John Leland

Hip: The History is the story of how American pop culture has evolved throughout the twentieth century to its current position as world cultural touchstone. How did hip become such an obsession? From sex and music to fashion and commerce, John Leland tracks the arc of ideas as they move from subterranean Bohemia to Madison Avenue and back again. Hip: The History examines how hip has helped shape -- and continues to influence -- America's view of itself,...

"[Leland] brings the botanical into direct relationship with the spiritual, using a prose style that is as profound as it is pyrotechnic." -Jim Warren, Washington and Lee University Award-winning nature writer John Leland offers a collection of twenty-seven short, poetic essays that marry science and the humanities as the author seeks meaning in trees. Readings in Wood is an investigation of trees and forests and also of wood as a material that...

"Columbus knew no greater thrill than I, a ten-year-old discovering new creeks and branches and islands and mainland hideaways...I resolved to make my living as an explorer and said so in school when we were all asked what we planned to do upon our growing up." John Leland lived a Huckleberry Finn sort of boyhood that most children would envy. A fifth-generation low country native, he grew up fishing, swimming, and hunting arrowheads on a tidal creek...

In 2015, journalist John Leland set out to meet members of America's fastest-growing age group: 85 and up. He anticipated learning of challenges, of loneliness, and of the deterioration of body, mind, and quality of life. But the elders he met took him in an entirely different direction. Despite disparate backgrounds and circumstances, they each lived with a surprising lightness and contentment. The reality Leland encountered upended contemporary...