About this title: Considered Lopez's finest book, this is part adventure tale and part meditation on the nature of exploration. Lopez writes about the aurora borealis, polar bears, killer whales, icebergs, and the nobility of the indigenous people of the Arctic. Winner of the American Book Award.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Bantam
Date Published: 1987
ISBN-13:9780553263961ISBN:055326396X
Description: Good in Unknown jacket. Good to Very Good 055326396X Tight spine, light cover and edge wear and no markings. Non-Fiction (#11012) read more
Edition: First edition.
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Bantam Books
Date Published: 1987
ISBN-13:9780553263961ISBN:055326396X
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Very Good Copy. Text clean and unmarked. Binding is tight. Spine is square and has creasing and wear. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Charles Schribner's Sons
Date Published: 1986
ISBN-13:9780684185781ISBN:0684185784
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Ex-library. HB: DJ has plastic and label attached, light wear. Book has some wear, missing 1st cover page, stamps, library writing, slight spine tilt. 464 p.; index, bibliography, maps read more
Description: Acceptable. Shows definite wear, and perhaps considerable marking on inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Acceptable. Shows definite wear, and perhaps considerable marking on inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Scribner Book Company
Date Published: 1986
ISBN-13:9780684185781ISBN:0684185784
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Pages are bright and unmarked throughout, binding is good. Book is in near fine condition except for slight bumps at corners. Sewn binding. Paper over boards. 464 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, New York
Date Published: 1986
ISBN-13:9780684185781ISBN:0684185784
Description: Fine in Fair jacket. Travel/Exploration. 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall. Fine condition, some soiling on edges of pages, solid binding, fairly clean pages, D.J. in fair condition, some tears on edges, some yellowing and soiling on flaps. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Scribner Book Company
Date Published: 1986
ISBN-13:9780684185781ISBN:0684185784
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Sewn binding. Paper over boards. Audience: General/trade. light edge wear, minor yellowing to very outer edges of inside of covers, 1 dog ear, no writing in text. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Scribner Book Company
Date Published: 1986
ISBN-13:9780684185781ISBN:0684185784
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Not in the best shape, but very readable. No creases, but kind of yellowed. Looks like it was read by a mechanic. Audience: General/trade. Imagination and desire in a Northern Landscape. Book design by Joel Schick. Maps by David Lindroth. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Scribner
Date Published: 1986
ISBN-13:9780684185781ISBN:0684185784
Description: Very Good in Fair jacket. DJ Corners/Edges Worn, Sm. Chips/Tears On DJ Edges, Page Ends Lightly Soiled, Text Is Unmarked, Good Reading Copy. read more
"What a knowing and writing of one of the most vast, special and fragile/tough places on earth that I have had the priviledge and pleasure of coming to know. Thank you, Wendy for bringing your copy along on our summer trek/canoe trip along the Jago. Thank you, Barry, for your profound and well written understanding and advocacy of and for this piece of our world."
"Perhaps it was the fascination of "Sergeant Preston of the Yukon" on television or Howard Hawks' "The Thing from Another World" on the big screen but ever since I was very young, I've had a sweaty-palm attraction for the Far North. The Arctic, a place so alien, so harsh, and yet so beautiful, it defied my imagination. It's an allure that has killed many and made heroes of others.
Winner of the 1986 National Book Award, "Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape" by Barry Lopez is considered perhaps the best book ever written on that wondrous, yet intrinsically deadly place. Lopez spent years traveling there and writing about its animals: polar bears, narwhals, beluga whales, musk oxen and caribou and the indigenous people that must survive in the unforgiving vastness of it all, day after day.
Lopez writes about the Inuit:
"Eskimos do not maintain this intimacy with nature without paying a certain price. When I have thought about the ways in which they differ from people in my own culture, I have realized that they are more afraid than we are. On a day-to-day basis, they have more fear. Not of being dumped into cold water from an 'umiak,' not a debilitating fear. They are afraid because they accept fully what is violent and tragic in nature. It is a fear tied to their knowledge that sudden, cataclysmic events are as much a part of life, of really living, as are the moments when one pauses to look at something beautiful. A Central Eskimo shaman named Aua, queried by Knud Rasmussen about Eskimo beliefs answered, 'We do not believe. We fear.'"
"To extend these thoughts, it is wrong to think of hunting cultures like the Eskimo's as living in perfect harmony or balance with nature. Their regard for animals and their attentiveness to nuance in the landscape were not rigorous or complete enough to approach an idealized harmony. No one knew that much. No one would say they knew that much. They faced nature with fear, with 'ilira' (nervous awe) and 'kappia' (apprehension). And with enthusiasm.""
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