We’re very pleased to tell you that DAVID DOUGLAS, A NATURALIST AT WORK, Jack Nisbet’s fascinating look at the legendary Pacific Northwest naturalist, has debuted at #10 on the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association bestseller list!
Cascadia Weekly says of Nisbet’s work:
As exemplified in David Douglas: A Naturalist at Work, Nisbet’s method of interpreting regional history isn’t the usual staid recitation of dates and facts. In pursuit of bringing stories nearly 200 years old to life, he walks trails, visits reservations and tribal elders, charters pilot boats, climbs trees and wild-harvests food. His studies may begin by perusing old maps or historical journals in dusty archives, but his curiosity soon has him bounding out the door and into the same landscapes his subjects once roamed… What is noteworthy about his approach—by first reporting, then inhabiting and finally extending these early explorations—is that he actually places himself in direct lineage with the great literary naturalists of America. Nisbet is a modern-day John Muir, climbing to the tops of precarious fir trees to collect cones, and a contemporary of Henry David Thoreau, digging up native camas bulbs in order to taste the earthy fruits of the land.
The book, which according to The Bookmonger, makes “perceptive connections between people and place, and tantalizing connections across time,” is the companion volume to a major exhibit on David Douglas that Nisbet curated at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture. Go check it out if you’re in the Spokane area!
If you can’t make it to the museum in person, you can listen to this interview Nisbet did with Spokane Public Radio.
