Sacred Sea: A Journey to Lake Baikal

Sacred Sea: A Journey to Lake Baikal is at once a deeply engaging memoir, highly entertaining travel book (and boys' adventure), and a remarkably acute (and non-polemic) cautionary tale about the environment.

A few years back, Peter Thomson, then editor and producer of NPR's environmental news program Living on Earth, found himself at the loose ends. Thomson's way of tying up the loose ends was to embark on an around the world boat and train (no planes!) journey with his younger brother, a journey that would center on Siberia's Lake Baikal,the world's largest body of fresh water and home to a unique ecosystem.(With a heavily-polluting paper mill on its shores, Lake Baikal is in some danger.)

Thomson managed to talk to a number of people on all sides of the Baikal issue - scientists, business people, environmentalists, politicos - and these conversations make for compelling reading.

So do all the sections on getting from Point A to Point B,legs of the journey largely made on cargo ships and not particularly comfortable trains. For the most part, Thomson went native in his travels, and thus left himself open to the types of encounters you won't have if you're riding the clean toilet tourist bus with the Kiwanis Club.

This book is highly recommended - and would make an excelent book club choice. Plenty to discuss here!

Much more than a travelogue, the author does a superb job of chronicling his personal and ecological discoveries--illustrating his NPR investigative skills throughout--when he makes his way from Boston to Lake Baikal in the Siberian plateau. A very good read with good pacing, and a true eye-opener about the vulnerablity to pollution of the world's largest body of fresh water.