"One of the penalties of an ecological education," wrote Aldo Leopold, "is that one lives alone in a world of wounds." In "In Service of the Wild," Stephanie Mills brings her intelligent, personable voice to an examination of the field of ecological restoration - the rapidly developing art and science of healing the wounds of the land.

In this account of a simple life, Stephanie Mills reaches deep into classical sources of pleasure - good food, good health, good friends and particularly the endless delights of the natural world. Her musings about the life she desires - and the life she has created - ultimately led her to the third century Greek philosopher Epicurus, whose philosophy was premised on the trustworthiness of the senses, a philosophy that Mills wholeheartedly embraces. While later centuries have come to associate Epicurus's name with hedonism, Mills discovered that he extolled simplicity and prudence as the...