Crow Planet - Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness by Lyanda Lynn Haupt is one of those books that seems difficult to pin down. It's topic is ...well, so minute that until you actually sit down to read you would have no idea what sort of delicate tapestry you're getting yourself into. "Think of your purse or messenger bag as a field bag," she says. "Go with the intent of writing about something you see — a crow feeding its young, a robin begging or an unusual fungus on the sidewalk. Taking note helps make something we normally pass by become tangible as far as our unfolding relationship with the natural world." This book is beautiful beyond words. As a city dweller, it has made me more aware of my surroundings, of the delicate voice of nature present, not threatening, at the permitter of parks and sidewalks. So many voices about the effect of urbanity on the natural world, both for and against, pit the two against eachother, making them mutually exclusive enemies. But Haupt reconciles them, smartly and quietly pointing out nature's presence all around us, despite the glass and concrete.
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