“A luminous almanac” — David Abram
Wild Douglas County, published in 2007 by Mammoth Publications, includes essays on ecoregions, ways of water, woodlands, and prairie; a seasonal weekly guide to our local time-place continuum; plus seasonal charts of the wildflowers, woodland vegetation, insects, reptiles, and amphibians, mammals, seasons year-round birds, aquatic life, and food from the land.
“Ken Lassman is a superb naturalist and Wild Douglas County is a luminous almanac — a kind of talisman and many bladed life-tool…for coaxing the imagination out, through ouf eyes, into the breathing landscape that supports us, a practical handbook for aligning our lives to the wider life of the land. Like the precise observations and insights laced throughout the text, the circular charts toward the back (which track, in the clearest possible manner, the seasonal cycles of the local plants and animals) help us to hone our animal senses, tuning our nervous systems to the frequencie and rhythms of the common ecosystem. If every region had such a savvy handbook as this, then the prognosis for humankind, and for the planet, would be far more hopeful than it seems at present” — David Abram, author of The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World
“In the spirit of bioregionalism, Ken Lassman captures the beauty of biodiversity in the lands he knows and sees around him. The seasons and cycles of life around this special place in northeast Kansas are illuminated with insights and the stories they offer.” — Kelly Kindscher, author of Medicinal Wild Plants of the Prairie: An Ethnobotanical Guide
“Ken Lassman writes, ‘Our own survival may depend on our learnign the wisdom in each story of survival,’ and his wise, readable book tells compelling stories of compass plants, red tail hawks, opossums and all residents of one county, Douglas County in river valley country of Kansas. This focus on the local expands to fit into a global network of time and geography. This more than a nature book or practical field guide to the future; Wild Douglas County buoys readers iwth hope for a better planet.” — Denise Low, author of Words of a Prairie Alchemist
“With his new book, Wild Douglas County, he aims to show people that they can have surprising, soulful connections with nature without traveling far from their own back yard. He points out things they might have missed just overhead or right under their noses. Written in the same sagacious, gentle style as Lassman’s earlier book Seasons and Cycles: Rhythms of Life in the Kansas River Basin, Wild Douglas County can woo even the most reluctant person out of the air-conditioning.” — Kelly Barth
Wild Douglas County is available at many local Lawrence book stores, including The Raven, Hastings, Signs of Life, The Merc, Oread Bookstore, and Kansas Natural History Museum.
Review: From Larryville
Kaw Valley Almanac 