Village Books in Historic Fairhaven

An Indie-Next Selection for February 2010! 

Fundamentalism meets deep ecology in this unusual memoir.  The author’s childhood in the high Sierra with her forest ranger father led her to embrace the entire natural world, while her Southern Baptist relatives prepared eagerly and busily to leave the world.  Peterson survived fierce “sword drill” competitions demanding total recall of the Scriptures and awkward dinner table questions (“Will Rapture take the cat, too?”) only to find that environmentalists with prophecies of doom can also be Endtimers.  Peterson paints such a hilarious, loving portrait of each world that the reader, too, may want to be Left Behind.

Brenda Peterson is a nature writer and novelist, author of 15 books, including a New York Times “Notable Book of the Year,” Duck and Cover. Her memoir, Build Me an Ark: A Life with Animals, was chosen as a “Best Spiritual Book of 2001,” a One Spirit and Quality Paperback Club book, and is just out in a Chinese edition. Her ten non-fiction books, including Living by Water and the National Geographic book, Sightings: The Gray Whale’s Mysterious Journey established her as a prominent creative non-fiction writer, extensively profiled in America’s Nature Writers.

Brenda Peterson’s non-fiction has appeared in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Reader’s Digest, Christian Science Monitor, and Utne Reader. Her work is featured in national magazines, including Sierra, Oprah magazine, and Orion: People and Nature. She is a frequent columnist for the Seattle Times and since 1993 she has contributed environmental commentary for both Seattle National Public Radio stations. Since 1980, Peterson has taught writing in universities and privately.

For the past two decades, Peterson has studied and written about animals, especially marine mammals and wolves. She is the founder of the grassroots conservation group Seal Sitters, based in Seattle.

With Toni Frohoff, she co-edited the Sierra Club anthology Between Species: Celebrating the Dolphin-Human Bond. Her bestselling anthology Intimate Nature: The Bond Between Women and Animals is often taught in university courses.