Biologists - Biography, Natural History - United States, Biology - General & Miscellaneous, Nebraska - State & Local History

Back in Keith County

Name: Back in Keith County
Author: John Janovy
ISBN: 9780312064839

by John Janovy

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Overview

John Janovy "has produced his best book. . . . He gives us a superb example of nature writing and of life in the Great Plains, perhaps surpassing such admired works in the genre as Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac and William Warner's Beautiful Swimmers. Janovy takes us on a journey of intellectual serendipity, deriving extraordinary thoughts from ordinary circumstances."-Washington Post. "This 'human need for wilderness' is the trail winding through Back in Keith County . . . [to] the streams of John Janovy's 'inner cowboy country.' The fourteen essays are a very human mix of biology, sentiment, wandering observation and personal philosophy."-Smithsonian. Janovy's earlier Keith County Journal "met with astonishing success, and some reviewers compared the author to Henry David Thoreau. Back in Keith County returns to the part of Nebraska that Mr. Janovy knows and loves. . . . The book shows the area's wildlife-tiger beetles, toads, swallows, owls and a variety of fish-to be as special as its people. . . . The author also reflects on the intangible aspects of life. . . . The rich ramblings of these 179 pages are fascinating."-Kansas City Star. John Janovy Jr. is Varner Professor at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and director of the Cedar Point Biological Station. He is the author of Keith County Journal and On Becoming a Biologist, also available as a Bison Book.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Three books by biologist Janovy offer intimate looks at the natural world and the web of relationships among living things. (Mar.)

Library Journal

This trio was first published in 1982, 1979, and 1986, respectively. Keith County (LJ 1/15/79) and its Back in sequel (LJ 3/1/82) both cover the author's observations on plant and animal life in the fields and marshes of Keith County, NE. In Becoming a Biologist (LJ 2/15/86), Janovy's emphasis is not on the purely scientific side of the work but on the role and responsibility of the biologist.