Seeking out wildflowers and whitewater, Ann Zwinger has called many places home. The Nearsighted Naturalist brings together work from more than two decades in her career as one of our most distinguished natural history writers. From the Indiana landscape of her youth to her Colorado mountain retreat, from Arizona's Aravaipa Canyon to New Zealand's Kapiti Island, Zwinger leads an ever-widening armchair tour of natural places both ordinary and astonishing. Whether anticipating the first day of spring or seeing the elegance of the subtle hues of a moth's papery wings, Zwinger's trademark eye for detail brings the landscape alive. Her travels trace her evolution from a home-centered wife and mother to a wandering adventurer, an evolution that has taught her to be at home in nature no matter where she is. Sprinkled with Zwinger's own charming pen-and-ink drawings, The Nearsighted Naturalist reminds us of the power of the very best nature writing. It is an invitation to wander, to travel to faraway places, to revisit your own backyard, to chase dragonflies, and to experience the healing power of a sea-smoothed pebble. With the author, readers will embark on a fascinating exploration into distant deserts of the mind and hillsides of the heart.

In a collection of essays that includes works from over two decades, Zwinger explores the abundant life in Rocky Mountain rivers, streams and ponds as well as the experience of whitewater rafting and exploring the world from Colorado to China. Whether she's crouching by the side of a stream observing stonefly nymphs, or doggedly seeking signs of a short-lived spring in Colorado, Zwinger combines eloquent writing with a devotion to nature. She describes and catalogues every creature, including those seemingly insignificant, tiny animals invisible to all eyes but those trained to look. As one might guess from the title, Zwinger's vision isn't perfect, but her myopia forces her, she says, to get even closer to her subjects. Having been raised in Indiana, she also comes to her new home in the Rocky Mountains with the unjaundiced eye of an outsider. But it was in Indiana that she first learned to love observing and writing about nature. Nature writing, she explains, was part of my upbringing. Quite early my mother gave me Gene Stratton Porter's A Girl of the Limberlost to read. Since then she has expanded her list of literary models to include Annie Dillard and Edwin Way Teale, among many others, and here Zwinger once again displays the eloquence, beauty and acuity that put her in that great tradition. Includes pen- and-ink drawings. (Sept.) FYI: Zwinger's last book, Downcanyon, won the Western States Book Award for Creative Nonfiction.

Categories:

• Science & Math
  
  
  • Nature & Ecology
    
    
    • Environment
      • Environmentalism