Will I love Lost Mountain?

I grew up in southern Appalachia. Every time I fly home to visit my family, I see the scars of mountaintop removal coal mining as the plane begins to descend over the Blue Ridge Mountains. Lost Mountain chronicles the far-reaching effects of this devastating and unethical practice. I truly believe it ought to be required reading for anyone living in America today.

Lost Mountain documents mountain-top removal, an especially pernicious form of strip mining, which is, unfortunately, just what it sounds like: explosives and massive earth-moving equipment are used to lop the top off a mountain to scoop out the coal inside. Technologically, it’s a fascinating process. Environmentally, it’s a disaster. Reece writes lyrically about the loss of a single mountain in Kentucky, an almost incomprehensible vanishing, perfectly legal, and utterly devastating.