Twelve poetic essays in which a nature writer draws on botanical research, theories of evolution, and her own emotional experiences to explore the roles flowers play in our lives. Throughout this poetic meditation, Russell ( When the Land Was Young , 1996, etc.) maintains that people need blossoms for both ecological survival and personal well-being. She eroticizes the physical features of flowers throughout (speaking, in one vivid passage, of how "pansies wait expectantly, their vulviform faces lifted to the sky"), and these impassioned descriptions, reminiscent of Georgia O'Keeffe's paintings, may offer some amusement to botanists while enlightening amateur gardeners. There are descriptions of flowers' complex romances with their pollinators that reveal how both blossoms and bugs have evolved to accommodate each other. We are even introduced to various species of fleurs fatales whose seductive charm lures naïve pollinators to their deaths-including a hermaphroditic water lily that, during its female stage, murders the trusting hoverflies it once fed. While Russell cites Charles Darwin and other famed biologists, her lyrical ruminations do not provide new insight into biological evolution. Still, her unique interpretations of natural selection provide some dramatic scenes, for example, when bumblebee thieves attack flowers for nectar. More personal stories of Russell's friends dashing home to view the rare blossoming of their cereus cacti and accounts of prehistoric humans burying their loved ones with flowers support the author's claim that all people have an intrinsic fascination with flowers. But her argument for the protection of endangered species, although valid, is flimsy in comparison to authoritative studies, like David S. Wilcove's The Condor's Shadow (2000). A modestly satisfying read for flower fanatics.

I found this little book extremely powerfull in changing the way I look at life....for the good mind you...it gave me an awareness and sensitivity to the natural world around me and an awe of what has come before and how we arrived here on this planet....
Reccomend for readers of all ages...even children can grasp the concepts put forth here and will open the eyes just a little wider for all who read it!

ANATOMY OF A ROSE: EXPLORING THE SECRET LIFE OF FLOWERS is slightly mistitled. The book has a few things to say about roses--a section on the scent of roses and a section about the commercial interest in concocting a blue rose. The subtitle best describes the contents of Russell's book--the secret life of flowers.

I'm a plant/gardening/nature enthusiast who is fairly well read but I learned a new things from Russell's book. For example, I did not know that the great taxonimist/plant classifier Linnaeus (born in 1707) acquired his love of and interest in plants from his relatives. Seems his great-grandmother was burned as a witch because she knew too much about plants. Linnaeus fared better probably partly owing to his ability to read and write about plants in Latin.

Russell has done a very good job of reviewing, selecting, organizing and distilling the current thinking on flowers --including the projected 7th Extinction which has already begun and will continue over the next 100 years. Like Rachel Carson's SILENT SPRING, this little book warns the reader.

Russell says only one percent of the known flowers have been fully studied, and many will become extinct before we understand them. Flowers hold the key to saving lives, promoting good health, and ensuring the survival of the planet as we know it. Russell tells of the discovery of a plant extract that can fight EBOLI; the discovery of Taxol in the fungus of trees cut down for the Taxol in their bark (the implication is that a really smart person would harvest the Taxol, not kill the goose that lays the golden egg!!); and the uses of many of other plants for medicinal purposes. Pharmaceutical companies are beginning to take an interest in preserving the wilderness--or at least preserving it for their uses.

The jury is still out on the affect of gentically engineered plants on other life forms. Gentically engineered corn has been empirically linked to the demise of Monarch Butterfly and too date it is not "off the hook" as another reviewer suggests, however, the "not knowing" is clearly an issue.

We have much to learn from the flowering plants. I recommend this book to any one who wants to become familiar with the current outlook for plants as well as the history of plants and their role in evolution. You don't need to be a botonist to understand Russell's clearly written and elegantly told story of the flowers and their connection to our own lives.

Sharman Russell has returned to what she does best: write about the human condition in beautiful, poetic prose with humor, generosity, and a candor that makes you feel she was put on earth to express your thoughts for you. I wondered how she knew all my secrets as I read the story of an independent, though not stereotypical, woman in a tribe 12,000 years ago. She reveals a woman's perspective on her role in the group, her husbands, her children, her in-laws. Never saccharine-sweet, never a political diatribe; just clean, pure prose about a woman and her prehistoric neighborhood. I recommend this book especially to mothers, but I think men will appreciate it, too, for the light it sheds on "what women want". Whether you care about what happened to large land mammals or not, you will remember this book for its poetry and humanity.

In this lovely collection of essays, the author, Russell, explores the relationship between the American search for mythological Home to the landscape, the community and the self. In her title essay, she writes about memories of her father, a former test pilot in the Air Force, who died while setting a new speed record in the X-2 over another desert in California, when Russell was still a child. Her memories of him are recovered through her exploration of the image of the Kokopelli man, part of the mythological landscape of the Southwest that she struggles to identify with in this search for Home. In the other essays, Russell tries to balance her utopian ideal of a quiet, slow-paced life in a small rural community with the reality of the isolation and financial struggle of raising a family and building a home in the harsh, though stunningly beautiful, landscape of the Southwest desert, along with the politics and problems that arise in their eccentric and somewhat transitory community. Russell writes to understand, to make meaning--and the writing seems to discover itself over and over, allowing the reader a fresh journey, no matter the number of readings. Beautiful language

Sharman Russell's When The Land Was Young: Reflections On American Archaeology is an extensive history of archaeology in America, written with sharp wit and practiced skill. When The Land Was Young skillfully examines archaeology not just as the hunt for dusty relics, but as the living, changing study of how people and creatures of the past once lived. Highly entertaining, informative and enjoyable reading for archaeology students and non-specialist general readers with an interest in American archaeology.

I enjoyed this look into the world of caterpillars, butterflies, and moths, yet the author's much-ballyhooed writing style was both the major strength and weakness of the book. Her prose can be clever and pithy, but too often it's over-cute with short, incomplete sentences; transitions that are sometimes so choppy they left me wondering if a manuscript page had fluttered away; and a narrative that flew from subject to subject like the flitty flight of a butterfly. In the end, I was left with an overall feeling of disappointment: The story didn't seem fully fleshed out, as if this was just an outline and notes for the real story, dashed off to meet a deadline or cash in on a big advance check.

We generally do not like insects; when they come to our notice, it is usually because they irritate, pain, or impoverish us. But everyone loves butterflies, and everyone has done so since early childhood. They are fascinating natural specimens, and their colors fill us with admiration and wonder. It isn't surprising that they have caused obsessions in many people in many centuries. In _An Obsession with Butterflies: Our Long Love Affair with a Singular Insect_ (Perseus Publishing), Sharman Apt Russell has packed some taxonomy of butterflies, and also biology, but also a history about the obsessed and a chronicle of butterfly culture. Russell reveals that she is obsessed herself, but her obsession translates into an enthusiastic and poetic look at science and history that is full of life and color.

Anyone who reads this book will come away with admiration for the cleverness of tactics which evolution has given to butterflies. Caterpillars are especially vulnerable in a world that is out to get them; fungi, pathogens, wasps, ants, birds, and lizards all find caterpillars a tasty meal (oh, and humans, too). The Western Tiger Swallowtail's caterpillar is only a speck when it comes out of the egg, but as it grows and molts, it takes on the appearance of a bird's droppings. No one is interested in bird droppings. Caterpillars have enemies, but friends, too; some have developed a symbiosis with ant colonies. The butterflies get protection and nourishment, and the ants get honeydew secreted by the caterpillars. The color of butterflies may be enchanting to us, but like all the other characteristics of the insect, it is merely an evolutionary tool. Often males are more brightly colored than females; they are attracted to the drab coloration of females and repelled by the bright males, so that they spend their time with the right group to get the genes into the next generation. Darker colors help high altitude butterflies keep warm. Eyespots scare birds. Bright colors warn of unpalatability. Edible butterflies mimic toxic ones, and toxic ones mimic each other, just to make sure the birds got a clear message.

It isn't just butterflies that are examined in this book; humans are pinned here, too. Lady Glanville sent cases and cases of butterfly specimens in the early eighteenth century for the naturalists to record and keep. When she died, the will was voided because she was thought to be insane over butterflies; she would beat the hedges for "a parcel of wormes," neighbors reported. One entomologist admitted, "None but those deprived of their Senses would go in Pursuit of butterflyes." Among those similarly deprived of their senses was Lord Walter Rothschild, who hired an army of professional species-stalkers to collect butterflies from all over the world. He donated over two million specimens to the British museum. His niece Miriam was famous for producing a six-volume inventory of her father's flea collection, but she demonstrated how Monarch caterpillars become toxic by storing the poisons of milkweed plants. She wrote that butterflies are like dream flowers "...which have broken loose from their stalks and escaped into the sunshine. Air and angels." We have pinned these angels, collected them, categorized them, and studied them for hundreds of years, and they are still full of surprises. Russell's book, too, is full of surprises; did you know that the male Tiger Swallowtail has eyes on his genitals to guide them into just the right slot on the female? Readers of Russell's elegant and poetic (yet fact-filled) book will have a new appreciation for the insect that humans love.

This little song of a book makes for a lively and brief read. From caterpillars to moths to butterflies, Russell flits from subject to subject poetically. Her book focuses on the genetic mission of the butterfly, their tricks of adaptation and mimickry. Makes me want to be a butterfly (if for no other reason than to be able to secrete a chastity belt onto my wife to keep her from being promiscuous.) The occasional second-person narrative works surprisingly well.

Most importantly, Russell does not waste much ink discussing issues of habitat destruction or species extinction. We know about that already. Instead she focuses on the magic, the color, and the life. The lepidopterists out there might quibble with the science (the author is more of an MFA than a PhD) but I odn't know about that. It is getting on evening and I am going to grab a six-pack and my camera and go out in the hills looking for butterflies.

this book was confusing and very not meaningfull i thought that page lambert did a bad job.

Very good reading, with excellent comments on the Grand Canyon, the experiences of rafting the river and essays on how the canyon touches people in different ways. I have just completed an 8 day trip of over 280 miles in the canyon and experienced every emotion and awe-inspiring moment described in the book. The photographs are worth the purchase price alone. A must read before and after taking a trip down the wonderous Colorado in the Grand Canyon

Writing Down the River grabs your heart and broadens your understanding of the power of the western landscape. The photographs are amazing in themselves; the essays stunning.

Sybil Downing, award winning author of Ladies of the Goldfield Stock Exchange

Two sixth graders, May and Evan, are on a field trip in Phoenix, Arizona and suddenly find themselves in an alternate time. At first one thinks they have gone into the past, as they meet low-technology-level people, but it turns out that these tribes have magical abilities. May and Evan have to find out why they're here and help the children of this time.

I thought this book was well-written and certainly would be an interesting story for a sixth grader. There were a few violent acts committed but it wasn't too squeamish because the author told about them in a manner-of-fact way. For example one of the slave "Indians" is crippled when his owners cut his Achilles tendon. This sounds horrifying to me but the author simply mentions it in a non-bloody manner and continues with the story.

Overlaying it all is a sweet story about May coming to love the desert. A good read.