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SILVER MEDALIST for the National Outdoor Book Award for Natural History Literature
From the bestselling author of H is for Hawk, a brilliant and insightful work about our relationship to the natural world
Our world is a fascinating place, teeming not only with natural wonders that defy description, but complex interactions that create layers of meaning. Helen Macdonald is gifted with a special lens that seems to peer right through it all, and she shares her insights—at times startling, nostalgic, weighty, or simply entertaining—in this masterful collection of essays.
From reflections on science fiction to the true story of an Iranian refugee's flight to the UK, Macdonald has a truly omnivorous taste when it comes to observations of both the banal and sublime. Peppered throughout are reminisces of her own life, from her strange childhood in an estate owned by the Theosophical Society to watching total eclipses of the sun, visits to Uzbek solar power plants, eccentric English country shows, and desert hunting camps in the Gulf States.
These essays move from personal experiences into wider meditations about love and loss and how we build the world around us. Whether more journalistic in tone, or literary—even formally experimental—each piece is generous, lyrical, and speaks to one another. Macdonald creates a strong thematic undertow that quietly takes the reader along piece to piece and sets them down, finally, at a place they've never been before.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
August 25, 2020 -
Formats
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780735235519
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780735235519
- File size: 3500 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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April 6, 2020
English naturalist Macdonald (H Is for Hawk) offers meditations on the natural world and its inhabitants in an inviting collection of 41 new and previously published essays that are infused with wonder, nostalgia, and melancholy. Macdonald ruminates on the pleasures of watching animals in “Wicken,” and recalls encounters with fierce creatures in “Nothing Like a Pig,” about wild boars, and in “Hares,” about boxing hares—“magical harbingers of spring” that are increasingly rare in Britain. She reflects on her childhood in “Nests,” in which she recalls collecting detritus like seeds and pinecones, and in “Tekels Park,” about roaming a meadow in the 1970s that’s since been sold to developers. Her appreciation of birds is displayed in essays including “A Cuckoo in the House,” which details how cuckoos trick other birds into sheltering them, and the title essay, about the flight patterns of “magical” swifts. The message throughout is clear: the world humans enjoy today may not be around tomorrow, so it should not be taken for granted. This will inspire readers to get outside.
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