It all started with Nathanael Johnson's decision to teach his daughter the name of every tree they passed on their walk to day care in San Francisco. This project turned into a quest to discover the secrets of the neighborhood's flora and fauna, and yielded more than names and trivia: Johnson developed a relationship with his nonhuman neighbors.
Johnson argues that learning to see the world afresh, like a child, shifts the way we think about nature: Instead of something distant and abstract, nature becomes real-all at once comical, annoying, and beautiful. This shift can add tremendous value to our lives, and it might just be the first step in saving the world.
No matter where we live-city, country, oceanside, or mountains-there are wonders that we walk past every day. Unseen City widens the pinhole of our perspective by allowing us to view the world from the high-altitude eyes of a turkey vulture and the distinctly low-altitude eyes of a snail. The narrative allows us to eavesdrop on the comically frenetic life of a squirrel and peer deep into the past with a ginkgo biloba tree. Each of these organisms has something unique to tell us about our neighborhoods and, chapter by chapter, Unseen City takes us on a journey that is part nature lesson and part love letter to the world's urban jungles. With the right perspective, a walk to the subway can be every bit as entrancing as a walk through a national park.
When I received this in the post, I was initially excited, but when I flipped it over to get the ISBN number, I saw the classification: "Nature/Parenting". I don't parent, unless you count herding cats, so I was afraid I'd stuck myself with a book that wasn't going to work for me.
I need't have worried - this is a great book! The author uses his desire to interest his toddler daughter in science as the framework for this book, and at least once waxes a bit to philosophically, but overall, he sticks to (sorry parents) the good stuff.
Johnson breaks the book up into chapters involving animals that almost everyone in the world can find in their back yard (sadly, Aussies don't have squirrels, a state of affairs which I maintain makes their lives just a little less joyous): pigeons, weeds, snails, crows, the ginkgo tree, etc. Each topic is touched on enough to introduce and often fascinate the reader with just how diverse and unique the life under your urban feet can be. I found myself reading much of this out loud to my husband, and Johnson has me mulling over the idea of starting a long term journal of my garden's wildlife.
The writing is easy and entertaining and I found myself reluctant to put it down, making it one of the faster-paced non-fiction/science books on my shelf. The bibliography at the back has at least 2 titles I'll be hunting down soon (on edible weeds and which ones taste good). It's a thoroughly enjoyable read and honestly, worth it alone for the stories about the crows.
Reading updates
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Started reading
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31 July, 2017:
Finished reading
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31 July, 2017:
Reviewed