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Vesper Flights, by Helen Macdonald
Jun. 20th, 2021 12:32 pmGenre: Nonfiction, nature essays
How it got in my house: Gift
Do I recommend it: Yes
Vesper Flights is a book of essays about nature and our place in it with gorgeous prose. And here's the thing: with that description, you already know if this is a book for you or not. I think you know what you're going to get, with a well-written nature book, right? You'll learn lots of amazing things about fish and mushrooms and birds and insects and this wonderful teeming planet around us, you'll read some sentences that make you go "oh" as the world cracks open for you in a new way, and you'll also be reminded (again and again) how it's all dying out.
Nature books are always a bit like Tolkien's elves, in that way. A glorious, grand thing is fading away before our eyes. And elves are much less interesting than real-world animals. No offense to Tolkien, but elves aren't bioluminescent, are they? Do elves spend years at a time flying? Can elves navigate by Middle-Earth's magnetic field? Does Middle-Earth have a magnetic field? Anyway, elves are great, but they can't hold a candle to peregrine falcons or wild boar or the whole scope of this infinitely varied world.
Vesper Flights also criticizes the malarkey companies feed us about individual consumer purchases somehow solving the systematic problem, which is nice. It doesn't offer any practical guidance on taking down the system, but I can't fault the book for that; that's a bit outside its scope. But if anyone does know of nature books that also have some practical anticapitalism tips in them, hit me up.
So this review is more of a confirmation, than anything. If you like nature books, you'll probably like this one! Give it a try! If you don't like nature books, or if you're not up for being sad about the loss of so much wonder in the world, give this a pass.
How it got in my house: Gift
Do I recommend it: Yes
Vesper Flights is a book of essays about nature and our place in it with gorgeous prose. And here's the thing: with that description, you already know if this is a book for you or not. I think you know what you're going to get, with a well-written nature book, right? You'll learn lots of amazing things about fish and mushrooms and birds and insects and this wonderful teeming planet around us, you'll read some sentences that make you go "oh" as the world cracks open for you in a new way, and you'll also be reminded (again and again) how it's all dying out.
Nature books are always a bit like Tolkien's elves, in that way. A glorious, grand thing is fading away before our eyes. And elves are much less interesting than real-world animals. No offense to Tolkien, but elves aren't bioluminescent, are they? Do elves spend years at a time flying? Can elves navigate by Middle-Earth's magnetic field? Does Middle-Earth have a magnetic field? Anyway, elves are great, but they can't hold a candle to peregrine falcons or wild boar or the whole scope of this infinitely varied world.
Vesper Flights also criticizes the malarkey companies feed us about individual consumer purchases somehow solving the systematic problem, which is nice. It doesn't offer any practical guidance on taking down the system, but I can't fault the book for that; that's a bit outside its scope. But if anyone does know of nature books that also have some practical anticapitalism tips in them, hit me up.
So this review is more of a confirmation, than anything. If you like nature books, you'll probably like this one! Give it a try! If you don't like nature books, or if you're not up for being sad about the loss of so much wonder in the world, give this a pass.
