8.28.2004
Where Have All the Locusts Gone?
I picked up a book this week and absolutely devoured it. Consumed it like a locust swarm. The book is Locust by Jeffery A. Lockwood, a professor at University of Wyoming. The book investigates the history of the Rocky Mountain locust in shaping the west and proposes a theory for its extinction near the turn of the last century.
What I found most enjoyable about the book is the engaging writing style. Lockwood carries the same breezy freedom of many western writers. He has much of the folksy style that originated with Mark Twain and continues in his heirs Patrick F. McManus and Joel Vance. This would be entirely unremarkable if it weren't for the fact that Lockwood is an entomologist. He hunts bugs.
O.K. in all fairness, they aren't bugs, they're insects (arthropods for you biology fans). But in any case, Lockwood has shown himself to be a writer. An engaging writer who managed to write a book that told a gripping mystery that was full of history, comedy, drama, tragedy and loss. It goes beyond a natural history text and reads more like a detective story. If I didn't know any better, I would have said that this is a companion piece to a NOVA broadcast. And if it isn't it ought to be. This was a wonderful piece of reading that makes me want to check out his earlier book, Grasshopper Dreaming.
Check it out for yourself.
I picked up a book this week and absolutely devoured it. Consumed it like a locust swarm. The book is Locust by Jeffery A. Lockwood, a professor at University of Wyoming. The book investigates the history of the Rocky Mountain locust in shaping the west and proposes a theory for its extinction near the turn of the last century.
What I found most enjoyable about the book is the engaging writing style. Lockwood carries the same breezy freedom of many western writers. He has much of the folksy style that originated with Mark Twain and continues in his heirs Patrick F. McManus and Joel Vance. This would be entirely unremarkable if it weren't for the fact that Lockwood is an entomologist. He hunts bugs.
O.K. in all fairness, they aren't bugs, they're insects (arthropods for you biology fans). But in any case, Lockwood has shown himself to be a writer. An engaging writer who managed to write a book that told a gripping mystery that was full of history, comedy, drama, tragedy and loss. It goes beyond a natural history text and reads more like a detective story. If I didn't know any better, I would have said that this is a companion piece to a NOVA broadcast. And if it isn't it ought to be. This was a wonderful piece of reading that makes me want to check out his earlier book, Grasshopper Dreaming.
Check it out for yourself.
