Description

In Lakes: Their Birth, Life, and Death, John Richard Saylor shows us just how deep our connection to these still waters run in a revealing look at lifegiving bodies of water. Think all lakes are the same? Think again. Saylor leads an illuminating tour of the most fascinating lakes around the world. Whether it’s Lake Vostok, located more than two miles beneath the surface of Antarctica, whose water was last exposed to the atmosphere perhaps a million years ago; Lake Baikal in southern Siberia, the world’s deepest and oldest lake formed by a rift in the earth’s crust; or Lake Nyos, the so-called Killer Lake that exploded in 1986, resulting in hundreds of deaths. Along the way we learn all the many forms that lakes take—how they come to be and how they feed and support ecosystems—and what we stand to lose when lakes vanish.

Praise for Lakes

“John Richard Saylor’s Lakes is a timely celebration of the world’s myriad freshwater repositories, reminding us of their comforting permanence and frightening fragility. Lakes informs us about where they come from, intrigues us about what they do when they’re here, and warns us about what happens when they die. Read this book and you’ll never take a glass of water for granted again.”—Wayne Grady, author of The Great Lakes: The Natural History of a Changing Region

“Lakes is my favorite kind of natural history: meticulously researched, timely, comprehensive, and written with imagination and verve.”—Jerry Dennis, author of The Living Great Lakes

“A far-reaching introduction to the realm of fresh water, including many of the world's most fascinating lakes; how they form, how they work, and how they change over time.”—Curt Stager, author of Still Waters: The Secret World of Lakes

“An expert of both engineering and storytelling, John Richard Saylor explores the many unsolved mysteries about the world’s lakes. We learn that lakes are not permanent fixtures of the landscape but are in a state of perpetual invisible change. I’ll never look at lakes the same way again.” —David L. Hu, author of How to Walk on Water and Climb up Walls

Literary Agent and Rights Inquiries

Laurie Abkemeier
DeFiore and Company
laurie@defliterary.com
212-925-7744 x110