Author Robert Wyss

Robert Wyss, an environmental journalist and associate professor of journalism at the University of Connecticut, will speak June 22 about his latest book, “The Man Who Built the Sierra Club, A Life of David Brower,” from Columbia University Press.
The free talk, part of the Tolland Public Library Foundation’s Eaton-Dimock-King Authors Series, will take place at 6:30 p.m. in Conference Room A of Tolland Town Hall at 21 Tolland Green.
Brower (1912-2000) was a central figure in the modern environmental movement. Wyss says in many ways, he was a 20^th-century Thoreau. When he ran the Sierra club from 1953 to 1969, Brower transformed the group into a national force that challenged and stopped federally sponsored projects that would have dammed the Grand Canyon and destroyed millions of acres of wilderness.
To admirers, Brower was tireless and passionate. To opponents, he was contentious and polarizing.
Before joining the UConn faculty in 2002, Wyss was a reporter and editor at the Providence Journal from 1974 to 2002.
He is also the author of “Covering the Environment: How Journalists Work the Green Beat” and “Brimfield Rush, The Thrill of Collecting and the Hunt for the Big Score” about the antiques industry.
Registration is required for the talk. To register, call the Tolland Public Library at 860-871-3620 or register online at tolland.org/library.
Since 2010, the author series, funded by the Phoebe Dimock King and Elizabeth C. King Eaton Endowment, has brought writers Caragh O’Brien, Dan Barry, Denis Horgan, Susan Campbell, Cindy Rodriguez, Susan Schoenberger, Jeff Goldberg, Lucy Anne Hurston, Jane Haddam, Ken Davis and P.W. Catanese to town.
About the Tolland Public Library Foundation
The Foundation was established in 1996 to receive donations to benefit the Tolland Public Library and to enhance library services beyond what the town budget provides. Tax-deductible donations can be sent to the Tolland Public Library Foundation, Inc., 21 Tolland Green, Tolland, CT 06084.