CONSERVATION CORNER
December 4, 2006
Books Just In Time For Christmas
by James L. Cummins

There is nothing better than a great book for Christmas.

Atchafalaya Houseboat: My Years in the Louisiana Swamp by Gwen Roland is a great book and an easy read, especially by a warm fire.

It discusses what happened when two people decided to leave civilization and re create the vanished simple life of their great grandparents in the heart of Louisiana's million acre Atchafalaya River Basin Swamp.

Without power tools or building experience they constructed a floating dwelling. Towed deep into a Louisiana swamp, it was their home for 8 years. This is the tale of the not so simple life they made together - days spent fishing, trading, growing food and growing up.

Gwen Roland recounts her 8-year voyage of discovery - about swamp life, wildlife and herself. A keen observer of both the natural world and the ways of human beings, she transports readers to an unfamiliar and exotic place, preserving her great adventure for those who did not make the trip in person.

Atchafalaya Houseboat: My Years in the Louisiana Swamp (ISBN 0-8071-3089-3) is published by the Louisiana State University Press. One may order a copy (cloth) for $22.95 by calling them at (225) 578-6294.

Another great book is Shadow and Shelter: The Swamp in Southern Culture by Anthony Wilson. In Shadow and Shelter: The Swamp in Southern Culture, Anthony Wilson examines the relationship between the ecological history of the Southern swamp and the evolution of Southern culture from the colonial era to the present.

To early European colonists and plantation dwellers, the swamp was a place linked with sin and impurity, and an obstacle to agricultural development. For many, the swamp meant something very different, providing shelter and sustenance and offering separation and protection from the plantation culture.

As the South comes to look more and more like the rest of America, colonized by the relentless progress of strip malls and suburban sprawl, southern wooded wetlands have come to embody the last part of the South that will always be beyond cultural dominion.

Examining the Southern swamp from a perspective informed by ecocriticism, literary studies and ecological history, Shadow and Shelter considers the many representations of the swamp and its evolving role in an increasingly multicultural South.

Shadow and Shelter: The Swamp in Southern Culture (ISBN 1-57806-804-5) is published by the University Press of Mississippi. One may order a copy (hardback) for $45.00 by calling them at (601) 432-6205.