Product Description

For over thirty years, nature writer Robert Finch has tramped the sandy, wooded reaches of Cape Cod’s natural landscape. Over that time, the Cape has changed, as developers have encroached ever further on beach, marsh, wood, and meadow. The essays collected in Special Places were written in 1998–2002 to focus attention on the Cape Cod Land Bank Act, which authorized Cape towns to use a small portion of their property taxes to acquire open space and conserve it.

Not a guide in the usual sense, the twenty-four pieces in Finch’s new book are an invitation to explore and cherish some of these properties, from Bourne to Provincetown, and on Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. Finch himself views this work as "an introduction, such as one might make between mutual friends with the hope of encouraging deeper acquaintance."

While it is intended for those who make a home on the Cape, in season or year-round, Special Places will be treasured by all those who value the wildness that was and is New England, and by those who appreciate a master stylist.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #576923 in Books
• Published on: 2003-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

From the Author
" It seems to me that the most frequent message in [these essays] is that the landscapes of Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Martha’s Vineyard . . . are neither natural nor artificial, but rich amalgams and resultants of human and natural history. They have been shaped at times by the forces of nature—weather, glaciation, plant succession, animal migration, etc.—and at others by the forces of human alteration—settlement, agriculture, industry, transportation, recreation, etc. Whatever the balance, or whichever forces currently dominate, each place is but the present moment, a single page in an evolving drama of historical flux in which we can read elements of the past and indicators of the future if we know how to look. Seen this way, experienced carefully and with attention, these places are capable of telling us something about what we were, who we are, and where we might be going."

–from the author’s preface

From the Inside Flap
For over thirty years, nature writer robert finch has tramped the wooded stretches and sandy shores of Cape Cod’s natural landscape. Over that time, the Cape has changed, as development has encroached ever further on beach, marsh, forest, and meadow. Large natural preserves, such as the Cape Cod National Seashore, are well known and heavily visited. The twenty-four essays in this book concentrate on the Cape and Islands’ "special places": smaller areas owned and managed by town conservation commissions or private conservation trusts. Exquisitely illustrated by Cape Cod artist Ellen Raquel LeBow, these essays invite both residents and visitors to explore and cherish local nature preserves from Bourne to Provincetown and on Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.

Praise for Robert Finch

" These essays celebrate a landscape—Cape Cod—in a way that makes us see that our own backyards are as full of wonders as the Serengeti or Himalayas."
–chet raymo

" Robert Finch is everyman’s naturalist . . . a reflective observer whose verbal catalogs are reminiscent of Isak Dinesen in Africa. . . . He manages to invest the familiar with humor and tolerance."
–time

" Nature writing of a high order."
–new york times

" Robert Finch has few peers as a nature writer."
–richmond (virginia) times-dispatch

About the Author
Robert Finch has lived on Cape Cod year-round since 1971. His books include Common Ground, Outlands, The Cape Itself, and Death of a Hornet. His writing has received several awards, including the Boston Public Library Literary Lights Award and the New England Booksellers’ Association Award for Non-Fiction. He is on the faculty of the MFA in Writing program at Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky.

Ellen Raquel LeBow is an artist living and working in Wellfleet on Cape Cod and in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is a regular contributing arts writer for the Cape Cod Voice news magazine. She spends winters in the mountain village of Matenwa, Haiti, where she helps members of the community develop their artistic skills.

Customer Reviews

Beautifully Written and Useful Nature Guide
These essays should be included in any personal collection of books on the Cape, because they fill a gap by paying sensitive tribute to some of the smaller natural areas owned and managed by local conservation commissions and private conservation trusts. The brief essays are artfully developed by Robert Finch and boldly illustrated by Ellen Raquel LeBow. Each of the twenty-four 'special places' that are the book's subject are visited by Finch on foot and the commentaries are filled with information about the land and its vegetation. But the real value behind this reading experience lies in the way the reader is able to vicariously participate in the luxury of unhurried reflection with the writer as he interacts with these diverse areas. There is no reason to hurry a reading of this book in the way you would not gulp a glass of fine wine. Finch's essays are intended as an "invitation" to experience those "unanticipated intersections between the place and the visitor which cannot be found in trail guides". Finch experiences many unforced special moments and readers will find their own favorite 'places' even before the opportunity to act on his offer to search them out. The essays take us from the base of the Cape through to Provincetown and across the water to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket islands. Directions are given to each of the natural areas described. A helpful listing of various presiding conservation commission addresses and telephone numbers is provided at the back of the book.