How close did the Bureau of Reclamation come in the 1960s to building two dams in the Grand Canyon? Exactly what is going on with those birds and their songs? The desert Southwest is supposed to look all dry and dusty...isn't it? And remember those silly Paul Bunyan tall tales you read as a kid? Not worth giving a second look, you say? Michael O'Rourke's essays explore natural world topics that aren't likely to spring to mind when you think "nature" or "environment." From urine-filled Dr Pepper bottles at a trashed-out campsite in Tennessee, to the almost universally mis-reported Tellico Dam/snail darter controversy in the 1970s, to El Tule, the tree with the largest trunk girth in the world, you'll find O'Rourke's essays as fun to read as they are eye-opening.