A Walk in the Park is a work of nonfiction should join the ranks of the best stories of outside adventure, and so much much more. The overarching story is of two friends who, over the course of several trips and with a lot of help, succeed at a risky end-to-end traverse the Grand Canyon, one of the toughest hikes in the world. The book tells of the duo’s hubris and folly in attempting this initially without proper preparation and how, after mishaps and guidance, they come to complete the project.

There are many reasons to read this book: for one, as a story of adventure and excitement, which will truly keep you on the edge of your seat and turning pages; but even more for the fascinating lore: history, geology, and the stories of the original peoples and tribes who have inhabited the Park from the earliest times to the present. There is also a very touching story about Fedarko and his father that runs throughout. And for those of us who will never hike the Canyon, this book is the closest you will get.

Even more compelling is the sheer gorgeousness of the writing:“The light spilling down the limestone turned the face of each cliff into forked rivers of fire. There were pink pools and riffles, eddies where the rose-tinted currents coiled and spun, and whirlpools the color or a freshly opened cantaloupe. This was light made liquid, as if someone had melted down the stained-glass windows of every cathedral in France and poured the emulsion over the stone.”

Fedarko concludes the book with a plea against commercialization of the Park. “The longer we spent and the farther we ventured, the more deeply we understood that in the months and years to come, it might no longer be possible to complete a walk such as this without colliding against changes so profound that the land would never again be the same.…Haunted—that’s how we walked. Haunted by what we saw and heard, and by the knowledge that the future that was bearing down on the canyon was…already transforming the place.”

Although there’s an argument to be made that helicopters and trams can bring the experience of the Canyon to people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to access it, A Walk in the Park speaks most eloquently for the value of leaving some magnificent and rare places completely alone.

Dambo, who has installations in five continents and 20 countries, uses his talent to promote environmental awareness. He made his first troll on the Puerto Rican island of Culebra in 2014. He views his giant whimsical creatures as “unspoken warriors of the plants and animals that can’t speak.”

There are five trolls so far in Rhode Island, the beginning of a statewide public art trail, set in locations that take a little exploring to discover. This makes them not only an environmental statement but also simply fun, luring people into nature with their magical presence. Several more trolls are currently in the works, to bring the total to seven.

Mrs. Skipper, in East Providence, is sited at the Kettle Point Pier. This area was at one time a sandstone quarry for railroad gravel, while the pier and surrounds were used by giant oil companies through the 1980s. The area was then cleaned up as part of the Kettle Point revitalization project and the development of the East Bay bike path, which runs from Providence to Bristol. Mrs. Skipper has panoramic views of Providence River, the Narragansett Bay, and the Providence skyline.

Luckily for me, Rhode Island is a small state, since I plan to visit all the trolls on the trail. Eventually.

McConaghy sets up the novel as a thriller, and the story is an intriguing one: For years, widower Dominic Salt has been the island’s caretaker, raising his three children in this natural paradise. But due to climate change, sea level rise is happening so fast the island will soon disappear. A boat is going to be picking the family up in seven weeks, the timeline of the novel, and the family is packing up what they can of the precious seeds that have been kept in a vault in case the world’s food supply needs to be regrown after environmental catastrophe. All the researchers have left, and the family is alone on the island.

Into this tense situation a woman, Rowan, washes up on shore, just when Dom discovers the island’s communications equipment has been sabotaged, cutting them off entirely from the outside world. McConaghy slides between all five characters’ points of view, alluding to but not explaining various mysteries that pile up and keep the suspense high. I found some of the plot aspects strained plausibility, but what’s undeniable, and makes the book a must read, is how McConaghy’s plunges you into this evocative setting and her truly endearing characters, most especially the youngest boy, Orly.

McConaghy writes as hauntingly of their emotional and inner lives as she does the captivating penguins, birds, and seals they live among. Thematically the book is equally rich, weighing questions like, if the world is coming to an end, do you embrace love What do you save, the practical or the beautiful Besides an elegy for nature, Wild Dark Shore is about families, and parenting, and choosing hope despite grief and loss. This is a gorgeous, heart-pumping, heart-wrenching and mesmerizing read.

The elephants were crafted by The Coexistence Collective, a team of more than 200 indigenous Indian artisans, to serve both as a jaw-dropping display and as a call to action. Organized by Elephant Family USA, a nonprofit committed to the protection of Asian wildlife, they aim to illustrate the symbiotic relationship between humans and wildlife and to spotlight the balance between both. 

The statues, shaped from the invasive weed Lantana camara, were placed in large groups in several of Newport’s green spaces. Viewing one cohort of the elephants at the magnificent Breaker’s mansion on the Cliff Walk, I couldn’t help feel the power of art to awaken our consciousness to the need for a more sustainable future.

My photos can’t capture the grandeur, or the awe they inspired. Still, here are a few to inspire.

The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean, by best-selling science journalist Susan Casey, is shockingly fascinating. Much of it is so unlikely as to seem completely fictional.

Just about everything in this book was unknown to me, from the depth of the ocean (in its deepest part, close to 36,000 feet deep) to the range of organisms and creatures to the geological features to the submersibles and robots used in ocean exploration. Ever heard of black smokers These are chimney-like structures that pump sooty fluid “like a manic locomotive…a vortex of black clouds, lined with metal crystals,” or the Lost City, whose chemistry makes it “a frontrunner in the search for life’s origins” Casey also focuses on the fascinating cast of characters who are driven to discover this underground world, the technical challenges, and the overarching reason that learning about the deep ocean is so important—the very future of the planet depends upon it. There is an extraordinary number and diversity of marine organisms invisible to the eye that have an enormous role in keeping the planet alive. Since 1970 the ocean has absorbed 93% of the excess heat and 30% of the carbon dioxide we’ve generated from burning fossil fuels. The ocean is now becoming warmer, more acidic, and less oxygen rich, and our ecological balance is in peril. There is also the enormous risk of destroying the seafloor from indiscriminate deep-sea mining by commercial interests. Although the book is a call to action and a justification of the time, expense, and risk in exploring the deepest of the deep, Casey’s descriptive writing is exuberant and joyful. “A spectral figure materialized from the darkness, gliding toward the bait. … It was an apparition, a phantom, a psilocybin vision…it resembled a gelatinous dog’s head trailing a white tendril. The head was luminous and as crystalline as a bubble. It glimmered in pale shades of violet and topaz, with twinkles of aquamarine and white, and there were glowing orbs suspended inside it, like the electrodes of a cyborg brain dreamed up by Ridley Scott.” Wow!

The book is a tribute to deep sea exploration for affording us a way to understand our role in the universe as well as a meditation on the ecstasy one feels when being “in the middle of the life force itself.” On one journey into the deep that Casey is able to take, she reflects, “In the abyss, you don’t glimpse the mystery—you enter it—and your consciousness is the only fixed point.” Pretty powerful stuff.

Currently there are two nature-related exhibits that are wonderfully evocative. One, “the enchanting world of artist Ellen Blomgren” (a former ceramist instructor at RISD) is a collection of small statues of small children and creatures that are nestled here and there on the grounds in a kind of treasure hunt. 

The other exhibit, at the opposite side of the size scale, is “the Myth Makers” by artists Donna Doson and Andy Moerlein, who draw their inspiration from a love of the wild, in particular the nature of birds. These sculptures are gigantic birds created from bamboo and other natural materials. Below is a peahen, which is similar in coloring to a peacock.

And here is “Queenfisher,” so named because unlike with most birds, the female Belted Kingfisher is more colorful than the male, with a rust-red band through her middle.

Kingfishers are iconic water birds that feed on fish, insects, and frogs and are abundant in the streams and ponds around Mount Hope Bay.

These exhibits make me smile, and as I sit inside the giant owl looking out, they prompt reflections on the connections among humans, animals and the natural world.

Currently it’s undergoing a renaissance. Its downtown is lively and thriving, with tons of fun shops and terrific restaurants. On the boardwalk/beach side of town there’s a mix of buildings and a large swath of undeveloped land awaiting redevelopment.

Adjacent to Asbury Park is the more genteel Ocean Grove. Founded as a religious resort, it was a “dry” town with strict rules governing behavior. For instance, it was forbidden to have horse-drawn carriages, and later, cars, on the streets on Sunday. In 1975 this 19th-century planned urban community was designated a State and National Historic District.  It, too, fell on hard times, but in the last several decades it’s experienced a dramatic revival with the restoration of older hotels and the accompanying increased property values.  

One of the themes in The Stark Beauty of Last Things is the relationship of development to preservation. Many times the difference between various communities comes down to whether or not community members have the foresight to plan appropriately and to have a vision for what they value and want to preserve. Often, market forces win out. 

I don’t know who the gardeners are, but I thank them from the bottom of my heart for providing such a glorious place to read, write, think, and enjoy.  

This is a statement piece by Mia Lin, an extraordinary way of making climate change visible. She has literally brought a dying forest to the city, so that urban dwellers can experience first hand what is happening to landscapes far from their everyday lives.

The strand of 49 American white cedar trees in Ghost Forest, as explained in placards around the park, came from the New Jersey Pine Barrens. They had been infiltrated by salt water due to sea level rise, and also were affected by increased winds and fire. Lin wanted to bring attention to the mass die-offs of once healthy woodlands. In the past, Atlantic white cedars were plentiful on the East Coast, proving at least 500,000 acres of habitat for plants and animals. They have dwindled to below 50,000 acreas and are now endangered.

“The harsh magnitude of planetary vulnerability in communities and the environment is a significant subject in Lin’s practice.”

Standing amid the trees, feeling their dying presence, really brings home the harm humans are doing to the planet.

My research for this novel has been extensive, but in creating fiction I need to rely most on my imagination. I need to know enough for verisimilitude but not so much that the flow of creativity shuts down. I don’t want inaccuracies in my work, but I chafe at being overly bound to facts. For me, for the fiction to feel vital, my mind needs to simply wander into whatever avenues seem right for the story I’m making up. I don’t know if others work this way, especially those who write true historical fiction, but for me it’s a strange and peculiar balance.