The Sylvan Path: A Journey Through America's Forests

by Gary Ferguson

An impressionistic odyssey through the beauty of America's forest wilderness captures the meaning of these last wild places, sharing interviews with men and women whose lives have become intertwined with America's woodlands

164 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1997

About the author

Nature writer, 1956-
Award-winning author Gary Ferguson has written for a variety of national publications, including Vanity Fair and the Chicago Tribune, and is the author of twenty-six books on nature and science. His memoir, The Carry Home, which the Los Angeles Times called “gorgeous, with beauty on every page,” was awarded “Best Nature book of the Year” by the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute. Gary is the co-founder of Full Ecology, with his wife, social scientists Mary M. Clare.

Reviews

[Joan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable book that entices you out into the woods.

[Tomherndon · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been some time since I read this and it didn't leave strong impressions like a Bill Bryson treatise of similar title.

2017: I reread this text again and rereading from a Naturalist point of view rather than just a spectator gave the book deeper meaning. The change in reading bias increases an appreciation of insight from his first person narrative of the spots he dropped in to visit and some of the people he interviewed.

I didn't see anything 'new' to me in it, but appreciate some of the messages I've been reading reiterated in his pages. I'm wondering how much of his work has infiltrated the writings of others as his is 1997 publication . . .