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  • Published: 16 March 2022
  • ISBN: 9781640095304
  • Imprint: Catapult
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 272
  • RRP: $36.00

Earth's Wild Music

Celebrating and Defending the Songs of the Natural World




At once joyous and somber, this thoughtful gathering of new and selected essays spans Kathleen Dean Moore's distinguished career as a tireless advocate for environmental activism in the face of climate change.

At once joyous and somber, this thoughtful gathering of new and selected essays spans Kathleen Dean Moore's distinguished career as a tireless advocate for environmental activism in the face of climate change.

In this meditation on the music of the natural world, Moore celebrates the call of loons, howl of wolves, bellow of whales, laughter of children, and shriek of frogs, even as she warns of the threats against them. Each group of essays moves, as Moore herself has been moved, from celebration to lamentation to bewilderment and finally to the determination to act in defense of wild songs and the creatures who sing them.

Music is the shivering urgency and exuberance of life ongoing. In a time of terrible silencing, Moore asks, who will forgive us if we do not save nature's songs?

  • Published: 16 March 2022
  • ISBN: 9781640095304
  • Imprint: Catapult
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 272
  • RRP: $36.00

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Praise for Earth's Wild Music

"Exceedingly knowledgeable, experienced, and expressive, this former philosophy professor shares tales of her adventures in the far north, prairies, woods, and beyond, all while emphasizing Earth's gloriously varied soundscape: the songs of birds, frogs, and whales; the calls of bats and wolves . . . Moore details all that we're losing to climate change, spiking gorgeously precise descriptions and dramatic tales of wildlife encounters with grim statistics about the escalating die-off of birds and other species, the 'great starving' underway in the oceans, and the ongoing destruction of forests and wetlands . . . We must prevent the looming silence, Moore asserts, by forming a chorus of voices raised in solidarity with all of Earth's wondrous and essential life forms." —Booklist (starred review)

"A heartfelt plea to save nature's cacophony. In a series of essays, many previously published, nature writer and environmentalist Moore offers an ardent warning against the perils of climate change and species endangerment . . . An enthusiastic argument that love, care, and defiance may still save the Earth." —Kirkus Reviews

"An enchanting book, Earth's Wild Music draws the reader into the sounds of the natural world and provides inspiration to reverse their decline. Kathleen Dean Moore has a very special and authentic voice. A compelling and magical read." —Thomas E. Lovejoy, Senior Fellow at the United Nations Foundation and Professor of Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University

"Kathleen Dean Moore rings the bell 'for every sacred emptiness,' and the result is at once heartbreaking and uplifting. Earth's Wild Music is a love song to a vanishing world." —Elizabeth Kolbert, author of  Pulitzer Prize-winning The Sixth Extinction