Craig ChildsRecensioni

"From one of the finest nature writers at work in America today -- a lyrical, dramatic, illuminating tour of the hidden domain of wild animals

"Whether recalling the experience of being chased through the Grand Canyon by a bighorn sheep, of swimming with sharks off the coast of British Columbia, of watching a peregrine falcon perform acrobatic stunts at two hundred miles per hours, or of engaging in a tense face-off with a mountain lion near a desert water hole, Craig Childs captures the moment so vividly that he puts the reader in his boots.

"Each of the compelling narratives in The Animal Dialogues focuses on the author's own encounter with a particular species and is replete with astonishing facts about the species' behavior, habitat, breeding, and life span. The glory of each essay, however, lies in Childs's ability to portray the sometimes brutal beauty of the wilderness, to capture the individual essence of wild creatures, to transport the reader beyond the human realm and deep inside the animal kingdom."
~~front flap

This is an amazing book! Each essay is a perfect little jewel, leading the reader into the life of a wild animal, bird, raptor, insect or fish. You see with the animal's eyes, smell with its nose, feel the rush of cascading hormones during the rut, tremble and cower in fear as a predator draws near ...

Childs must have spent the better part of his adult life in the wilderness, to have had so many astonishing encounters. Most people are lucky to have two or maybe three -- he's survived hundreds. To experience the beauty of the remote wilderness, to walk in the boots of a consummate naturalist, to be transported into the body of an animal or bird and experience life through their eyes and senses ... read this book. You won't be able to put it dow

Childs is an amazing storyteller. He combines his extensive research with his personal experiences interspersed to produce this deep, thought-provoking masterpiece. He discusses where artifacts are found, how they are retrieved, how they are stored, and he takes this story to the international level. He shares information about looters/looting, the black market, police raids, private collectors, archeologists, public institutions, the illegal and the legal, the importance of provenance, and the ethics involved. And, he shares his opinions.

The author has spent a lot of time in nature. This book brings together essays he has written on various animals/wildlife he has come into contact with in his travels, along with extra information about those animals.

I listened to the audio, and it was ok. Similar to short stories, I found some more interesting than others, but it was easier than I’d have liked to become distracted when listening. Some of the ones I was able to keep a bit more focus on: mosquito (and maybe not one one would have thought an essay to be written on!), squid, wasp, coyote, raven, pronghorn, bighorn sheep, praying mantis. There were quite a few chapters on different birds, but I did lose focus on some of those (though I love birds!). I was definitely less interested in fish and his exploits fly-fishing.

An amazing writer. Really brings the natural world to life. I'm so grateful that Craig Childs chose to share his experiences. These are stunning tales of things I will never experience. The beauty of his prose is amazing. Some stories will make you laugh and others will startle you. All will open your eyes to another world.

Atlas of a Lost World: Travels in Ice Age America
By Craig Childs
I didn't know what to expect when I bought this audio book from Chirp, but it was well worth the sale price! It isn't just a book about archeology, the ice age periods, early man and beasts that roamed the land. This is so much deeper, richer, and more filling than any other archeological book I have read. It more than surprised me, it captivated me!
Childs takes the reader around the world, and back in time, making you feel like you can glimpse the past, the raw nature, changing climate, the beauty, and the struggles to survive.
Childs has a charming touch with words that is hypnotic and drew me in and held me spell bound. I also felt his passion for the subject and for the people that came before us.
Highly recommend this wonderful book.
I bought the audio version and he narrates the book himself. I often avoid books where authors narrate their own books due to past experience. This book sounded intriguing and it was practically free so I gave it a go and now I can't imagine it without him narrating it. He added that special heart-felt narration that shined through!

Craig Childs is a master of description, vocabulary, and analogies as he describes both the surprising life in the dry desert and the dangerous flash flooding desert. Throughout his book he also shares his amazing repertoire of stories and knowledge as he enlightens readers to a hidden world.

What happened to the Anasazi... I've always heard they simply vanished? In this part travelogue and part research recap, Childs takes readers along as he searches for the answer. He is a master of storytelling and vivid description keeping readers entranced and entertained in both the process as well as the mystery. Whether you agree with his conclusion or not, this is an educational and enjoyable read!

This book is a pleasing blend of science, history, and memoir. As I read it, I felt like I was accompanying author Craig Childs back into prehistory. He traces the arrival of the first humans in North America and describes artifacts that tell how they lived and died. Childs travels to various archaeological sites, covering a wide swath of North America, with stops in Canada and the US, including Alaska, Oregon, New Mexico, Texas, Nevada, Florida, and more.

The book is structured in a loosely chronological order, from approximately 40,000 to 10,000 years ago. He investigates discoveries of the bones of mastodons, dire wolves, giant bears, mammoths, bison, lions, and sabertooth cats. He looks at the evidence of tools, plants, and diets. He includes interviews with selected scientists who provide expert viewpoints on dates, migrations, and lifestyles of these ancient people.

This book is right up my alley. One of the aspects I liked the best is the personable way these potentially dry topics are covered. The author has made it into a travelogue of sorts. He describes his traveling companions, and what they saw and did at the various sites they visited. This book examines so many fascinating topics, such as archaeology, anthropology, paleontology, ecology, geology, and geography. I you like to read about one or more of these, it is a wonderfully entertaining glimpse into the a past era.

4.5

In this book, Craig Childs takes the reader on a journey to the deserts of the Southwestern US and northern Mexico in search of water. When traveling in the desert on foot, he takes with him only enough water to get him to the next source. Childs’s writing is a combination of travel, adventure, nature, and science.

In a similar vein as Barry Lopez or Edward Abbey, Childs combines his personal musings with descriptions of his adventures in the wilderness. He educates while he entertains, providing information about fossils, animal life, and conservation. Anyone who has seen a flash flood in a desert area will appreciate his harrowing experiences with too much water during several of his treks.

It appears to be Childs’ goal to highlight the interdependence of humans and nature, and to encourage “a respect for life and its uniqueness that goes almost unspoken, a reverence for the incomprehensible diversity of organisms that has woven itself into patterns across the earth.” His writing is more poetic than many writers of non-fiction, though his topics are sometimes not as tightly focused. I can also recommend his engrossing book [b:Atlas of a Lost World: Travels in Ice Age America|36983480|Atlas of a Lost World Travels in Ice Age America|Craig Childs|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1512606875l/36983480._SX50_.jpg|57597792].

“I wrote this book, setting out to find who the Anasazi were and what became of them. I traveled deeper into the land than ever before, hunting through villages where no one lives, looking for ancient walkways across the Southwest. I searched the history of these people to give this granary context, to return it to a place in time when a civilization danced across this desert like rain.“

Craig Childs goes off on foot, literally, traveling great distances in the desert to track people who lived in the Southwestern US and Mexico centuries ago, formerly called Anasazi, and now referred to as ancestral Puebloans. This book of non-fiction has many facets – travelogue, archeology, sociology, and nature writing. It is organized geographically by location. These locations contain a collection of ruins, including cliff dwellings, pot shards, baskets, signal stations, murals, bones, and other evidence of past occupants.

“We climbed to these towering cliff dwellings and walked awestruck through their rooms and hallways. Some buildings were three stories tall, cave ceilings black with wood smoke. With frayed parts of baskets on the floors and painted bits of murals peeling off the walls, they appeared not to have been touched for centuries. We felt as if we had walked into a lost Mesa Verde. Not for an instant were we unaware of the antiquity surrounding us.”

This is a beautifully written book. Readers will almost feel like they are accompanying Childs on his journeys. He provides a vivid sense of place through detailed descriptions. We get to know the people he met, foods he ate, and of course, the sights, sounds, and textures of the environment. It is one to be read slowly and savored.

To fully appreciate this book, I think it requires a firm interest in the subject matter. Childs experiences these regions first-hand, telling the reader about the locations, history, and scientific facts. He weaves it into an archeological adventure. The photos are a nice touch.

interesting encounters with animals

The book is filled with incredible encounters with all sorts of wild creatures.

Very entertaining and intriguing read. The author does a great job of putting personal experience and adventures in to keep the reader interested while explaining the archeological evidence and possible theories of how ancient people lived and moved

Consulted for research purposes: nice description of how Arizona's landscapes transition, paired with vivid photographs and details of flora that should prove helpful.

Water, difficult to write about. Desert water, harder to find. A creditable job here. But I had to skim repeatedly over details of interest only to the author.

incredible read - captures the awe and experience of being in the canyons and desert in the southwest with prose that reads like poetry

I never knew I was a sucker for the Ice Age until I saw a fabulous exhibit on it at the Cincinnati Museum Center a few years back. This is the book I've been wanting to read ever since, and it hit all the right buttons. I love Childs' hazy retreat into history after discussing archaeological digs and camping trips, bringing the past to life. I now have an even greater appreciation for the world that came before ours and will look at the land in a whole new way.

Childs could make an Inuit long for the desert. Stick this slim volume in your backpack the next time you're hiking the canyon country washes.

A very interesting book tracing movement of Ice age humans and about the new findings that indicate humans were in Americas much earlier then 10,000-12,000 years ago, that today's "Native Americans" weren't the first

Author Craig Childs is perhaps best described as a “naturalist”, although his education is in journalism and “desert studies”. This is the first book of his I’ve read, and I found it absorbing. I’ve always been skeptical about journalists writing on science; they have tendencies to sensationalize, to base narratives on interviews rather than data, and to selling a particular story rather than exploring all the evidence. Childs avoids most these problems; there are no sensational discoveries, just patient and methodical archaeological work; there are interviews but they’re there to give archaeologists a chance to present data; and although Childs has a particular story he prefers, he gives space and references to archaeologists with other theories.

Childs is looking at the “mystery” of the Anasazi; the people who built at Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde and numerous other sites in the Southwest, then apparently disappeared. He systematically explores sites in the Southwest – sometimes alone, sometimes with archaeologists or other scientists. In a particularly impressive accomplishment, Childs hikes the Great North Road (after first caching water along it) while discussing its archaeological significance.

The back cover blurb describes the book as a “historical detective story” and there’s certainly some feel of that, but this isn’t a mystery novel where the master detective ties up all the loose ends in a magisterial dénouement. Instead Childs gathers bits and pieces of evidence and discusses how they might be significant.

Childs is sensitive to the native people he encounters but not obsequiously so. He apologizes to a Hopi archaeologist for using the term “Anasazi”; it’s a Navajo word and the Hopi prefer “Hisatsinom” or “Ancestral Puebloan”. He doesn’t tiptoe around evidence for gruesome violence – torture, cannibalism, and mass murder of children by burning alive – while noting that this raises hackles in natives: no one wants to believe their ancestors did these things.

I was particularly interested in Child’s use of the term “tethered nomadism”. He notes that although archaeologists have “restored” many of the sites – Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon, for example – research has found that the sites were “living” entities; rooms were continuously being demolished, rebuilt, filled with rubbish, emptied out again, and put to different purposes. Thus no particular “restoration” represents the site at any particular time. Sometimes an entire site was abandoned, only to be reoccupied years to decades later, suggesting the occupants had moved elsewhere for better farming or defense, then returned.

The is a smooth and easy read, simultaneously scholarly and personal. Relevant illustrations, a good glossary, and an extensive bibliography. Enthusiastically recommended to anyone interested in the archaeology of the North American southwest. I’ll definitely have to pick up Child’s other books.½

Interesting, but not particularly pleasant to read. For most of the first part, I felt like the author was scolding me and everyone else who's interested in archaeology. Later, he went on to broader views - but it's still objecting to both digging stuff up (because it destroys the full context) and (in one side mention) using various technologies to study things without digging them up (because we humans are all about touch and can't learn much from just looking). He talks to archaeologist, curators, pot-hunters, private collectors, and people who are digging up their own ancestors' stuff to sell - and appreciates all of them, but doesn't agree with them. His final conclusion is that he (still) wants to leave everything where it is, let it rot or be stolen or whatever as long as he's not the one to take it out of the ground. I really don't understand that choice, despite the whole book talking about it - it doesn't make sense to me. I kept getting glimpses of understanding and then he'd talk about the next thing and it stopped making sense again. I'm glad I read it, I guess - it was an interesting exposure to a lot of points of view - but I didn't get a lot out of it and I don't think I'm interested in rereading.

Craig makes armchair adventure a lot of fun. Impressed that he manages to make a living writing and adventuring this way. Imaginative premise for a book. Next life, maybe.

Magnificent recollections of close encounters of the best kind--with amazing wild animals in their natural habitats. Childs has to be one of the best hiking companions ever. It was pure joy to re-experience the American Southwest through his words and I learned something interesting in just about every essay. Recommending this one to every backcountry hiker I know.

This is a great review of current thinking on the origin of native Americans, using sciences of archeology, meteorology, oral history, geomorphology, and paleo-climate documentation, along with genetic data. I like how the author does the review by personally visiting key sites, often with his family, some friends, and the way he shows contrasting cultural changes in both time, and other regions of North America, Siberia, and Japan. The author gives a lot of space for the comments and convictions of archeologists who have studied both the artifacts and culture of the many sites he mentions.

The reader gets a well-rounded, well-documented look at what life was like throughout the last 30000 years across North America. The reader also gets an insight how life in the field is for archeologists, and even for the archeologist's kids. The author provides some information of the culture of raising kids many thousands of years ago, and the closeness of the different ancient cultures to specific now-extinct species of large mammals.

There are a few memorable statements in the last portion of the book, contrasting modern life with ancient life and values. At the end of the book the author contrasts the current annual event known as "Burning Man" in the Nevada desert to ancient gatherings in that same region 11000 to 14000 years previously.

I would rate this slightly higher if the book ended in a more dramatic way but I really enjoyed the way he included the daily lives of his family and friends, who accompanied him on numerous trips to the sites.

I recommend this book for those wanting to know the culture and migration routes of the early North Americans and also for those who simply like a good narrative of trips with family members and good friends into the "field" to see and understand things firsthand.

This book describes several trips the author made that essentially re-trace the steps our ancient forebears took when they first entered the North American continent. It's filled with passages of beauty that made me pause, think, re-read, and pause again.

When Craig Childs writes about about pre-history, he brings an emotional component that I find lacking in so much science writing. He makes the ancient, unknowable past the eternal present. This passage from Atlas of a Lost World: Travels In Ice Age America brought tears to my eyes:

“Paleolithic human remains tend to be children, not because their bones are somehow more long-lasting, but because their bodies were more likely to be cared for...Adults may have been left on the ground after death, to be scattered by weather and scavengers. Children were different, their loss felt more acutely, cared for even in death. They were, they are, true hope.”