A support group and a lab in the St. Louis area provide resources for people with the allergy to mammal products — and evidence that its effects can be reversed.
A man and his dog play fetch at dusk on the Mississippi River in Greenville, Mississippi in 2016. Credit: Carol M. Highsmith via Library of Congress
We're enjoying a windfall of incredible books about the river and watershed we cover this year -- its complex history, ecology, culture and future.
In The Great River: The Making & Unmaking of the Mississippi, Louisiana-based author (and friend of the Desk) Boyce Upholt explores "what’s been done to the Mississippi, but also why it’s been done," as he wrote in his newsletter Southlands on May 23. "And that why has everything to do with how the river has been seen."
Upholt recommends six other new books about the Mississippi -- from a state-by-state guide to its natural wonders, to a searing retelling of Huck Finn focused on the enslaved character Jim, plus a paddling memoir, photos, essays, fiction and more.
"There is an old story by Jorge Luis Borges, so brief that it’s basically just a startling image: a map so large that it perfectly covers the territory it’s meant to represent," Upholt writes in his newsletter about these books. "For obvious reasons, people found this map to be of little use, so they left it to rot until just a few tattered bits remained.
"'I’ve come to think of the modern river as something like this map: it’s an imagined canvas we’ve stretched atop the geological frame of the continent,' I write in The Great River," he continues. "This set of books offers many details about the map, and about the actual river beneath. Seeing them all here, together, gives me hope that, through the rips in the canvas, more and more people are beginning to see a different river beneath."
🏷️ Readers of our newsletter can get a special discount on The Great River through July 31 by clicking here and using the code WATERDESK for 20% off at checkout*. And stay tuned for details on an event we'll be doing with Upholt in Missouri this fall!
Thanks for reading,
Annie Ropeik Ag & Water Desk Assistant Director
*Shipping and taxes still apply; U.S. orders only; Offer expires 7/31/24.
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Spring crops sprout in Missouri farm fields north of St. Louis on April 24, 2024, in Illinois. Aerial support provided by LightHawk. Credit: Eric Lee, St. Louis Public Radio
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