Essays on... I might say natural history, but this is more philosophical than you usually see in natural history works. Also, unlike many natural history works, Hogan does not position humans as non-natural. Perhaps I should say these are essays on the need to fit snugly and peacefully into the world, to overcome the positioning of ourselves as Other.

Her essays speak strongly to me, reflecting my own frustrations and infatuations with science, my own ambivalence about the false dichotomy of observing vs. participating, the cost of knowledge, and the tensions between various ways of positioning yourself in the world.

I took this one backpacking with me, hoping that it would be a good backpacking-book. It was.

But it's just as good a living-at-home-in-the-city book. And maybe more necessary there, perhaps.

Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World is an interesting book, lyrical in places, full of the author's impressions of nature and the world, and the spiritual conclusions she's drawn from this. Linda Hogan is a Chickasaw poet, and her view of things is heavily influenced by native american tradition. She's travelled extensively, and very clearly loves her world and believes in the strength of her traditions.

I found this a fascinating read, and a good insight into the author's beliefs and world. Despite that, a lot of this book left me appreciating the beautiful writing and the ideas she was trying to express; but essentially unmoved. I don't think this is a fault in the book. I think this is simply because, unlike Linda Hogan, I'm not an earth person. I don't see the world in the same terms she does. She says it herself, in a chapter on the Voyager spacecraft: "There seemed to be two kinds of people; earth people and those others, the sky people, who stumbled over pebbles while they walked around with their heads in clouds. Sky people loved different worlds than I loved; they looked at nests in treetops and followed the long white snake of vapor trails." If, like me, you trip over dirt because you're too busy watching the sky - well, this is a good book, definitely worth reading, and a very good look into a beautiful world; but it's not going to resonate.

If you're an earth person, fascinated by our world and the creatures who live in it - read away. I don't think you'll regret it. ( )