“Once we learn that a field is ‘an ancient noun connoting human effort,’ every time we encounter the word we can ask ourselves what the effort involved is–thus a coalfield becomes about the miners’ sweat, not the coal.”

Tristan Gooley on What Is Landscape? by John R. Stilgoe

The Wall Street Journal, Sat/Sun, Dec. 12–13, 2015, BOOKS OF THE YEAR