Non-fiction Books"Rediscovering Rawlings, a River and Time"
A colorful immersion in the experience of filming and considering nature and literature in modern Florida Losing It All To Sprawl: How Progress Ate My Cracker Landscape
Named one of the "Best Books of 2006" by the national Library Journal.  THIS IS THE BUTTRESSED STUMP of a bald cypress tree that was over 2,000 years old when cut. I'm in a remote dry swamp that's part of the Wekiva-Ocala Corridor in Lake County, surrounded by the remains of trees logged here 75 to 100 years ago. (Check out the water mark on the trunks from when the bottomland was in flood.) There was no trail here, just a narrow animal path that, as we descended into the dry swamp, dissolved. We saw fresh black bear tracks and almost-ripe wild blueberries and, in the creek, a dead deer. I was cheered that new cypress, like the one in the left of the photo, are thriving here. This is a wild swatch of relic Florida landscape that has kept its quiet, and I am thankful for that. (Photo: Steve Phelan; June 2007).  ANOTHER HABITAT in the biologically diverse Wekiva-Ocala Corridor. This is a pine flatwoods in the Lower Wekiva River State Preserve. My sojourns to natural places like this help provide some balance to the otherwise chaotic experience of being afflicted by rampaging, poorly executed development, otherwise known as sprawl.  We're on a tributary of the Lower Amazon in Guyana, Brit ex-pat Colin Edwards and me in the background, and two of our AmerIndian friends to the fore. I wrote a long narrative piece about my weird and wonderful experiences in Guyana for Salon.com, and it's excerpted in my book, "Sunken Cities," an adventure-travel anthology. [Photo: Greg Johnston] Sunken Cities, Sacred Cenotes and Golden Sharks:
Travels of a Water-Bound Adventurer (University of Georgia Press. Spring 2004) Bill Belleville's "Sunken Cities, Sacred Cenotes and Golden Sharks" is an engaging collection of essays and creative non-fiction stories in which the author travels the backwaters of Florida, the Caribbean and Latin America in pursuit of adventure and discovery. His introduction explains his lifelong connection with water, revealed in his memories of growing up on a peninsula. As an adult, he quests for ways in which the aquatic world shapes local cultures and defines a 'sense of place.' In the upper Amazon, he searches for the Boto, the mythological freshwater dolphin. Later, in the lower Amazon, Belleville journeys into the heart of Guyana to explore the primal "Lost World" jungle landscape. His adventures take him to the once-prosperous 17th century pirate city of Port Royal, Jamaica---now under 30 feet of water. In the Dominican Republic, he joins archaeologists as they excavate rare pre-Columbian Taino artifacts from the dark depths of a sacred cenote. Adventure leads him to the Galapagos Islands where he follows in Charles Darwin's footsteps in the "cradle of evolution." He joins native fishermen in Trinidad on a hunt for the rare golden hammerhead shark. In Cuba, he dives off the isolated southern coast at night in search of the illusive flashlight fish. In the Turks and Caicos, he tries to figure out why queen conch are so cherished that they are included on that country's national seal. WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING: • "This collection of essays brings the reader to places that are noted for archaeological treasures, rare plants and animals or great scenery, and water if the common denominator. Belleville, travel writer, scuba diver, and boater, seems always to be wet or preparing to be wet. As his armchair cmpansions, readers may stay dry, but the expressive and descriptive proses allows them to experience the discovery and excitement as if they were there themselves. In the Amazon, the quest is for a freshwater dolphin. In the Florida Keys, it's the quiet backwaters that preserve the past, and so on around the globe. Belleville is an old fashioned adventurer, excited by what he finds, seeking just for the joy of finding. He must also be a man of great charm as he seems able to coax the most arcane information from his local guides....As a book to read at leisure, it is a fine treat." -- Danise Hoover, Booklist • "I admire the precision, the poignancy and the passion of Bill Belleville's prose." --Don George, Lonely Planet Global Travel Editor • "What splendid adventures Bill Belleville guides us through! He is one of our great modern explorers, questing for gods in a time of technology, lusting for life. Here in this sensuous and unforgettable book he navigates us as deftly through language as he does Amazonian rivers or limestone fountains deep within the earth. His journey narratives are fluid, fresh, and piercingly poetic; what he finds is ceaselessly fascinating. I would travel with Bill Belleville to the ends of the earth." --Janisse Ray, author of 'Wild Card Quilt: Taking a Chance on Home' & 'Ecology of a Cracker Childhood'. • "Bill Belleville's writing is like a stream of phosphorescence in the ocean that he loves so well. Belleville's language creates a dreamy double vision, blending archetype and precision so well that the reader is convinced he has not merely read about jeweled morays and pink dolphins, but floated alongside them in tropical waters. These tales are not hairy-chested, macho attempts to conquer snowcapped peaks, but adventures into sensuality and meaning." --Susan Zakin, author of 'Coyotes and Town Dogs: Earth First! and the Environmental Movement' • Environmental writer and filmmaker Bill Belleville's not content to be at the water's edge, idly senescent in sea breezes and salt air. Instead, he's driven to cross over the edge and into the sea to dive in its depths and become a part of the hidden universe. It's a world that, like the mythological sirens, has called him since he was a 7-year-old, looking wide-eyed through his first swim mask in a pool in Sarasota, Florida, and peering through the glass bottom of a tourist boat in Silver Springs as bass, mullet, and bluegill darted above a solid, still alligator. 'One day, I promised myself, I would learn more about this other reality,' Belleville says. 'Someday, I would have adventures and they would take me across the water and under it.' Those adventures have taken the Maryland native across the world to desolate undersea places, to watery graveyards, sunken wrecks and treasures and human bones left behind in a mysterious cenote to appease old gods. A resident of Sanford, Florida, Belleville has helped produce documentaries for Discovery Channel Online and written several books and articles in a style that is poetic, down-home and scholarly. His latest work, "Sunken Cities, Sacred Cenotes and Golden Sharks," published this spring, is a collection of true tales of his travels that seamlessly weaves history, archaeology, ecology and some heart-pounding terrors and triumphs in the deep. Through his recollections and empathy for what was, he stirs up old souls amid the silt. For example, Belleville descends five stories into a sacred cenote---a deep limestone sinkhole---in a Dominican Republic jungle, and then into a pool of water as its based where ancient Taino people tossed sacrifices. Heart thumping, a nitrogen buzz setting in from his breathing apparatus, he fins past a natural shelf and discovers prehistoric and human bones that scientists missed. He apologizes to the Taino gods for his trespass. In Guyana, he finds he way through the Iwokrama rain forest preserve, hears monkey screams and travels upriver with a rum-soaked crew, motoring past brilliant macaws and green parakeets. The author also drifts in scuba gear over the 300-year-old sunken city of Port Royal in Jamaica while he wonders about the souls lost in the 1692 earthquake and the bones of children found beneath a toppled wall. On the Suwannee River in Florida, he explores some of the river basin's 200 springs "traveling into the cellar of Florida," and sets up night camp on a sandbar, catching three pairs of red eyes glinting in the path of his flashlight beam. Both a dauntless and fearless wet-suited explorer, Belleville swims thoughtfully into primitive time and shares them with us." -- Susan P. Respess. "Coastal Cruising" magazine. May/June 2004 "Deep Cuba: The Inside Story of an American Oceanographic Expedition" (2002)
"A fascinating dive into two worlds: the undersea kaleidoscope where mysterious creatures make their home, and the politics and culture of a scientific expedition. Bill Belleville is an astute observer and a great companion..." - Jan DeBlieu, winner of the Burroughs Medal for Nature Writing for "Wind" "'Deep Cuba' makes an eloquent argument for deep sea diving, scientific inquiry and ending the embargo. I learned something new on every page." - Tom Miller, author of 'Trading With The Enemy: A Yankee Travels Through Castro's Cuba" "Engaging...Environmental writer and diver Bill Belleville works hard to achive a documentary-maker's dream: Exciting a broad public empath for a place and its creatues." - Kirkus "Above all, I apreciated (Belleville's) thoughtful, informative and even poetic account...Belleville is an articulate and skilled advocate and we should all pay attention to what he says..." - Solares Hill "This is the good stuff: An expansive and wide ranging journal by a keen-eyed observer of nature, politics and people..." - Tom Lassiter, The Orlando Sentinel "Through his prose, Belleville artfully blends dramatic human tension in what could have been a drab account of scientific specimen collection...He is a great story teller." - Key West Citizen "River of Lakes: A Journey on Florida's St. Johns River." (2000)
"Belleville reveals the waterway's exotic voluptuousness...in writing that is both silvery and refreshingly unrehearshed...two qualities much in keeping with the mileu. Belleville creates in the reader a protective affection for the St. Johns..." - Kirkus "A tour-de-force..." - Publishers Weekly "Every once in a while, a book comes along that explores and defines a place or a time so thoroughly, holding up for view what otherwise is transient and hidden, that it can be called a classic. Such a book is 'River of Lakes,' a natural and cultural history reminiscent of Thoreau's 'Walden' or William Warner's 'Beautiful Swimmers'...Belleville's writing is by turns lyrical, elegiac, scholarly, down-home, and downright hilarious..." - Florida Today "[Belleville] establishes his kinship with William Bartram...and other artists who hvae felt the tug of the river's currents." - Audubon magazine "Eloquently captures one man's quest to explore both the known and unknown about a mesmerizing body of water." - Southern Living "A superb book." - The Tampa Tribune "Belleville's keen insight, deep research and sparkling prose carry us down Florida's longest river and we are better for the trip." - Tallahassee Democrat "Filmmaker Bill Belleville has written a fine account of the St. Johns...a definitive book." - The Miami Herald "River of Lakes is one riveting read. Belleville, a resident of Sanford, Fla., is a writer and filmmaker whose cause is ecology. He's well tutored in botany, history, anthropology, archaeology---just about any 'ology' there is. Belleville's words stir thought. The St. Johns looks different to me now." - Daytona Beach News-Journal "Bill Belleville has written a wise and inspired book that enriches the artistic legacy already inspired by Florida's St. Johns River...This is an important and beautifully written work that deserves to be widely read as a lesson in learning to know and love the damaged places that surround us." - Alison Hawthorne Deming, poet & essayist, "Monarchs", "Temporary Homelands." "A thoughtful and engaging book about a great American river. [Belleville] fully appreciates the natural values and rich history of the St. Johns and makes what I hope is a compelling case for the preservation of what is left of its native ecology and wild spirit" - Christopher Camuto, author, "Another Country: Journeying Towards the Cherokee Mountains |
|
