Melissa Harrison’s Seasons Anthology quartet has brought me many things since I first began reading it – among which have been delight, rejuvenation, and spiritual guidance, to mention only a few. It has also brought me into an awareness of the work of a number of truly superb contemporary nature writers, prominent among whom is Caroline Greville.
If someone was to ask me what inventions have played the greatest role in the advancement of natural history over the past few centuries, the telescope would very likely make the first position on the list. Not only has it made possible innumerable astronomical discoveries, it also led to the development of that most ubiquitous tool of field naturalists – the binocular.
I’l be honest; I’m not quite sure if Matt Stansberry’s and David Wilson’s “Rust Belt Arcana; Tarot and Natural History in the Exurban Wilds” is a book about natural history explained through tarot, a book about tarot explained through natural history, both of these, neither of them, or something else entirely.
As one who grew up on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, I am rather fond of the planets seas and all the wonders they contain. I’ve also spent a bit of time near the Atlantic Ocean, had some fleeting encounters with the Indian Ocean, and seen the Arctic Ocean from the windows of many a jet airplane. However when it comes to the Southern Ocean, I am absolutely without a star to steer by – and so are, according to the preview of Joy McCann’s forthcoming book “Wild Sea; A History of the Southern Ocean,” most others as well.