On Water

In these lyrical, broadly cast essays, Farber ( Compared to What? ) offers readers a fresh appreciation of our greatest natural resource. He looks at humankind's domination of water, in cisterns, wells, aqueducts, dams, drains, canals and sewers; considers the relationship of water to murder and suicide and reviews the psychology and physiology of drowning. Farber intersperses literary and scientific references with often earthy stories of surfing and sailing in California, Hawaii and Fiji. In reviewing The Happy Isles of Oceania , he describes its author Paul Theroux as ``the George Steinbrenner of travel writers.'' Also examined are the therapeutic qualities of water and the mythical association of water to human sexuality. (May)