Overview

In Immersion: The Science and Mystery of Freshwater Mussels, Landis brings readers to a hotbed of mussel diversity, the American Southeast, to seek mussels where they eat, procreate, and, too often, perish. Landis shares this journey, travelling from perilous river surveys to dry stream beds and into laboratories where endangered mussels are raised one precious life at a time. Mussels have much to teach us about the health of our watersheds if we step into the creek and take a closer look at their lives. Landis gracefully chronicles these untold stories with a veterinarian's careful eye and the curiosity of a naturalist. In turns joyful and sobering, Immersion is an invitation to see rivers from a mussel's perspective, a celebration of the wild lives visible to those who learn to search. “Getting into the mind of a mussel would be difficult, and Alabama vet Abbie Gascho Landis doesn’t try. Instead, Immersion: The Science and Mystery of Freshwater Mussels focuses on the fight to preserve a creek near Landis’s home, and reveals the vital role of molluscs as both indicators and preservers of water quality. Landis gets under the skin of not so much a single animal, but a whole ecosystem. Part scientist, part observer, and part campaigner against water pollution, she puts herself and her family at the centre of the story. This is neither cloying nor vain, and her growing fascination with her subject is infectious. Immersion is science writing at its best: rich, accurate, and moving""  ~ New Scientist

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9781610918077

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Reviews

This is nature writing at its best. --Edward O. Wilson, University Research Professor Emeritus, Harvard University

Kudos to this lyrical veterinarian for deftly carving space in our hearts and minds for freshwater bivalves that you'll never forget. --Alan Weisman, author of The World Without Us and Countdown This is nature writing at its best. --Edward O. Wilson, University Research Professor Emeritus, Harvard University Eloquent treatise...Landis's book is as much call to action as paean to mesmerizing molluscs. --Nature A lyrical love letter to the imperiled freshwater mussel...Landis's writing is engaging and personal, demonstrating her bond with the natural world. --Science Immersion is accessible and fascinating, opening up an entirely new world of mussel science and clearly detailing the linkages between river health and mussel health. This is a recommended read for anyone interested in the health of our rivers and the fate of freshwater mussels. --Water Canada A perfectly choreographed collision of genres that moves seamlessly between the precise and the poetic. Immersion is a tale about mussels, motherhood, curiosity, climate change, water. Grounded in science and ranging across the historical, the political, and the personal, the story is as rooted and responsive as the animals Landis writes about. --Nieman Storyboard Landis gets under the skin of not so much a single animal, but a whole ecosystem. Part scientist, part observer, and part campaigner against water pollution, she puts herself and her family at the centre of the story. This is neither cloying nor vain, and her growing fascination with her subject is infectious. Immersion is science writing at its best: rich, accurate, and moving. --New Scientist Immersion, by Abbie Gascho Landis, charts the world of the 500 million-year-old freshwater mussel...[it] is also an intimate portrait of a young family and their deep respect for these creekbed dwellers...An unusual as well as endearing weaving of memoir and nature writing. --Times Literary Supplement This graceful, beautiful book is filled with almost unbelievable surprises. The biggest surprise is that it is not about mussels; they merely play a leading role. Immersion is actually about the wondrousness of life, and the invitation we've all received to simply be in awe. --Carl Safina, author of Song for the Blue Ocean and Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel

Kudos to this lyrical veterinarian for deftly carving space in our hearts and minds for freshwater bivalves that you'll never forget. --Alan Weisman, author of The World Without Us and Countdown This is nature writing at its best. --Edward O. Wilson, University Research Professor Emeritus, Harvard University Eloquent treatise...Landis's book is as much call to action as paean to mesmerizing molluscs. --Nature A lyrical love letter to the imperiled freshwater mussel...Landis's writing is engaging and personal, demonstrating her bond with the natural world. --Science Immersion is accessible and fascinating, opening up an entirely new world of mussel science and clearly detailing the linkages between river health and mussel health. This is a recommended read for anyone interested in the health of our rivers and the fate of freshwater mussels. --Water Canada Immersion, by Abbie Gascho Landis, charts the world of the 500 million-year-old freshwater mussel...[it] is also an intimate portrait of a young family and their deep respect for these creekbed dwellers...An unusual as well as endearing weaving of memoir and nature writing. --Times Literary Supplement A perfectly choreographed collision of genres that moves seamlessly between the precise and the poetic. Immersion is a tale about mussels, motherhood, curiosity, climate change, water. Grounded in science and ranging across the historical, the political, and the personal, the story is as rooted and responsive as the animals Landis writes about. --Nieman Storyboard Landis gets under the skin of not so much a single animal, but a whole ecosystem. Part scientist, part observer, and part campaigner against water pollution, she puts herself and her family at the centre of the story. This is neither cloying nor vain, and her growing fascination with her subject is infectious. Immersion is science writing at its best: rich, accurate, and moving. --New Scientist This graceful, beautiful book is filled with almost unbelievable surprises. The biggest surprise is that it is not about mussels; they merely play a leading role. Immersion is actually about the wondrousness of life, and the invitation we've all received to simply be in awe. --Carl Safina, author of Song for the Blue Ocean and Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel

Author Information

Abbie Gascho Landis is a writer and veterinarian whose work has been published in Pinchpenny Press, Full Grown People, and Paste Magazine. She has won Duke University's Center for Documentary Studies 2015 Essay Award and an Arthur DeLong Writing Award and was a finalist for the Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Award. Landis has a bachelor's degree in English and biology from Goshen College and a doctorate in veterinary medicine from The Ohio State University.

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