Sign-In
Cart
Nature Cure
Hardcover
Currently unavailable to order
Please enter your email and a message will be sent to you when this product becomes available on our website.
ISBN13: 9780813926216
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Published: Feb 16 2007
Pages: 242
Weight: 0.98
Height: 0.95 Width: 6.30 Depth: 8.62
Language: English
Early in Nature Cure Richard Mabey returns continually to the swift, who in its spectacular migration may not touch down for well over a year. In Ted Hughes's phrase, the reappearance of the swifts tells us that the globe's still working. When we encounter the author in the opening pages of this powerful memoir, his corner of the globe is decidedly not working. A deep depression has left him alienated from his work and his family, financially insecure, and has cost him the Chiltern home in which he has lived his entire life. The open flatlands of his new home in East Anglia--an area now dominated by agriculture, and once so desolate that it harbored an inland lighthouse--could not be more different from the dense Chiltern woods he is leaving behind. Mabey wonders frankly if this move is a crucial part of his becoming, finally, a true adult, or if it is just the latest step in the wrong direction his life has mysteriously taken.
Mabey fears that he, like the swift, may be too specialized--given to an intensely specific way of life which, when threatened, leaves him with nowhere to turn. A life spent observing nature has taught him that any creature, even an entire species, might be made suddenly obsolete by the shifts of the world. Just how adaptable is he? He leaves the Chilterns with a near-complete set of the works of John Clare and an antique microscope, but without a frying pan. From now on he will have to think about a complete life, not just those bases he touched as a writer following his calling.
It is through this escape to another life, this flitting, that his healing begins, in often unexpected ways. Mabey's despair stems from an inability to connect with his writing and with the nature that inspires it; the book's power lies in the way he relates this distance from nature to a larger problem in modern life--and in the remarkable process by which his reengagement with nature leads Mabey out of his depression and back to passion and wonder.
Also in
Nature Writing
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
Kimmerer, Robin Wall
Paperback
The Story of Birds: A New History from Their Dinosaur Origins to the Present
Brusatte, Steve
Hardcover
The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate--Discoveries from a Secret World
Wohlleben, Peter
Paperback
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
Kimmerer, Robin Wall
Hardcover
To Catch a Fish: Essays on the Joy, Frustration, Curiosity, and Allure of Fishing
Kurlansky, Mark
Hardcover
The Fullness of Time: Marking the Day by Birdsong, Blooms, Shadows, and Stars
Haynes, Cathy
Hardcover
World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments
Nezhukumatathil, Aimee
Paperback
I Have This Thing for Flowers: Essays on the Roots of Relationships
Sawchyn, Alysia Li Ying
Hardcover
Exploring the Maine Woods - The Hardy Family Expedition to the Machias Lakes
Carbone, Tommy
Hardy Eckstorm, Fannie
Paperback
Outsider Animals: How the Creatures at the Margins of Our Lives Have the Most to Teach Us
Zuk, Marlene
Hardcover
Werner's Nomenclature of Colours: Adapted to Zoology, Botany, Chemistry, Mineralogy, Anatomy, and the Arts
Syme, Patrick
Werner, Abraham Gottlob
Hardcover
The Call of the Honeyguide: What Science Tells Us about How to Live Well with the Rest of Life
Dunn, Rob
Hardcover
The Whispers of Rock: The Stories That Stone Tells about Our World and Our Lives
Khatwa, Anjana
Hardcover
We Love You: An Optimistic Guide to Life on a Rock Floating Through Space
Sullivan, Thomas
Min, Andy
Hardcover
The Living Great Lakes: Searching for the Heart of the Inland Seas, Revised Edition
Dennis, Jerry
Paperback
The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative
Williams, Florence
Paperback
Braiding Sweetgrass / Una Trenza de Hierba Sagrada: Sabiduría Indígena, Conocimiento Científico Y Las Enseñanzas de Las Plantas
Kimmerer, Robin Wall
Paperback
First Adirondackers: 12,000 Years of Indigenous Peoples in the Adirondack Uplands
Stager, Curt
Fadden, David Kanietakeron
Paperback
What Is Intelligence?: Lessons from AI about Evolution, Computing, and Minds
Aguera Y. Arcas, Blaise
Paperback
Werner's Nomenclature of Colours: Adapted to Zoology, Botany, Chemistry, Mineralogy, Anatomy, and the Arts
Syme, Patrick
Hardcover
Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science
Bergland, Renée
Paperback
The California Naturalist Handbook, Second Edition
Merenlender, Adina
Edelman, Deborah
De Nevers, Greg
Paperback
World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments
Nezhukumatathil, Aimee
Hardcover
Bonefish Dreams: Stories, Facts, and Tips from Travels to the World's Best Destinations
Foster, Frank
Paperback
Radically Wild: True Tales of Adventure, Wilderness Survival, and Hard Lessons
Sunderwald, Scott
Paperback
House of Rain: Tracking a Vanished Civilization Across the American Southwest
Childs, Craig
Paperback
Fen, Bog and Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis
Proulx, Annie
Paperback
Astonished by Beauty: A Field Guide to the Practice of Paying Attention
Fleischner, Thomas Lowe
Paperback
The Light Between Apple Trees: Rediscovering the Wild Through a Beloved American Fruit
Kumar, Priyanka
Hardcover
National Geographic Backyard Guide to Edible Wild Plants
Hernandez, Mimi Prunella
Wood Buzzard, Heather
Paperback
Permafrost Is an Archive: And Other Inheritances from the Alaska-Yukon Borderlands
Cook, Corinna
Paperback
Kinship Medicine: Cultivating Interdependence to Heal the Earth and Ourselves
Johnson, Wendy, MD MPH
Paperback
The Shortest History of Our Universe: The Unlikely Journey from the Big Bang to Us
Baker, David
Paperback
Plants That Kill: A Natural History of the World's Most Poisonous Plants
Larsson, Sonny
Dauncey, Elizabeth A.
Hardcover
The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America's National Parks
Williams, Terry Tempest
Paperback
Seabirds as Sentinels: Auklets, Puffins, Shearwaters, and the View from Destruction Island
Wagner, Eric
Hardcover
The Secret Knowledge of Water: Discovering the Essence of the American Desert
Childs, Craig
Paperback
In the Range of Fire and Ice: A Human and Natural History of Washington's Cascades
Williams, David B.
Hardcover
The Inner Life of Animals: Love, Grief, and Compassion--Surprising Observations of a Hidden World
Wohlleben, Peter
Paperback