The End of Night: Book About Natural Darkness in Artificial Light Era - Perfect for Stargazing, Camping & Light Pollution Awareness

This is a WONDERFUL book - deeply researched and thoughtful - one I will suggest my book club read, and one I will give to my friends for Christmas. I know I'm not alone in wanting more darkness so I can feel the stars and universe as my true home when I step outside at night. I live in a small town where I can find the Milky Way most nights if I'm not too close to downtown. But I rarely look east where Wal-Mart blasts its lights into the sky. I served on our local city council and got the city to pass a light ordinance years ago which briefly made news in the state. Light pollution may come in dead last behind water and air pollution, but it is a growing dilemma on dozens of levels, as this book points out. and humans' need to connect with the darkness is as vital as our ability to sleep. I read the book in two sittings, and when I had finished, I felt vindicated for ranting against the "logos in the sky" light pollution that is growing brighter every year in my town right on the lip of Lake Superior.Bogard writes like Bill Bryson - he has organized his own night odyssey adventures in the U.S. and Europe to see what he can see and to learn from those in the know. An intriguing raconteur, he retells with clarity the stories he learns from people who have been involved in protecting the dark night or been involved in lighting solutions.I particularly enjoyed the walks he took at night with historians and technicians who are have been responsible for lighting up London and Paris. My favorite person was Francois Jousse who had a big budget to spend on how to light up Notre Dame Cathedral and the Louvre in Paris. I learned from Bogard's book why I had been swept away years ago by the magic of the lighting inside one of the Louvre's courtyards one night when I was taking a walk around Paris. I walked through an archway and found myself in what felt like a movie set from the 1700's - the buildings around the courtyard seemed to glow as if from another era. Bogard learned that Jousse had installed 110,000 small 4.5-watt lamps around the courtyard to create this glowing effect - it was an experience I hadn't thought about until I read Bogard's book, where I learned that Jousse had carefully designed the installation of these little lights to give the impression that the buildings glowed, not that they were bathed in light. A dozen times throughout his book, I stumbled on my own thoughts that I had never acknowledged. And throughout he writes with such poetic clarity:"I turn and look out over Paris. From Montmartre, you see the pollution from the suburbs at the edges of the city, their butterscotch orange lights running unleashed into the sky. But the old Paris looks dark, the view a direct result of the rules that light fixtures be directed downward and the lights themselves not be placed any higher than they are. The effect is that of an old city in pre-industrial darkness, though under that canopy you know there lives and breathes a city of light. . When I turn back toward Sacre-Coeur, Francois Jousse is rounding a corner of the church, his head lowered,his boots returning him to the shadows."Bill McKibben's "End of Nature" book was a classic on the challenges we face in protecting the earth, and I believe Bogard's "End of Night" will become a classic in defining the ways we can find or bring back natural darkness in an age of expanding artificial light.