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Wicked River (The Mississippi When It Last Ran Wild) (Unabridged Audio C Ds) (2000)

by Lee Sandlin(Favorite Author)

3.86 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1449840701 (ISBN13: 9781449840709)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

review 1: It's a book, about a river, and how past authors have interpreted it and its place in American history. I was a bit taken aback by the grandiose writing of the author yet it did contain quite a few gems, highlighting the symbolism of it especially during the US expansionist times of the 1800s. His observations of the river of today as simply a dim shadow of its original composition in a physical sense (damming, river re-routing, etc. since it's discovery) was illuminating and forced me to think about how so much of nature has been reshaped by human activity. That said, this was not some book advocating environmental preservation but rather the treatment of the river in US history and folklore. If you're interested in this river yet only know of it in the tales of Mark Twai... moren, I urge you to read this book. However, if you cannot get past the fact that it is, simply put, just another river, skip it. I fell in the latter category, which is why I give this book only a 2 out of 5 rating, not because of poor writing (quite the contrary) but the limited nature of the subject matter.
review 2: If you want to learn more about the history of life on the Mississippi, this is a great book. In fact, even if you never thought you wanted to learn about this topic, it's a good introduction to that stretch of water that so much influenced the development of the U.S. Lee Sandlin is an eloquent writer, sometimes downright poetic in a way that's not at all heavy-handed, and ranges over a wide variety of topics. In the end, I was left a little wistful about the taming of this wild and wicked river. less

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