We host Erik Reece, author of Lost Mountain, the story of mountaintop removal, for a reading Monday, May 7 at 7:30 p.m. in The Showroom at Hub-Bub. Reece, a poet and essayist, has contributed numerous articles to such publications as The Oxford American and Harper's Magazine. In February 2006, he published Lost Mountain, an alarming account of the irreversible effects radical strip-mining has on the mountains of Appalachia.

Reece's initial account of this coal mining method appeared in an eye-opening Harper's article, "Death of a Mountain", in April 2005; it later won the John B. Oakes Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism from the Columbia University School of Journalism. This article ignited controversy that made front-page news in Reece's home state of Kentucky and provoked the start of legislative action against the mining industry.

Lost Mountain further reveals the political and economic factors behind the complete devastation of what was once one of America's great ecosystems. "This is by far the best account of mountaintop removal and of its effects," Wendell Berry writes in the foreword. "No other reporter has had the perseverance and the guts to do a respectable fraction of what Mr. Reece has done."

Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Erik Reece now lives in Lexington. He teaches English and environmental writing at the University of Kentucky.