Of Slash Pines and Manatees: A Highly Selective Field Guide to My Suburban Wilderness

Through stories of nature near at hand, a South Florida
writer offers a unique view of humans and the environment amid
development and change



Wings
and talons clatter against a windowpane. Foxes den under a deck. Pines
stand in quarter-acre lots, recalling a vanished forest. In this book,
Andrew Furman explores touchpoints between his everyday suburban life
and the environment in South Florida, contemplating his place in a
subtropical landscape stretching from the Everglades to the warm
Atlantic coast. Transportive vignettes of encounters in the natural
world blend with ordinary, all-too-relatable stories of home and family
life in these chapters. Puzzled and fascinated by the plants and animals
he meets while continually preoccupied by busy domestic routines,
Furman illustrates the beauty of his ＂suburban wilderness.＂ He also
reckons with changes and threats to the surrounding landscape. How, he
asks, should humans go about living in what is simultaneously one of the
most overdeveloped and most naturally beautiful states in the country?



Furman’s meditations give rise to an
environmental ethic that challenges distinctions between nature and
culture, wilderness and civilization, solitude and family life. Rather,
with humor and hope, he encourages readers to engage in life with the
mindset that the human and non-human are inextricably connected--and to
ask how they can better belong together.



Of Slash Pines and Manatees
is a creative and memorable example for anyone seeking to live
responsibly and richly in a world impacted by human activity. Furman
inspires readers to focus fiercely on the local, to conduct their own
adventures in the ecosystem outside their front doors, and to see that
even in the most overdeveloped areas, what is wild persists.





Funding
for this publication was provided through a grant from Florida
Humanities with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this
publication do not necessarily represent those of Florida Humanities or
the National Endowment for the Humanities.