โA beautiful book...about nature the way Walden was a book about nature. It should be read by everyone who still retains the capacity to feel anythingโ (The New York Times).
Stunningly written and fiercely observed, a new edition of a classic work of nature writing about a year on an Ohio farm, by Pulitzer Prizeโwinning author Josephine Johnson.
Originally published in 1969, The Inland Island is Josephine W. Johnsonโs startling and brilliant chronicle of nature and the seasons at her rambling thirty-seven-acre farm in Ohio, which she and her husband reverted to wilderness with the help of a state forester. Over the course of twelve months, she observes the changing landscape with a naturalistโs precision and a poetโs evocative language. Readers will marvel at the way she brings to life flashes of beauty, the inexorable cycle of growth and decay, and the creatures who live alongside her, great and small.
A forerunner of iconic American women nature writers and a champion of civil rights who marched in Washington against the Vietnam war, Johnson intersperses these โdelicate marvelsโ (The New York Times) with profound reflections about racial inequality, urbanization, social justice, and environmental destruction that speak powerfully to our time.
Ready to be rediscovered by a new generation, The Inland Island is a vital and relevant meditation on nature and time, capturing the wonder, beauty, hopeโand flawsโof our turbulent world.