Let There Be Night: Testimony on Behalf of the Dark Review

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(More customer reviews)I enjoyed this book SO MUCH that I recommended it to several friends and wrote a review for IDA's Nightscape, which I am posting in its complete version below to share with other readers:
"My daughter, Hannah Virginia, who recently turned three years old, is teaching me about the stars," begins Michael Branch. Every night before bed, the determined three-year old takes her father's hand and insists he take her out to look at the sky. With this nightly ritual, Branch discovers the wonder of stars through a child's eyes and the "brilliant, open secret that if you don't go outside and look up, you won't see anything." His is just one gem in the stunning new collection, Let There Be Night: Testimony on Behalf of the Dark, edited by Paul Bogard.
Bogard's inspiration for the book stemmed from deep impressions made by star-studded skies he saw every summer as a child in northern Minnesota coupled with troubling awareness that 80 percent of people now living in North America and Western Europe no longer experience "real night," owing to light pollution. In a short period, the profound and timeless human experience of looking up to find the Milky Way arcing overhead has been vastly diminished. It is this loss that Bogard invites a diverse and talented set of writers, scientists, scholars, and poets to consider.
Through its twenty-nine essays, Let There Be Night takes readers on a wide-ranging and personal journey that includes constellations and galaxies but also death, dawn, myth, moths, sea turtles, soul searches, fireflies, and old-time fire rituals. Many essays explore the meaning, sacredness, and beauty of night. Some probe its biology: how the hormone melatonin regulates not only the mating calls of loons and our bodies' urge to sleep but also our estrogen levels --implicating artificial light in the swirl of factors that might induce cancer. Some essays pack hard facts about the millions of kilowatts wasted on unnecessary lighting and practical ways to reduce unnecessary glow and glare. Others share quiet nocturnal reveries --from the outback of Australia to the confines of prison. Nearly every essay evokes revelation about the potent though intangible values of knowing night.
Those who care about dark skies will certainly be engaged, delighted, and inspired by Let There Be Night, but the book deserves an audience far beyond already-committed enthusiasts. It will have every reader longing to head out, look up, and revel in the quiet wonder of a truly dark night.

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The development of the modern world has brought with it rampant light pollution, destroying the ancient mystery of night and exacting a terrible price--wasted energy, damage to human health, and the sometimes fatal interruption of the life patterns of many wildlife species. Artificial light blocks our view of the stars and mirrors a lack of appreciation for night\'s gifts of quiet and repose, and it negatively affects ecosystems in ways we are only beginning to understand. In Let There Be Night twenty-nine writers, scientists, poets, and scholars share their personal experiences of night and help us to understand what we are losing as dark skies and nocturnal wildness disappear. Their testimonies speak of the emotional and spiritual comforts of night; the awe we experience in the presence of vast, starlit skies; the scientific complexity of earth's diurnal rhythms; and the thrill of witnessing children's discovery of the magic of nighttime. These writers examine the folklore of night and trace the historical devaluation of nighttime as industrialization and technology banished darkness and its companion, silence, from our lives. And they propose ways by which we might restore the beneficence of true night skies to our cities and our culture. Let There Be Night examines a precious aspect of human experience in grave danger. The contributors offer an urgent call to awareness and action, and their diverse perceptions and voices also provide a statement of hope that the ancient magic of the night can be returned to our world.Twenty-nine writers, poets, scientists, and scholars testify on behalf of darkness and against light pollutions diminishment of the night.

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