Earth's Wild Music

“Exceedingly knowledgeable, experienced, and expressive, this former philosophy professor shares tales of her adventures in the far north, prairies, woods, and beyond, all while emphasizing Earth’s gloriously varied soundscape: the songs of birds, frogs, and whales; the calls of bats and wolves . . . Moore details all that we’re losing to climate change, spiking gorgeously precise descriptions and dramatic tales of wildlife encounters with grim statistics about the escalating die-off of birds and other species, the ‘great starving’ underway in the oceans, and the ongoing destruction of forests and wetlands . . . We must prevent the looming silence, Moore asserts, by forming a chorus of voices raised in solidarity with all of Earth’s wondrous and essential life forms.” —Booklist (starred review)

“A heartfelt plea to save nature's cacophony. In a series of essays, many previously published, nature writer and environmentalist Moore offers an ardent warning against the perils of climate change and species endangerment . . . An enthusiastic argument that love, care, and defiance may still save the Earth.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Kathleen Dean Moore rings the bell 'for every sacred emptiness,' and the result is at once heartbreaking and uplifting. Earth's WIld Music is a love song to a vanishing world.” —Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Pulitzer Prize-winning The Sixth Extinction 

"Awakening our listening faculty may be the saving grace of our wayward and visually inebriated species. Kathleen Moore is an ambassador for listening, and Earth's Wild Music is a guidebook for how this untapped sense can lead us to falling in love with our true home: the world of nature." —Paul Winter, saxophonist, composer of "Wolf Eyes"

"In this hugely intelligent and captivating collection of essays, Kathleen Dean Moore makes clear what is at stake in the world: 'What we do now will change everything forever.' Her pages dance to the rich cadences of humpback whales, meadowlarks, and canyon wrens, knowing how fragile their music is amidst the Sixth Extinction of wild species. Her words shimmer to the songs of the last old-growth forests, sensitively attuned not only to their ancient, living memories but also the complex wonders they hold on to. And through her clarity of voice and wise vision of co-existence, she reminds us that we still have a choice as to the path we choose into the future. Earth's Wild Music is both a poignant meditation on extinction and a stirring call to resistance; it brings the radiant songs of the wild world within hearing." —Julian Hoffman, author of Irreplaceable: The Fight to Save our Wild Places   

“An enchanting book, Earth’s Wild Music draws the reader into the sounds of the natural world and provides inspiration to reverse their decline. Kathleen Dean Moore has a very special and authentic voice. A compelling and magical read.” —Thomas E. Lovejoy, Senior Fellow at the United Nations Foundation and Professor of Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University

"These pages contain an almost magical combination of superlatively fine-eyed observation, heartbreakingly deep-felt love, and joyous exaltation. Kathleen Dean Moore is a wild-hearted, clear-eyed poet, a voice of the living world, who urges us into caring, dares us to fall in love." —Carl Safina, author of Becoming Wild

"Kathleen Dean Moore is a celebrant of life, a philosopher in love with the world and enraged by destruction of its bounty. She brings her fierce attention and generosity of spirit to the varieties of kinship that enjoy Earth’s astonishing soundtrack. Loon, wolf, meadowlark, bear, canyon wren, Beethoven, Puccini, and Leonard Bernstein all assist her in this paean and plea for awakening the moral imagination and getting real about facing up to and transforming human destructiveness." —Alison Hawthorne Deming, author of Zoologies: On Animals and the Human Spirit

"Passionate and poetic, Kathleen Dean Moore creates a splendid ode to the biophonies extant in a shape-shifting world." —Bernie Krause, author of The Great Animal Orchestra: Finding the Origins of Music in the World’s Wild Places

“In this poetic tribute to the beauty of the earth and its inhabitants, Kathleen Dean Moore brings her readers in touch with the spiritual way that birds and mammals, other animals, and natural sounds demonstrate our need to preserve ecosystems. A lovely read.” —Peter H. Raven, President Emeritus, Missouri Botanical Garden