A lyrical, tender essay collection.
The Pulitzer Prize–winning poet lovingly reflects on her relationship to nature and the written word.
As a child, Ohio native Oliver (Felicity: Poems, 2015, etc.) found her greatest solace in “two…blessings—the natural world and the world of writing.” In this collection, she provides readers glimpses into the solitary but rich world she has inhabited as a poet. The first of five untitled sections deals loosely with Oliver’s childhood, when she discovered the pleasures of the natural world and poet Walt Whitman, “the brother I did not have.” Oliver also discusses “the inner vision” that has guided and driven her as she has moved “upstream” against conventional life currents. In the second section, the poet offers observations on the forests, beaches, and watery places she loves. For her, all living things are interconnected: “not at this moment but soon enough, we are lambs and we are leaves, and we are stars, and the shining, mysterious pond water itself.” The third section contains Oliver’s musings on three writers—Emerson, Poe, and Wordsworth—who taught her about the writing craft and about living life with intelligence and sensitivity. Her fascination with animals defines the fourth section of the book. Like the bear that “rub[ed] up against the Provincetown Town Hall,” they are as much her companions as they are “ambassador[s] of a world that returns now only in poets’ dreams.” And while she must live in places meant for humans, it is the “temple” of nature to which she endlessly returns. In the final section, Oliver briefly considers Provincetown, which was her home of 50 years. Overfishing and climate change have transformed it into “a town of pleasure,” yet one that has for her always been “heaven.” Part paean to nature and part meditation on the writing life, this elegant and simply written book is a neo-Romantic celebration of life and the pursuit of art that is sure to enchant Oliver’s many admirers.
A lyrical, tender essay collection.Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-59420-670-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 8, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
A quirky wonder of a book.
A Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence.
Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work. A taxonomist who is credited with discovering “a full fifth of fish known to man in his day,” Jordan had amassed an unparalleled collection of ichthyological specimens. Gathering up all the fish he could save, Jordan sewed the nameplates that had been on the destroyed jars directly onto the fish. His perseverance intrigued the author, who also discusses the struggles she underwent after her affair with a woman ended a heterosexual relationship. Born into an upstate New York farm family, Jordan attended Cornell and then became an itinerant scholar and field researcher until he landed at Indiana University, where his first ichthyological collection was destroyed by lightning. In between this catastrophe and others involving family members’ deaths, he reconstructed his collection. Later, he was appointed as the founding president of Stanford, where he evolved into a Machiavellian figure who trampled on colleagues and sang the praises of eugenics. Miller concludes that Jordan displayed the characteristics of someone who relied on “positive illusions” to rebound from disaster and that his stand on eugenics came from a belief in “a divine hierarchy from bacteria to humans that point[ed]…toward better.” Considering recent research that negates biological hierarchies, the author then suggests that Jordan’s beloved taxonomic category—fish—does not exist. Part biography, part science report, and part meditation on how the chaos that caused Miller’s existential misery could also bring self-acceptance and a loving wife, this unique book is an ingenious celebration of diversity and the mysterious order that underlies all existence.
A quirky wonder of a book.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6027-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Unsentimental nature writing that sheds as much light on humans as on eels.
An account of the mysterious life of eels that also serves as a meditation on consciousness, faith, time, light and darkness, and life and death.
In addition to an intriguing natural history, Swedish journalist Svensson includes a highly personal account of his relationship with his father. The author alternates eel-focused chapters with those about his father, a man obsessed with fishing for this elusive creature. “I can’t recall us ever talking about anything other than eels and how to best catch them, down there by the stream,” he writes. “I can’t remember us speaking at all….Because we were in…a place whose nature was best enjoyed in silence.” Throughout, Svensson, whose beat is not biology but art and culture, fills his account with people: Aristotle, who thought eels emerged live from mud, “like a slithering, enigmatic miracle”; Freud, who as a teenage biologist spent months in Trieste, Italy, peering through a microscope searching vainly for eel testes; Johannes Schmidt, who for two decades tracked thousands of eels, looking for their breeding grounds. After recounting the details of the eel life cycle, the author turns to the eel in literature—e.g., in the Bible, Rachel Carson’s Under the Sea Wind, and Günter Grass’ The Tin Drum—and history. He notes that the Puritans would likely not have survived without eels, and he explores Sweden’s “eel coast” (what it once was and how it has changed), how eel fishing became embroiled in the Northern Irish conflict, and the importance of eel fishing to the Basque separatist movement. The apparent return to life of a dead eel leads Svensson to a consideration of faith and the inherent message of miracles. He warns that if we are to save this fascinating creature from extinction, we must continue to study it. His book is a highly readable place to begin learning.
Unsentimental nature writing that sheds as much light on humans as on eels.Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-296881-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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