A novelist’s thoughts on storytelling, a geologist’s soil restoration strategy, an environmentalist’s memoir, a celebration of Latino music influences, a poet’s meditations on her changing city 鈥�

Yes, and a best-selling author’s latest work, a podcast reborn as a book, a collaboration of world-class violists and even tales of brave Icelandic seawomen 鈥� at this festive time of year, 天美影视传媒 faculty creations can make great gifts for the Dawg on your shopping list.

Here鈥檚 a quick look at some gift-worthy books and music created by UW talents in the last year or so 鈥� and a reminder of some perennial favorites.

Charles Johnson, “.” Johnson, National Book Award-winning author of “” and longtime professor of English, discusses his art in a book stemming from a year of interviews. “There is winning sanity here,” the New York Times wrote: “Johnson wants his students to be ‘raconteurs always ready to tell an engaging tale,’ not self-preoccupied neurotics.” Published by .

Marisol Berr铆os-Miranda, Shannon Dudley and Michelle Habell-Pall谩n, ““ An extraordinary exhibit at the Smithsonian and Seattle’s Experience Music Project (now Museum of Pop Culture) comes to life as a book, detailing Latino influence on American popular music from salsa to punk, Chicano rock to the Miami sound. Berrios-Miranda is an affiliate associate professor of ethnomusicology, Dudley an associate professor of music and Habell-Pall谩n an associate professor in the Department of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies. It’s a dual-language volume 鈥� English on the right side, Spanish on the left. And as a bonus the authors have created an American Sabor on iTunes and Spotify; the book flags specific songs with a playlist icon. Published by 天美影视传媒 Press.

David R. Montgomery, “.” Montgomery, a professor of Earth and space sciences, won praise for his popular 2007 book “.” Several books later he returned in 2017 with this view of environmental restoration based on three ideas 鈥� “ditch the plow, cover up, grow diversity.” said Montgomery’s well-expressed views “will convince readers that soil health should not remain an under-the-radar issue and that we all benefit from embracing a new philosophy of farming.” Published by .

Margaret Willson, Willson is an affiliate associate professor of anthropology and the Canadian Studies Arctic Program. In her years working as a deckhand she came across historic accounts of a woman sea captain known for reading the weather, hauling in large catches and never losing a crew member in 60 years of fishing. “And yet people in Iceland told me there had been few seawomen in their past, and few in their present,” she said. “I found this strange in a country of such purported gender equality. This curiosity led to the research and all that came from it.” Published by .

Estella Leopold, “.” Leopold is professor emeritus of biology and the youngest daughter of , who wrote the 1949 classic of early environmentalism, “.” She returns to scenes of her Wisconsin childhood in this follow-up, describing her life on the land where her father practiced his revolutionary conservation philosophy. Published by .

David Shields, “.” Shields is a professor of English and the best-selling author of many books, starting with his 1984 novel “.” In 2017 he brought out this collection of essays that the New York Times called “a triumphantly humane book” and him “our elusive, humorous ironist, something like a 21^st century Socrates.” The paper’s praise continued: “He is a master stylist 鈥� and has been for a long time, on the evidence of these pieces from throughout his career. . . All good writers make us feel less alone. But Shields makes us feel better.” Published by .

Joseph Janes, “.” The year 2017 saw Janes’ popular podcast “” become a book under a slightly different title. Janes is an associate professor in the Information School who writes here about the origin and often evolving meaning of historical documents, both famous and less known. Some of his favorite “documents” are Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s fictional list of communists, the Fannie Farmer Cookbook and the backstory to what’s called the Rosie the Riveter poster. Published by .

Frances McCue, Well-known Seattle poet, teacher and self-described “arts instigator,” McCue is a senior lecturer in English. She was a co-founder of Hugo House, a place for writers, and served as its director for 10 years. Those experiences fuel this book of poems about the changing nature of the city. “This is Seattle. A place to love whatever’s left,” she writes. Published by .

Scott L. Montgomery, “.” Scientific research that doesn鈥檛 get communicated effectively to the public may as well not have happened at all, says geoscientist Montgomery in this second volume of a popular 2001 book. A prolific writer, Montgomery is a lecturer in the Jackson School of International Studies. “Communicating is the doing of science,” he adds. “Publication and public speaking are how scientific work gains a presence, a shared reality in the world.鈥澛� Published by .

Odai Johnson, “.” The true cultural tipping point in the run-up to the American Revolution, writes Johnson, a professor in the School of Drama, might not have been the Boston Tea Party or even the First Continental Congress. Rather, he suggests, it was Congress’ 1774 decision to close the British American theaters 鈥� a small act but “a hard shot across the bow of British culture.” Published by .

Here are some recordings from 2017 involving faculty in the UW School of Music:

Melia Watras, “.” Music professor Watras offers a collaboration from of world-class violists performing and sharing their own compositions with each other. Her own playing has been described in the press as “staggeringly virtuosic.” Richard Karpen, School of Music director, is among several guests. The title comes from the number of strings on the instruments used: two violas, one violin, and the 14-string viola d’amore. .

Cuong Vu 4-Tet, “.” A live collaboration between Vu, UW Jazz Studies chair, and renowned jazz guitarist Bill Frisell, who is an affiliate professor with the School of Music. Recorded in 2016 at Meany Theater, Vu and Frisell were joined by artists in residence Ted Poor on drums and Luke Bergman on bass. Released on .

Craig Sheppard, “.” Sheppard, longtime professor of music and a world-class pianist, plays sonatas and mazurkas by Frederic Chopin recorded live at Meany Theater in February 2017. The Seattle Times said of an earlier Chopin concert of Sheppard’s that his playing featured “exquisite details 鈥� it was playing that revealed layer after layer of music in each piece, as if one were faceting a gemstone. Released on .

Here are some other notable recent UW-authored books:

• Research on poverty and the American suburbs in “,” by Scott Allard, professor in the Evan School of Public Policy & Governance.
• Literature meets science to contemplate the geologic epoch of humans in “,” co-edited by Jesse Oak Taylor, associate professor of English.
• A popular science exploration of machine learning and the algorithms that help run our lives in “,” by Pedro Domingos, professor of computer science and engineering.
• A close look at four of America’s electoral adventures in “” by Margaret O’Mara, professor of history.
• A fully revised second edition of Earth and space sciences professor Darrel Cowan’s popular 1984 book, “.” This 378-page paperback is filled with details about Washington state geology.
• The story of a city’s transition from the Ottoman Empire to Greece in “” by Devin Naar, professor of history and Jewish studies.
• A city that “thinks like a planet” is one both resilient to and ready for the future that the changing Earth will bring, says Marina Alberti, professor in the College of Built Environments in “.
• Todd London, professor and director of the School of Drama, follows the professional theater experiences of 15 actors from the 1995 class of Harvard’s American Repertory Theater in “.”
• Dr. Stephen Helgerson, a UW School of Public Health alumnus and physician in preventive medicine for four decades, uses the novella form to tell of the influenza epidemic’s arrival in his state in “.”
• On the 500^th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, an exploration of faith that results in the common good in 鈥�,鈥� co-authored by Steve Pfaff, professor of sociology.
• Calm down from holiday 鈥� and tech-induced stresses 鈥� by thinking mindfully with “” by communication professor David Levy.

Finally, still-popular and pertinent books from a few years back include the second edition of “” by Jeffrey Ochsner, professor of architecture; “” by Randlett with Frances McCue; “” by Cliff Mass, professor of atmospheric sciences; and the ever-popular “” by Bill Holm, professor emeritus of art history. All of these were published by , which has many other great titles.

, Aldo’s youngest, has now written a memoir of her formative years, “.” She describes life on the land where her father practiced his revolutionary conservation philosophy. A professor of wildlife management at the University of Wisconsin, Aldo Leopold bought this property along the Wisconsin River as a weekend retreat. Those 80 acres had been forest, then farmland, and were abandoned once overgrazing depleted the soil. The Leopolds fixed up their weekend and planted native species 鈥� hundreds of pines and prairie plants 鈥� to resurrect some of the original vegetation.

From stories about wayward cows gobbling crops to the postman delivering Poco the squirrel, Estella Leopold infuses her book with vignettes of life at the shack. She paints an intricate, adventurous portrait of the land’s impact on her family and her father’s philosophy. from “Stories from the Leopold Shack: Sand County Revisited” Nov. 10 at 5:30 P.M. at the Burke Museum of History and Culture. She sat down with UW Today to discuss her book, the 鈥淪hack鈥� and the modern conservation movement.

What prompted you write this book?

Here and there, I started writing down stories about our Shack for the grandchildren in our family. I thought they ought to know how important life at the Shack was to all of us. A friend suggested that these reflections and stories would make a great book. I laughed her off. But eventually I came around to her idea. And two years later, here we are!

What was it like to leave your home in Madison, Wisconsin and head out to the shack every weekend?

We loved every minute out there! Dad would say something like, “Your mother and I are going out to the Shack this weekend. Anyone want to come with us?” And the children 鈥� all five of us 鈥� would shout, “Yes!”

It was fun being out in the shack. There was so much to experience. We witnessed seasonal changes 鈥� birds migrating, the succession of plants. We learned about the ecosystem, like which plants were invasive versus native, which plants deer liked and which ones the rabbits ate. We planted hundreds of baby pines and prairie plants. But it never felt like work, even when we were working to improve the Shack or managing and rehabilitating the land.

Your father took great care to replant the Shack’s environs with native plants.

Absolutely. Aldo Leopold believed that the time had come for us to understand, through experimentation, what the original vegetation of our area had been like before European settlement, and to find out what we could do to bring it back.聽 He said he had this new idea: “ecological restoration.” He wanted to restore native prairie and forest. He felt there was such a thing as “land sickness” 鈥� and this worn-out Wisconsin farm, where a farmer had planted corn year after year until the soil gave out, was such a case. He felt there was an ethical obligation, a responsibility, of a person living on the land to care for it well and to avoid mistreating the land. He believed strongly that science and ethics, though distinct, could not be separated. In a sense, as biographer Curt Meine wrote, that was the whole point of dad’s “.”

You and your four siblings all became scientists. Did your weekend experiences at the Shack have something to do with this?

Absolutely! Dad would always ask us questions. “Why do you think that happened?… What animal do you think made this track?” He was an excellent observer, and our time at the Shack instilled in us the desire to become keen observers ourselves. I loved plants and became a botanist, but my siblings chose other fields. My brother Luna, for example, studied erosion in the American southwest. As for me? I came here to the 天美影视传媒.

Speaking of which, what brought you out here?

I first worked for the U.S. Geological Survey as a paleobotanist, making field collections to show that fossilized pollen could be used as tools to correlate rocks and geological strata across the country. It was a foundational study, and such great fun. But one year in the 1970s, I took a job as a visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin and got hooked on teaching. I immediately looked for a permanent teaching position, and saw that the 天美影视传媒 needed someone to direct their ice-age research unit 鈥� the . I applied, got the position and came here to conduct research and teach. The rest is history!

What changes have you witnessed in the conservation community, and do you think your father’s book played any role in this shift?

Dad’s book came out in 1949, and for years sales bobbed along at a low level. But after the first Earth Day in 1970, a larger and more cohesive conservation movement began to grow rapidly. And dad’s book became an integral text for this movement and its philosophy. It has now sold millions of copies and has been translated into 11 languages.

The conservation movement is concerned with our impact on the land 鈥� from large changes like cutting down forests or building dams to smaller things, like the types of tools used in farming or mining. We began to think about the impact of government policy and the impact of consumer demand. In many ways, we’re still struggling along with these questions. But today the movement is quite widespread, and I believe dad’s land ethic is becoming more popular.

What policies today do you connect to your father’s land ethic?

The impacts of his ideas are wide-ranging. They typically focus around a set of values and balance, such as in “,” an idea he described in his essays. He equated a mountain with its natural heritage of wildlife. He described the wolf, for example, as the exciting native predator that serves an essential role to control the abundance of deer. Without the wolf, the overabundance of deer puts the mountain in trouble.

The aesthetic value of these large predators is linked with their natural environment. In modern ecological terms, they are predators. They belong there and the mountain is poorer without them. Yet recently, the Washington Department of Natural Resources faced : Will we keep our wolves in balance or will we gun them down in favor of cattle?

Another current issue is how to help the defend their sacred lands along the Missouri River threatened by an 鈥� as well as how to protect the river itself! We must address these big projects at the national level.

And are we?

Generally, I think Americans today are more equipped to deal with these large, national policies because Americans are more attentive now to the impacts of large industrial practices 鈥� like where our electricity and water come from. That is a good trend, because that’s the level of awareness we need to restore environments and confront climate change.

Here’s an example. Our country has a legacy of big dam projects, which have huge impacts on the health and productivity of river systems and fisheries. We use up so much of the Colorado River that, by the time it gets to Mexico, there’s just a trickle left. We need honest reviews of how we use water 鈥� and how we can use less of it to leave more for the ecosystem.

Your father also said we should set aside land 鈥� not for recreation 鈥� but as a preserve for ecosystem health and scientific study. How are we doing on this front?

Well, the was a huge achievement for this cause, because it is critical for conservation and ecological studies that we set aside large wilderness preserves, and also protect our public lands.

But conservation cannot end with setting aside land. That land must also be properly managed 鈥� from air quality to apex predators. And caring for these preserves becomes even more important with climate change. We must help the general public understand what a complex process this is, and why management is a key component of preservation. That’s something we learned in our time at the Shack, and the lesson remains true to this day.

What do you think is the ultimate legacy of those weekends your family spent at the Shack?

I hope people today understand the importance of giving our youth close, immersive experiences in nature. Having a family cabin in the country, owning or adopting some land as a community or family, even camping 鈥� something that helps you connect with nature.

I hope my father’s ideas also encourage parents to be less apprehensive about letting their children explore the outdoors, ask questions and come to love nature. Our entire future rests upon it. If our youth do not care about nature, then I ask you, who is going to defend it?

###

For more information on “Stories from the Leopold Shack: Sand County Revisited,” contact Leopold at eleopold@u.washington.edu or 206-685-1960. For more information on the Nov. 10 at the Burke Museum, contact Eileen Harte at 206-633-6443 or Eileen.harte@ubookstore.com.

So starts the book ““ co-written by 天美影视传媒 professor emeritus , who was a key player in the process.

“Your Honor, to allow building of summer homes on 34 million year-old fossils like these is like using the Dead Sea Scrolls to wrap fish in,” proclaimed the lawyer defending Florissant at the time.

Leopold and her friends filed court cases four times that summer to hold the line while Congress and finally President Richard Nixon acted on a bill establishing the .

Leopold answered a few questions about the book, co-written with National Park Service paleontologist Herbert Meyer, for UW Today.

What’s so special about these fossil beds?
No question, these are among America鈥檚 premier fossil beds. There is nothing like them anywhere. The preservation of the diverse insects and plants is incredible, and the fossils are abundant. Scientists have identified more than 1,700 species of organisms there, making it one of the richest fossil sites in the world.

The fossils are from the late Eocene when the climate of the Northern Hemisphere was tropical and amazingly warm from low latitudes to high. Then the climate began to cool and vegetation started to change. Much of Florissant’s significance comes from what it tells us about this period of change. The fossils fill a gap in the Eocene record found nowhere else.

What work did you do there?
As a botanist working for the U.S. Geological Survey, I wanted to identify the fossil pollen to amplify what we could learn from the plant leaves and fruits about the vegetation and the climate. To do that we built a modern pollen reference collection as an aid for botanically identifying the pollen in fossil floras to decipher what the ancient forests were like.

In my first report for the USGS, I expressed my wonderment that, in a single small piece of rock half an inch square, I found beautiful and abundant pollen grains, thousands of them. The data yielded an enticing picture of the vegetation and flora that existed then. It was exhilarating. It showed evidence of conifers, many familiar hardwoods, aquatic plants such as cattail, herbs such as evening primrose, grasses and ferns, and shrubs such as greasewood and soapberry.

What happened in 1962 when the National Park Service announced its interest in the area?
Well, of course real estate values went up, anticipating a government buyout. Real estate developers began buying plots at a pretty price for summer cottages along the margins of the proposed monument. Ranchers saw an opportunity to cash in.

What happened in 1969?
About the half of the proposed monument on the east was sold and we went to court. Hanging in the balance was whether the courts would 鈥� or even could 鈥搒uccessfully protect the fossil beds while the plans for the monument were put into place.

We were lucky and the courts stopped the development long enough for Congress to pass a bill and the president to sign it. In many important respects, it’s a benchmark case in U.S. environmental and constitutional law.