Two books explore the importance of rivers and their uncertain futures across the globe

“Is a River Alive?” by Robert Macfarlane, W.W. Norton, 384 pages, and “In Praise of Floods” by James C. Scott, Yale University Press, 248 pages.

I’ve thought a lot about rivers these past two years, ever since moving from my longtime home just one block from the Mississippi River to a house 15 or so blocks away.

My new address is still close enough to walk to the levee, to feel the gravitational tug of the river’s roiling waters. But the Mississippi’s banks are now far enough away to miss the faint scent of sea brine that occasionally migrates upriver, to mark the absence of gull cries, foghorn echoes and the whistle toots of the Steamboat Natchez’s calliope.

Reading two new books about rivers and why they matter made me miss my old home all over again.

Robert Macfarlane is a bestselli