Water and What We Know: Following the Roots of a Northern Life

(Paperback)

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How does land determine what kind of people grow in that soil In essays that travel from the wildness of Lake Superior to the order of an apple orchard, Karen Babine searches out the stories that water has written on human consciousness and traces an ethic of place, a way to understand the essence of inhabiting a place deeply rooted in personal stories.

Reviews

"What is the effect of place on character Of our birth landscape on how we see the world This wonderful, meditative book asks all the right questions."Will Weaver

"Babines focus is on the call of the west and the mountain and rivers that carved its shape. Eloquently, passionately, she strips back the mythology of this land, seeks out the truth lying beneath our American stories, and embraces the complications we must all accept in calling anyplace home."Booklist

"Babines critical contribution is that we need to learn to think of the natural and the cultural as inseparable in order to expand our ecological consciousness and knowledge to face our futures."Annals of Iowa

"The value of essays in this tradition of Thoreau and Olson is to share the insights of others, to measure by our own sentiments and ultimately to examine better how we meet and see the world."Lake Superior Magazine

"Whether youre a kindred spirit to the north woods or the most confirmed city dweller, she reminds us that the only way we can be grounded in this world is to know our place in it."Split Rock Review

"Writing with the eloquence of [Barry] Lopez and the compassion of Terry Tempest Williams, Babine is also reaching toward a new generation, ensuring the continuity and the legacy of what she has learned."Los Angeles Review of Books

"The stories in Water and What We Know bleed together the places of Babines childhood--lake, forest, and sky--until, as in the Minnesota she so loves, land and water become one."Mid-American Review

"Babine takes us on a multifaceted odyssey through this collection and recollection of her family history and lore. She uses every tool at her disposal to find the way our world is shaped through family and cultural heritage, weather, water and how we shape ourselves."The Corresponder

Author Bio

Karen Babine is assistant professor of English at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota. Her essays have appeared in River Teeth, Sycamore Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Ascent, and elsewhere. She is the editor of Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies.