the wilderness all the time. I suppose this is another instance of "does not scale".
- Sometimes he just seems indefinsibly optimistic about human nature, arguing that most if not all of the cultural change we need can come just from persuading people to intrinsically value nature. It makes sense that he should feel this way, since doing exactly that seems to be his greatest skill, but the faddishness of environmentalism since Leopold's time shows up the weakness of such an approach.

All in all, a great read - just take the polemical part with a pinch of salt, and consider the ways our collective experience since this was written critique it.

[willszal-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

"A Sand County Almanac" is an amazing in many ways. Written in the 1940s and published posthumously in 1949, Leopold’s writing predate the mainstream environmentalist movement of the sixties and seventies by well over a decade.

To modern readers, it may feel slow moving, a culturally unfamiliar; Leopold represents a dual character of both hunter and environmentalist, two camps often dived by a political gulf today.

As you might have heard Wes Jackson say, Leopold’s legacy was his “land ethic.” The concept that the earth might have rights, and that, as humans, we have an obligation to steward land, was prescient for a white American. Many of his ideas are still both radical and familiar today.

[pferdina · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Read this for a campus book discussion group. I liked Part 1 very well, Part 2 not very much, and Part 3 was only mildly interesting. The discussions were good, though.

[robertbruceferguson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Moving. A family favorite since the early 20th century. Nature is NOT a commodity. The land ethic is to treat nature as community. The Conservationist attitude: you can use this, and use that; but, RESTORE this, and restore that. This is the brilliance given to mankind.

[bell7_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A series of essays in this posthumous collection takes you through a year in the 1940s at Aldo Leopold's farm in Wisconsin, followed by an essay on "The Land Ethic" exploring making conservation part of our social, rather than economical, consciousness.

Leopold's style has much in common with Henry David Thoreau, and it could also be argued that his ideas about conservation, forestry, and being close to the land are a natural outgrowth of much of Thoreau's ethic as well. I think I would've liked it better if I could dip into and out of it at the right times of the year - as it is, in fact, organized from January to December with one to three essays on each month - instead of rushing for a library due date. Too many essays in a row and it got a little run together and harder to focus. The particular edition I had was a 50th anniversary edition with oversize pages and lovely photographs of the farm where Aldo lived.

[banjo123 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a classic book about environmentalism. It was interesting for me to read at the same time as "Rightful Heritage" by Douglas Brinkley, since Leopold was a character in the FDR administration, and often (rightfully) critical of some of the administrations conservation policies. I suspect that this book would not be as interesting to read without historical context; he is a good writer, but not a great writer, and his prose sometimes has a bit of a self-important feel to it. But he is a detailed observer of the natural world, and an important figure in the environmental movement, so I am glad that I read this book.

[mojomomma_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Leopold's adventures in mid-twentieth century Wisconsin observing life on his farm and in the larger U.S. environment.

[jvioland_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Considered one of the fundamental works in environmental awareness, this book should be read as an alarm - To Those In The 1940s! We have transgressed so many natural laws by now, that the read becomes depressing. If only we had pursued a different path in development that hadn't led to the domination of anything-for-profit mentality, our planet would be far healthier. No, I'm not a Eco-freak. I'm a conservative who believes Capitalism works, but it must be enlightened, not like today's excuse for hyper-wealth status quo.

[thatotter-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Slow, thoughtful book of nature writing, with some wonderfully-detailed observations about the animals and plants Leopold sees on his farm in Wisconsin. The writing is good, but has a bit of an archaic feel. His love for and knowledge of the natural world really shines through.

[blake.rosser · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"Timeless" is an understatement. Around page 40 I decided that this was one of my favorite books ever. It was the passage on the geese I think, when he was speculating on their behavior and basically gave it up as something unknowable to mere humans. Everything I read was so beautiful and poetic, and it all conveyed such a love for nature and the land that it was really quite breathtaking. It is the closest thing to poetry that I've ever seen in non-fiction -- I would even go so far as to call it poetry of a sort.

And apart from Leopold's disarming style, the sheer scope of his natural knowledge is quite simply incredible. Leopold doesn't have to specifically elucidate his love for nature, because the fact that he knows the names of all the birds, flowers and trees (among other things) proves implicitly his adulation. Only thousands (millions?) of man-hours spent joyously and patiently outdoors could account for such a proficiency.

The 2nd and 3rd sections of the book do not ultimately sustain the magnificense of the titular "Sand County Alamanac," but it's hard to fault a book too much for not maintaining a state of perfect splendour. Both latter sections are still well worth reading. One of my favorite qualities of the first part is that it is entirely apolitical. Leopold doesn't have to come out directly and scold us for our misuse and destruction of the enviroment, because his simple devotion is by far the more effective chastisement. The 2nd and 3rd parts do become more explicitly critical of modern civilization, but it's never over the top. Indeed, it provides the reader with an entirely new way to appreciate his writing: as ideas decades ahead of their time. The fact that he was writing about the desperate need for conservation in the 30s and 40s is astounding. Leopold makes "youngsters" like Edward Abbey look like a hack. He is my hero.

[selmablanche · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

As a native of Madison Wisconsin where Aldo Leopold's legacy is preserved I never tire of revisting this book. His uncanny perceptions were distilled from a lifetime of advocacy and proves that the best writing is in the rewriting. The U of W at Madison provided a starting place for his special gifts to blossom as it has for others I know who didn't fit in prepared boxes. It is sad that he never lived to see his greatest work in print in the US since the only publisher who found it worthwhile at the time was in England. He had moved on to help a neighbor fight a grass fire.

[cfk_3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I first read this book perhaps 15 years ago and found it just as delightful today as the first time. Aldo Leopold was a conservationist and environmentalist long before it became the in thing to do and be. I have found many naturalists to be less than enthralling as authors, but Leopold knows his stuff and he knows how to present it. His book is informative and poetic:

"These things I ponder as the kettle sings, and the good oak burns to red coals on white ashes. Those ashes, come spring, I will return to the orchard at the foot of the sandhill. They will come back to me again, perhaps as red apples, or perhaps as a spirit of enterprise in some fat October squirrel, who, for reasons unknown to himself, is bent on planting acorns."

[devil_llama · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A classic of environmental writing by the "father of the land ethic", in which he spells out his vision for protection of our wild places from futher destruction.

[dele2451 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

These brief, beautifully written essays on the natural world make it easy to see why many naturalists consider Leopold the father of the wilderness movement in America. His narrative has a lilting and somewhat whimsical feel to it, almost like the bird songs and wildlife antics he describes. The black and white drawings are a nice addition to the text as well. Sure to be a hit with anybody who enjoys reading Thoreau or other writers of this genre. Should be required reading for anybody in the earth sciences and is definitely recommended reading for everybody else, especially urban dwellers who are at a loss to understand what the attractions of camping, farming or rural life really are. Loved it.

[sworldbridger · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

not bad. no 'Walden'. but I really like how he describes the relationship of everything more specifically plant life and how it has a rhythm or pattern that doesn't quite make sense chaos like life. Described the predicament early on of the pitfalls of eco tourism and conservation slippery slope and that truly to make a comprehensive land ethic you have to sacrifice to be in balance with nature.