Audiobook Review: The Wild Dark, by Craig Childs
I've been reading and enjoying the works of Craig Childs for a long time now. His combination of environmentalism, history, and adventure suits me.
Title: The Wild Dark: Finding the Night Sky in the Age of Light
Author: Craig Childs. Read by Tom Perkins
Publication info: Tantor Audio, 2026. 7 hours. Original hardback by Torrey House Press, 2025, 212 pages.
Source: Library
Publisher's Blurb (via Goodreads):
At a time when most people on Earth live in
regions of acute light pollution, Craig Childs takes us on a journey to
rediscover the awesome power of night itself. A night sky is not an
absence of light; it is the presence of the universe. In The Wild Dark,
master storyteller Craig Childs embarks on a quest to bike from the
blinding lights of the Las Vegas Strip to one of the darkest spots in
North America. Childs is a fearless explorer of both the natural world
and the human imagination, making him the perfect guide to help us
rediscover the heavens and to ask: "What does it do to us to not see the
night sky?" In a book that is at once an adventure story, a field
guide, and a celebration of wonder, Childs invites us to look up and to
look inward, eyes wide and sparkling with stars.
My Review:
There was a time when I would have been skeptical of the statistics about how many people have never really seen a dark night sky--have never seen the Milky Way. But I've met them. If you grew up in the city, live in the city, and have no urge to go camp in the wilds (perhaps preferring nice RV parks when you go out at all), it's easy never to have seen it. Childs makes clear what those people are missing--and at least raises the question of how it may negatively affect them.
The flip side of this discussion of the night is the bicycle ride. Childs and his companion Irvin choose to head out from Las Vegas--the brightest place on earth, perhaps--on mountain bikes, to move at a measured pace into the darkness (obviously, they timed this for the dark of the moon, as well). He explains the measurement he'susing for night skies--from Bortle 1 to Bortle 9 (the Bortle scale was published in 2001 by John Bortle, and is based on what you can see with the naked eye). At Bortle 9--Las Vegas--there effectively is no night sky. At Bortle 9, space is so crowded with stars that it's hard to find the constellations. The Milky Way will blow your mind.
The point of biking from the brightest to the darkest spots is the pace--they manage this at just about one Bortle per day (or night, if you will). Each day they ride farther from Vegas, and each night the glow of that city has less impact on the night sky. Unlike walking, riding is fast enough to see the daily differences. Unlike driving, it's slow enough to appreciate them (and cars inevitably come with lights that mess up the night sky).
Childs' book is educational, and it's fun to read about two kind of aging guys pushing themselves to ride across the desert, but above all it's a love song to the night sky. I can get behind that.
My Recommendation:
Read it. You'll enjoy it, and probably learn some things. I know I did.
FTC Disclosure: I checked The Wild Dark out of the library, and received nothing from the writer or publisher for my honest review. The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."
©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2026
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Sounds like an incredible book--and something you would want to do!
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