Thomson, Peter

PERSONAL:

Male.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Boston, MA. E-mail—sacredsea@earthlink.net.

CAREER:

Radio producer and environmental journalist. National Public Radio's Living on Earth news program, founding producer and senior editor, worked for nearly ten years. Fellow, MacDowell Colony; fellow, Rockefeller Foundation's center in Bellagio; fellow, Marine Biological Laboratory's Science Journalism program.

MEMBER:

Society of Environmental Journalists (executive committee member).

WRITINGS:

Sacred Sea: A Journey to Lake Baikal, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Peter Thomson is a radio producer and freelance environmental journalist. A member of the executive committee of the Society of Environmental Journalists, Thomson made a name for himself as the founding producer and senior editor for National Public Radio's environmental news program, Living on Earth. After working on the show for nearly ten years, Thomson began working as a freelance environmental journalist.

After leaving the show, Thomson set out with his brother to travel to Lake Baikal in Russia's Siberia. In an interview with Steve Curwood on the Living on Earth Web site, Thomson explained his feelings over this trip as two-sided. Thomson recalled that "in a way it was this very anticlimactic experience. You know, you've traveled halfway around the world to this place that you have revered and that everyone who knows about it says, ‘Oh my God, I've got to get there!’ And you get there and you're just sort of tumbled out onto the beach and all of a sudden there's this water. And you go up and you look at it and you touch it and—it's just water." On the other hand, Thomson continued, "then you sort of stand back and you think about how much of it is there, and how everywhere in the world there's a shortage of this stuff … and here is one fifth of all the water available in the world in this one place in the middle of Siberia. And it's just kind of stunning to stick your hands in that and think about that and then you can reach down and take a drink of it and it's like God just invented this stuff. And it's just awe inspiring."

Thomson published his first book, Sacred Sea: A Journey to Lake Baikal, in 2007. The book recounts his experience traveling to the world's deepest freshwater lake, his interactions with the people who live around its banks, and the way the Russian people revere the lake.

Richard B. Woodward, writing in the New York Times Book Review, observed that Thomson has "written a compelling diary of personal discovery that reads like a manifesto about travel as a blessing in itself. Curiosity alone seems to have guided his footsteps." Woodward opined that the author's frequent setting aside of his "common sense was in this case the right move, for him and for us." Maureen Rogers, writing in Pink Slip, warned that "if you're a reader who needs your reading matter tightly compartmentalized, you should avoid this one." However, Rogers cautioned that "to do so would be to miss out on a deeply engaging memoir, a highly entertaining travel book (and boys' adventure), and a remarkably acute (and non-polemic) cautionary tale about the environment." Rogers's only complaint was "a production one: the photographs, taken by Peter's brother James, are gray and a bit fuzzy, some of them hard to make out." Danny Yee, writing in Danny Yee's Book Reviews, mentioned that Sacred Sea "is easy to read," even by those "with no background knowledge of Baikal or Siberia." Booklist contributor George Cohen noted that the author and his brother "had quite a voyage, and this in-depth recapitulation is absorbing in its detail." A contributor to Publishers Weekly found that "Thomson's book is a lucid and sobering reminder of the destructive effects human activity has on the planet."

A critic writing in Kirkus Reviews noted that the travel account was "exhaustively researched and lyrically written." The same critic concluded that the author's "companionable prose voices a deep love of nature and great affinity for the region's rich cultural and natural history." Laurence A. Marshall, discussing the natural beauty and ecological health of the lake in an article in Natural History, stated that "whether the optimists or the pessimists are right, they do agree on one thing: the choices made and actions taken in the coming century will determine whether or not Baikal will remain one of Mother Russia's most timeless trea- sures." Writing in Library Journal, Susan Brazer noted that the book is "more travel journal and personal exploration than hard scientific text." However, Brazer conceded that the way Thomson writes would keep both scientists and the average reader "interested and entertained."