April 14, 2008 Bill McKibben to Speak on "American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau" at the Library on April 29

Each advance in environmental practice in our nation’s history “was preceded by a great book,” says writer, activist and editor Bill McKibben in his introduction to “American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau,” an anthology of American environmental writing. McKibben will discuss the book, which he edited, at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, April 29, in the Montpelier Room on the sixth floor of the James Madison Building, 101 Independence Ave., S.E., Washington, D.C. Copies of the book will be on sale and available for signing. Part of the Books & Beyond series hosted by the Center for the Book, the event is free and open to the public; no tickets are required. The book’s publisher and the program cosponsor, The Library of America, is a longtime reading promotion partner of the Center for the Book. “American Earth” is an unprecedented, provocative and timely anthology that brings together much of the best that has been thought and said about the interconnectedness of the natural world, our place in it and our responsibility to it. The forward is by Al Gore. In the volume, readers will find touchstones of the environmental imagination—the essays of Henry David Thoreau, John Muir and John Burroughs; Aldo Leopold’s “A Sand County Almanac”; and Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring.” They are set alongside the inspiring story of an emerging activist movement, as revealed by newly uncovered narratives of pioneering campaigns for wilderness conservations, passages from landmark legal opinions and legislation, and searing protest speeches. McKibben is the author of many books, including “The End of Nature” (1989), the first account of global warming for a general audience, and most recently “Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future.” Since 2006, he has organized and led many demonstrations on behalf of environmental causes. He is a scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College. The Library of Congress, the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution, is the world’s preeminent reservoir of knowledge, providing unparalleled collections and integrated resources to Congress and the American people. The Center for the Book was created in 1977 to use the resources of the Library of Congress to stimulate public interest in books and reading. For information about its program, publications and reading promotion partnership networks, visit www.loc.gov/cfbook/.