Listen as you look

Perhaps your summer vacation is a camping trip, a visit to a national park or a seaside idyll. There is more to find during any of these than relaxation from hectic schedules: There is the possibility of hearing God, says Mark I. Wallace in Finding God in the Singing River (Fortress Press, www.fortresspress.org).

So many books focus on religion and the environment that it’s difficult to identify those that take a new approach or use a novel argument. This is one such book. Wallace, professor of religion at Swarthmore [Pa.] College, starts from his Seminole ancestry. One of his childhood memories is of a legend about two ancient American Indian communities whose story can be heard in the cadences of the Singing River in Mississippi.