AIR

The author brings to life this quickest, most sustaining, most communicative element of the earth.

Air sustains the living. Every creature breathes to live, exchanging and changing the atmosphere. Water and dust spin and rise, make clouds and fall again, fertilizing the dirt. Twenty thousand fungal spores and half a million bacteria travel in a square foot of summer air. The chemical sense of aphids, the ultraviolet sight of swifts, a newborn's awareness of its mother' s breast all take place in the medium of air. Ignorance of the air is costly. The artist Eva Hesse died of inhaling her fiberglass medium. Thousands were sickened after 9/11 by supposedly "safe" air. The Sahel suffers drought in part because we fill the air with industrial dusts. With the passionate narrative and wide-ranging erudition that have made Logan's work a touchstone for nature-lovers and environmentalists, Air is a treasure trove of discovery drawn from the air. William Bryant Logan is a certified arborist and Quill & Trowel Award-winning writer. He is the author of Oak and Dirt, the latter of which was made into an award-winning documentary. He lives in New York City.