Books

The End of Night

Searching for Natural Darkness in an Age of Artificial Light
By Paul Bogard (Hardcover Book, 2013)
A deeply panoramic tour of the night, from its brightest spots to the darkest skies we have left.

A starry night is one of nature's most magical wonders. Yet in our artificially lit world, three-quarters of Americans' eyes never switch to night vision and most of us no longer experience true darkness. In THE END OF NIGHT, Paul Bogard restores our awareness of the spectacularly primal, wildly dark night sky and how it has influenced the human experience across everything from science to art.

From Las Vegas' Luxor Beam--the brightest single spot on this planet--to nights so starlit the sky looks like snow, Bogard blends personal narrative, natural history, science, and history to shed light on the importance of darkness--what we've lost, what we still have, and what we might regain--and the simple ways we can reduce the brightness of our nights tonight.
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  • Little, Brown and Company

    • Format: Hardcover Book

    • Price: $27.00 US/$30.00 CAN

    • ISBN-13: 9780316182904

    • On Sale Date: 07/09/2013

    • Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

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    Formats Available: Hardcover Book, Electronic Book

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A deeply panoramic tour of the night, from its brightest spots to the darkest skies we have left.

A starry night is one of nature's most magical wonders. Yet in our artificially lit world, three-quarters of Americans' eyes never switch to night vision and most of us no longer experience true darkness. In THE END OF NIGHT, Paul Bogard restores our awareness of the spectacularly primal, wildly dark night sky and how it has influenced the human experience across everything from science to art.

From Las Vegas' Luxor Beam--the brightest single spot on this planet--to nights so starlit the sky looks like snow, Bogard blends personal narrative, natural history, science, and history to shed light on the importance of darkness--what we've lost, what we still have, and what we might regain--and the simple ways we can reduce the brightness of our nights tonight.

Paul Bogard teaches creative nonfiction at James Madison University. He is the editor of the anthology Let There Be Night: Testimony on Behalf of the Dark.


  • THE END OF NIGHT by Paul Bogard

  • "A moving, poetic, immersive, multifaceted, and thought-provoking study... Terrific." -- Publishers Weekly

  • "The most precious things in the modern world are probably silence, solitude, and darkness--and of these three rarities, true darkness may be the rarest of all. Many thanks to Paul Bogard for searching out the dark spots and reminding us to celebrate them!"--Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature

  • "Darkness is among the many things we have lost gradually, without mourning. Paul Bogard offers a brilliantly illuminating history and a badly needed reminder that we have been blind to the death of night."--Bill Streever, author of Cold

  • "This is an important and beautifully narrated journey into our endangered inheritance: the sleep-silvery dark of night."--David George Haskell, Professor of Biology at The University of the South, author of The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch In Nature

  • "Many of the words one might use to praise this book-lucid, illuminating, brilliant-are, ironically, metaphors drawn from light. Paul Bogard deploys his brilliance to seek out and celebrate the primordial darkness that surrounds our lit-up bubble. He shows how much we lose by living cooped up inside this perpetual glare, cut off from the beauty and mystery of the cosmos, lulled into thinking we are masters of the universe rather than members of the web of life. And he shows how we might reconnect to that original world."--Scott Russell Sanders, author of Earth Works and A Conservationist Manifesto

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Product Details

The End of Night
  • Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
  • Price: $27.00 US/$30.00 CAN
  • Pages: 336
  • Physical Dimensions: 6" x 9-1/4"
  • ISBN-13: 9780316182904
  • On Sale Date: 07/09/2013
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The End of Night
© 2013 Hachette Book Group