cover image Pride of Place: A Contemporary Anthology of Texas Nature Writing

Pride of Place: A Contemporary Anthology of Texas Nature Writing

, . . Univ. of North Texas, $29.95 (213pp) ISBN 978-1-57441-208-6

Taylor (editor of South Carolina Naturalists ) has gathered essays that express an affinity for the natural landscape of Texas as they celebrate a state in flux. The late naturalist Roy Bedichek's "Still Water" focuses on the vermilion flycatcher extending its range north from the tropics. In a tribute to the environment on the banks of the Rio Grande, Carol Cullar writes that the limestone has literally become a part of her bones. In his own essay, Taylor says that he has made his peace with the loss of ancient wilderness to development. The strength of the selections lies both in the skill of the writers and the variety of their subject matter. City boy Gerald Thurmond, for example, gives an eloquent and humorous description of his attempts to forge a bond with his rural father-in-law. In a particularly powerful piece, Stephen Harrigan describes a trip with his daughter to the peak of Enchanted Rock, a place that Native Americans held to be sacred and where, he says, a part of the original Texas still exists: it "had not been wholly digested somehow, and in some places... you could still feel its insistent identity." B&w photos. (Feb.)