Our Review
Of Wind
Dear RALPH:
So much for your reviewer's "science puffery" theory about Jan DeBlieu's book Wind. It just won the John Burroughs Medal for excellence in natural history writing. Incidentally, Rachel Carson is a previous winner of this award.
Houghton Mifflin
Lissa_Warren@hmco.com
Dear RALPH:
I don't understand what you are trying to do. You seem to want to spend all your time tearing down. Why don't you build a little? Wind: How the Flow of Air Has Shaped Life, Myth, and The Land is a wonderful piece of writing, one of the best pieces of natural history that I've read. (Since your ignorant and malicious review came out, it has won several prizes.)
I'm intersted in the way things work. It's apparent to me that your reviewer doesn't feel that way. All he wants to do is insults, like "she puts these in the brain Mix Master," along with stupid puns, calling the book, "a made-to-order bit of scientific puffery which, if you excuse the expression, won't blow your mind."
Pray, don't your writers have anything better to do than to show off inflated --- dare I say "puffed-up" --- egoes by damning the few worthwhile books to be published in Natural History.
The author is one Igancio Schwartz. What's his field of endeavor? Trashing others efforts so he can show off? Does he have a full-time job that qualifies him to be so catty?
Being critical doesn't mean being mean. Catch my drift?