To be perfectly honest, I expected to like this far more than I did. "The Wonder of Water" is a series of essays through different perspectives regarding the much needed resource, water. It's a very serious book with very difficult words but it can be a bit of a dry read. Overall, an okay read.

If you, like me, do not have a working familiarity of words like phenomenological, keep a dictionary at hand. This is a serious book, and while I am glad to have read it, I must admit I did a fair amount of skimming. The book is broken down into a number of essays that approach water from different perspectives: practical, philosophical, architectural, legal, temporal, ethical, moral. Water gives life and takes it away. We take its ubiquity for granted and fight over who owns it. Sentences like this are not uncommon: “Re-membering then, is not passive recollection, but an ongoing political act of restoration, retrieving an ability to see the whole, to see categories and resemblances and resist their unconscious or prereflective rejection.” Essays on the water crises in Flint, Michigan and the Dakota Access Pipeline focus on the environmental justice movement. Humans aren’t taking care of the water supply, and a 2015 UN report finds that in ten years we will have 40% less water than we need.

Special thanks to NetGalley and the University of Toronto Press for a complimentary review copy provided in exchange for an honest review.

This was an unusual read for me, and I appreciated the opportunity to stretch from my interest in the environmental issues around water usage into some philosophy as applied to water (though I fear much went right over my head). I particularly appreciated the lyricism of the essay "Creaturely Migrations on a Breathing Planet." Recommended for those well-versed in philosophy.

With thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for the opportunity to read an ARC!

This book covers the subject of water from the beginning of time to how much water exists in aqua space (like cyberspace). I love learning water law and policy, that's just how nerdy I am. It's a fascinating subject but this is not a book about policy. It does have a chapter on the Flint, Michigan situation but why don't they find a solution? I would have left a long time ago. This book is more philosophical and I feel like the author made a strenuous attempt to use every big word they knew like phenomenology.

This is a magnificent collection of philosophical prose on the essence of water. Many of the pieces are lyrically composed. This would be a useful piece for both college and high school AP classes. It brings to the conscious how all living things are intertwined and connected to earth and, most especially, to water. This is a strong academic, persuasive work.

This is one of those books I wanted to love, but didn’t work out for me. Let’s start with some of the things I really enjoyed. The topic is incredibly relevant, emphasizing the huge importance of water in our lives and how devastating lack of access to clean water is for many communities. It’s important to acknowledge how easy it is to take some needs for granted if you are privileged enough to grow up in certain conditions, so I was eager to absorb this book and let it refocus my attention on the important things this holiday season.

I do believe the book did a great job discussing how critical safe water is and exploring the various facets of how we interact with water day to day. One piece that I found particularly compelling related water to race and community issues. Using Flint, MI as a cornerstone example, the author for that section did an exceptionally good job making the issue personal as well as broadening the scope of discussion to other regions. Aside from this piece there were one or two other highlights in the book (including the quote below which was quite profound), but unfortunately these didn’t tip the scales for me.

“”The logic of capital simply does not have enough capacity to grasp the time extension needed to defuse functional policy that can sustain the contemporary resource base for even the current generation.””

Where this book lost me was the unexpected amount of focus on phenomenology. And before you bring up how it’s mentioned in the description, I’ll clarify that I just expected a more even mix of policy discussion vs. lived experience stories vs. philosophy. Moreover I found the reading to be more difficult than expected, needing to re-read some of the wordier sentences in many pieces. On whole it felt a little more like reading a series of papers for a humanities course than the relaxing yet educational read I’d hoped for.

For these reasons I’ve given the book two stars, since I believe ratings/reviews should be personal and this one just didn’t quite do it for me. However, if you enjoy reading pieces that lean more philosophical and would find a discussion on water by various authors fascinating, this might be a fit for you!

The Wonder of Water by Ingrid Leman Stefanovic, Editor, is a book anyone interested in the health of our planet should read. Many people contributed to this book, and all of them make a compelling argument for rethinking our attempts to control water and nature. The articles trace historical and cultural impacts we have on the world we inhabit. It’s a book that makes you think globally about water policies and practices. I highly recommend this book.

This was an interesting read, as it was able to successfully link water to different areas, such as public policies and practices, fishery policies, environmental policies and many others. Water is something that many of us never think about and this book did a great job of highlighting the impacts that it has in many different areas!

This book stinks to high heaven! Avoid it at all costs. It is about phenomenology which is a branch of philosophy that is narrowly held by a small band of adherents. This book contains meaningless thoughts like wanting to inspire readers to become "more attentive to water in its waterness". Yes, this a collection of essays that are by and large only nonsense. Skip this one!