Along Those Lines: The Boundaries that Create Our World

by Peter Cashwell

"Intellectual reveling at its finest."— Booklist "A delightful and curious book about borders, boundaries, fences, and lines."— Slate "A thoughtful and entertaining look at the demarcations in our lives."— Times Dispatch After years of crossing borders in search of new birds and new landscapes, Peter Cashwell's exploration of lines between states, between time zones, and between species led him to consider the lines that divide genders, seasons, musical genres, and just about every other aspect of human life. His Most had something in common—they were largely imaginary. Nonetheless, Along Those Lines , a tour of the tangled world of delineation, attempts to address how we distinguish right from wrong, life from death, Democrat from Republican—and how the lines between came to be. Part storyteller, part educator, and part wise guy, Cashwell is unafraid to take readers off the beaten path—into the desert vistas of the Four Corners, the breeding ground of an endangered warbler, or the innards of a grand piano. Something amusing and/or insightful awaits at every stop. And he's not alone. The tricks and treats of the human instinct for drawing lines are revealed in interviews with experts of all sorts. Learn about the use of the panel border from a Hugo Award–winning comics creator. Trace the edge of extinction with the rediscoverer of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. Get the truth about the strike zone from an umpire who holds a degree in physics. You'll begin to see even the most familiar lines in a whole new way. "From music to politics to gender splits, the things that divide us also tell us quite a bit about who we are, and how we got there. You couldn't ask for a better guide than Peter Cashwell, whose eloquent musings on the lines we draw—and sometimes erase—is illuminating, fascinating, and impossible to put down."—Caroline Leavitt "If, as Paul Klee told his students at the Bauhaus, a line is a dot that goes for a 'walk,' then Along Those Lines is a beguiling and personal treasury of dots on hikes, treks, and walkabouts. To accept this invitation to meander through the author's territory of boundaries, borders, definitions, demarcations, and delineations is to be rewarded with surprising answers to questions you didn't know you had until now, about everything under the sun, from strike zones, musical genres, and Gerrymandering to birding, gender, and how different religions define the lines between right and wrong. Peter Cashwell's appreciation of the boundaries that create our world is a pure delight." —Katharine Weber "As if by magic, Cashwell gives us the power to see the invisible lines we live by and—perhaps more importantly—the permission to smudge, erase, dissolve, or redraw the lines that don’t serve us well. Along Those Lines is an imaginative and well-researched book full of Cashwell's trademark imagination and humor.* Even the most edgy, rule-bound readers will come away enlightened and liberated. [*His footnotes alone could open Saturday Night Live .]"—Maria Mudd Ruth "Peter Cashwell has written a brilliant, mind-bending saga of delineation as a supreme act of imagination, as a noble and often comic attempt to confine the raggedy universe within a geometer’s desperate dreams of precision."—Will Blythe Peter Cashwell dabbled in everything from radio announcing to improv comedy before settling into his career as a writer and teacher. His lifelong fascination with birds and language eventually inspired him to write The Verb 'To Bird' , a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection (Paul Dry Books, 2003). Since 1995, Cashwell has taught at Woodberry Forest School in Virginia, where he lives with his wife and two sons.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Essays

240 pages, Paperback

First published February 11, 2014

About the author

Peter Cashwell grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where the first stories he wrote for school were about woodpeckers, cardinals, and peregrine falcons, and he saw no particular reason to stop. He studied English and creative writing at the University of North Carolina and went on to work as a record store clerk, radio announcer, and musical accompanist for an improv comedy group. Since then, he has published two books, THE VERB 'TO BIRD' and ALONG THOSE LINES, both available from Paul Dry Books, and a variety of shorter pieces for periodicals (including The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, Living Bird, and The Comics Journal), anthologies (Literary Cash, Basketball in America), and websites (Audubon.org). His newest book, THE AMAZING Q (coming soon from Immortal Works) is his first book for younger readers. When he is not writing, he teaches English and history, plays the guitar and piano, and travels far and wide to see new birds. He and his wife, writer/librarian Kelly Dalton, live in Richmond, Virginia, with their dog, Ripley, and have two grown sons.

Reviews

[Kaethe · Rating 5 out of 5]

but I need it now...I neeeeeeeeeed stuff. Pre-ordering is nice, and all, but I want total instant gratification.

***

I don't normally pretend to be objective about books, but on this occasion I'm even less so: the author is an old friend and I'm married to one of the experts mentioned here in.

Cashwell writes most like Bill Bryson, if Bryson was an English teacher with the hobby of birding. The unifying theme here is lines that people draw to separate things, but how there's always ambiguity, whether between what we mean by male and female, or at the edge of extinction, or in the definition of species, or between genres. Really, he's interested in pretty much everything including driving, and art, and music. Even if, like me, you're not interested in spotting birds out in the middle of nowhere at dawn, you'll enjoy the book because it's entertaining and discursive and amusing. We've all read it at our house, or are planning to, now that a copy isn't being read by someone else.

Personal copy

[Griffin McCray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pete Cashwell was an awesome teacher, and now that I've read one of his books, I can now say that he's an awesome author too. His writing of this book was near-perfect, and included some very interesting facts about history, both old and modern, as well as facts about nature and politics. He offered an entirely new description of autism as an exaggeration of the male brain, feeling little empathy and understanding complex systems. Overall, Cashwell did a great job on this book.

[Betsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This fascinating read follows many interesting lines of inquiry across political borders, musical genres, bird species, questions of human gender and sexuality, movie ratings, and more. Pete Cashwell is an engaging guide for the journey along the lines we draw through nature, geography, history, and human society.