Book Reviews

Rivers of America

by Tim Palmer
Harry Abrams, 2006

The eye is drawn to motion, to flow, Tim Palmer says in Rivers of America, the tour-de-force climax of a river-writing career spent among rivers for three decades. All of our country's major rivers and many small ones are soulfully presented with photographs that bear Tim's signature flow techniques. A delight to the eyes, this large-format book also takes us on Tim's personal journey from an enchanted creek that inspired the child to the despoiled waterways that angered the man.  With sweeping and intimate perspective—and in elegant clarity—Tim mourns the loss of so many riverways, but also rejoices in what is left and what can be salvaged. Along with Tim, in a van outfitted as home and office, we camp each night alongside moving water, realizing as he did, that our favorite river is the one we are next to in the present. And, at book's end, we realize why Tim has never stopped moving. It's the flow, he concludes. When it stops, it's over. --Terry Winckler

Purchase Rivers of America here

A portion of the sale will go to benefit Earthjustice