Essential Muir: A Selection of John Muir's Best Writings by John MuirMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
John Muir was born in 1838 in Scotland and spent his formative years in Wisconsin, where his family emigrated. His writings are better known in the USA. He died in 1914. This selection of essays were chosen by Fred D. White who describes Muir's legacy as complex and important. Muir led a remarkable life and spent much of his solitary life in Yosemite. Muir had a fierce love of all of nature, from squirrels to glaciers. He once described himself as a "poetico-trampo-geologist-botanist and ornithologist-naturalist". A rather whimsical description but one that does rather sum up his desire to fuse rational and investigative sensibilities with aesthetic and spiritual ideas.
Read here about his faithful companion Stikeen (his dog), his reflections on the society of Eskimos and his touching tribute to the mighty baobob trees of Africa. Writings that inspire us more than a century after his death.
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