Natural Grace

William Dietrich is a staff writer for the "Seattle Times' Pacific Northwest" magazine. As a science reporter for the Seattle Times he won the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. He is the author of "Northwest Passage: The Great Columbia River" and "The Final Forest: The Battle for the Last Great Trees of the Pacific Northwest," as well as several works of fiction. He lives in Anacortes, Washington.

"In snappy, thoughtful, sometimes soaring and often funny prose, Bill Dietrich gives us a remarkable and memorable tour of our biotic realm. His penetrating portraits of flora and fauna both favorite and despised make us realize and cherish our rich natural setting as never before. Natural Grace burgeons forth in a happy parade of neat creatures riding the rain, the snow, the tides, and the quakes, leaving us no excuse at all for ignoring their beauty, fascination, and plight."--Robert Michael Pyle "William Dietrich approaches the damp woods and shimmering waterways of the Pacific Northwest with a journalist's curiosity and naturalist's sense of wonder. The stories he finds there never fail to inform and delight. Natural Grace celebrates the mystery, complexity, and quirkiness of this still-wild corner of the earth. And it prompts us, even more deeply, to care for it."--Tim McNulty "If you enjoyed Snow Falling on Cedars, perhaps you'd enjoy knowing more about snow, about cedars, and about every other natural phenomenon that makes the Northwest the most fecund and spectacular corner of our continent. This book should be as useful for anyone living in Oregon and Washington as the Portland and Seattle phonebooks."--Bill McKibben "Bill Dietrich makes 'the little things that run the world' come gloriously and delightfully to life. If you haven't loved jellyfish and plain old dirt before, you will now. Dietrich writes with wit and charm and sound knowledge of the natural world. This is classic natural history at its best."--Ann Zwinger