In a unique collaboration, the New York Council for the Humanities has joined forces with the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association to offer Reading Between the Lines:  Into the American Wilderness, a monthly reading and discussion series that runs from March 11, 2010 to June 10, 2010.

Maxwell C. Wheat Jr., the first Poet Laureate of Nassau County will facilitate

the sessions which will be held in a series of four Thursday evening meetings on March 11^th, April 8^th, May 13^th and June 10^th.  The theme of each will focus on ... Should be rethinking our definition of the wilderness … and the interactive discussions will center around four provocative books about the role the natural world has played in the American experience, paying particular attention to recent events.  

The discussion books were selected by the series sponsor, the New York Council for the Humanities.  The series opens with a discussion of “The Meadowlands: Wilderness  Adventures on the Edge of a City” by Robert Sullivan. Sullivan serves as the explorer, historian, archaeologist and comic bard of the land beyond New York City.

The second discussion is of Edward Abbey’ s book “The Monkey Wrench Gang.”  Abbey was one of the last century’s prolific nature writers.  His “The Monkey Wrench Gang” is an Abbey classic, written in a humorous tone about a band of ecological saboteurs who take on urban expansion in the American Southwest.

The third discussion in the series centers around a humorous and sometimes poignant book, “A Walk in the Woods:  Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail” by Bill Bryson.   This meeting will consider his proposals for conservation of the American wilderness.

The series concludes with a conversation about “Dead Cities” by Mike Davis. This collection of essays examines urban landscapes and challenges people to rethink their definition of "wilderness."