SCHNEIDER, Paul 1962-

PERSONAL:

Born 1962. Education: Graduated from Brown University, 1984.

ADDRESSES:

Home—West Tisbury, MA; New York, NY. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Henry Holt & Co., 115 West 18th St., New York, NY 10011.

CAREER:

Author of nonfiction.

WRITINGS:

The Adirondacks: A History of America's First Wilderness, Henry Holt (New York, NY), 1997.

The Enduring Shore: A History of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket, Henry Holt (New York, NY), 2000.

Contributor to periodicals, including Harper's, New York Times Magazine, Audubon, Elle, Esquire, New Yorker, and Mirabella.

SIDELIGHTS:

Paul Schneider is a writer whose publications include histories of New England and other northeastern regions of the United States. In 1997 he published The Adirondacks: A History of America's First Wilderness, which Norman Boucher in Brown Alumni Online called a "breezy and absorbing summary of the Adirondacks' last 300 years." Randall Enos wrote in a review for Booklist that The Adirondacks serves as an "ecological, social, and scientific history of the area," and that "Schneider demonstrates that he can use language in a creative way." Ann E. Cohen, writing in a Library Journal assessment, praised Schneider's book as "a poignant, insightful history." A reviewer for Publishers Weekly reported that The Adirondacks is a "fascinating—if sometimes too digressive—history," and added that it succeeds in "effectively showing the problems facing those charged with the mission of preserving the wilderness."

Schneider followed The Adirondacks with The Enduring Shore: A History of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket, which a reviewer for Esquire referred to as a "rich, epic saga of a small section of eastern seaboard that became the New World." The reviewer went on to call the book "a charged must-read for anyone who ever fell asleep in American History." Reviewing The Enduring Shore in Brown Alumni Online, Cornelia Dean described the work as "an engaging story of the Cape and Islands … that also includes digressions about [Schneider's] … not-always-successful efforts to navigate the region's shorelines by kayak." Dean added that "Schneider has a gift for plucking fascinating anecdotes from the tides of history," while Margaret Feldstein wrote in Fortune that she hoped the author's "next book will pick up where this one leaves off." Booklist reviewer Gilbert Taylor praised The Enduring Shore, dubbing the work "a meditative mix about landscape, history, and people."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, June 1, 1997, Randall Enos, review of The Adirondacks: A History of America's First Wilderness, p. 1653; April 1, 2000, Gilbert Taylor, review of The Enduring Shore: A History of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket, p. 1430.

Esquire, May, 2000, review of The Enduring Shore, p. 100.

Fortune, May 15, 2000, Margaret Feldstein, review of The Enduring Shore, p. 524.

Library Journal, May 1, 1997, Ann E. Cohen, review of The Adirondacks, p. 129.

Publishers Weekly, April 28, 1997, review of The Adirondacks, p. 63.

ONLINE

Brown Alumni Online,http://brownalumnimagazine.com/ (July, 1997), Norman Boucher, review of The Adirondacks; (June, 2000) Cornelia Dean, review of The Enduring Shore.*