Rating: 
Summary: WORLD'S WORST BOOK
Review: DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES READ THIS BOOK UNLESS YOU WANT TO BE BORED TO DEATH. I ONLY GOT TO PAGE TWENTY AND I WANTED TO BURN THIS HORRIBLE BOOK...
Rating: 
Summary: Provocative, entertaining, informative, and readable.
Review: I did not expect to enjoy this book, but I found myself hooked, from the opening chapter about beaver pelts to the final ones on mussels, sewage, water purity and buffalo. Although the book has a fair amount of scientific terms sprinkled throughout its pages, the author presents her information in a highly readable format that kept me turning pages.I am not sure that I find her solutions to restoring water purity possible to attain in late-20th-century America, but I have a lot better understanding of how we got to a time when we are paying a lot of money for bottled water.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent book on "underground" water cycle
Review: I think one of the best features of this book is the excelent job that Alice Outwater does when she describes the courses water takes underground, and the way living animals and plants help refill the water table. Technical terms she uses are easily understood through context, and the concrete examples she gives concerning specific areas in the United States, exemplify processes which can take place in other countries as well.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining and informative.
Review: If you have read the other reviews and this subject matter interests you, then by all means get this book. I thoroughly enjoyed it! Among many other interesting things Outwater writes about, I was surprised at the effect buffalos can have on groundwater, and my admiration for prairie dogs has increased even more. This book is a wonderful reminder of how man can act so foolishly without a clue to the consequences and also inspiring in its descriptions of the remedies man tries to correct these mistakes. My favorite chapter is "The Voyage of Rainfall."
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Summary: Clarity about the reason why our water is not yet clear/pure
Review: Many of the books on the increasingly common water shortages spend a great deal of their time listing mind numbing statistics. This author is authoritative but has the sense to pick a few key reasons why our entire US water infrastructure needs the help of nature. Beavers and prairie dogs may be what we need, at least in this country, to improve the percolating powers of the earth to clean what science alone cannot remove from our water. This is one of the few books in this area that is readable by anyone over mid-teens. I highly recommend this book for a history of why the Clean Water Act is not enough.
Rating:
Summary: Clarity about the reason why our water is not yet clear/pure
Review: Many of the books on the increasingly common water shortages spend a great deal of their time listing mind numbing statistics. This author is authoritative but has the sense to pick a few key reasons why our entire US water infrastructure needs the help of nature. Beavers and prairie dogs may be what we need, at least in this country, to improve the percolating powers of the earth to clean what science alone cannot remove from our water. This is one of the few books in this area that is readable by anyone over mid-teens. I highly recommend this book for a history of why the Clean Water Act is not enough.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent view of the big picture
Review: This book is a must read for everyone. It was well documented and interesting, covering a lot of information in a small, easily read book. It's the type of book that should be used in classrooms as required reading, for it promotes a greater understanding of our world.
Rating:
Summary: most informative book on water and environment
Review: This book opens one's eyes about water, the way the water cycle was before the continent was despoiled, little things like water percolating through leaves and big things like the beaver dams constructed by 200 million beavers...now, there are 200 million people! We are ordering extra copies to give away, to inform and to intrigue people in all walks of life.
Rating:
Summary: Jam-packed, Non-fat Eco-journey
Review: This is a superlative book; I recommend anyone living in the USA to read it. It is short, but each sentence is informative, there are no wasted words, no fat. It is scientifically and historically acurate to the smallest detail, but never dry. Outwater's writing style is flowing and musical, and each sentence takes you further and deeper into an Alice-in-Wonderland journey of the magic and marvel of each of the ecosytems she describes. She uses water as the vehicle for each journey, from molecules to the ocean. She describes the balances of Nature and how humans have fit in, or destroyed, these balances. I am a longtime outdoorsman, photographer, and conservationist, and had thought I was reasonably observant. But reading this book was like having a film removed from my eyes and being fitted with ultra-acute vision and hightened understanding and appreciation of our history and environment.
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Summary: If Aldo Leopold was alive today he would recommend this book
Review: This wonderful book is not about the molecule or its chemistry. It is the natural history of life's most basic building material as it has been used and abused on the North American continent over the past five hundred years or so. It would be reasonable to call this engaging book a short history of the ecology of America's water only, as vital as it is, water is not alive. The author traces the interactions of living systems with the natural water cycle to support the thesis that nature had water quality and quantity problems well sorted out before we humans came on the scene. She indicates that restoration of natural systems of porus grasslands, free-flowing streams,fresh-water mussels, beaver ponds, and mature woodlands may very well be the "best practise" for water quality management if this country is serious about making every river, lake and stream fishable and swimable. As I read this well crafted history it occurred to me that this book belongs in the same league as "A Sand County Almanac". I am sure Aldo leopold would agree.
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