Review_NONFICTION
WWW.PUBLISHERSWEEKLY.COM 65An illustration of a narwhal from Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s
essay on the whale in World of Wonders (reviewed this page).The Unreality of Memory:
And Other Essays
Elisa Gabbert. FSG Originals, $16 trade paper
(272p) ISBN 978-0-374-53834-7
In this deeply contemplative but
accessible essay collection, poet Gabbert
(The Word Pretty) considers how accurately
people perceive themselves and the world
around them. She begins, in “Magnificent
Desolation,” by considering the spectacle
of catastrophe, using the uneasy fascination
people have with events such as 9/11 and
the sinking of the Titanic to suggest that
“horror and awe are not incompatible; they
are intertwined.” In “Vanity Project,”
Gabbert reflects on how people perceive
their mirror images: are such images
“real,” or are they “mirror delusions” in
which one only sees what one expects to
see? In her most involved and layered
essay, “Witches and Whiplash,” she
delves deep into the history of psychogenic
(mentally originating) and psychosomatic
(both body and mind) disorders. In a fitting
epilogue, Gabbert discusses French philos-
opher Henri Bergson, who “believed that
memory and perception were the same”
and famously debated Einstein on the
nature of time, leading Gabbert to wonder
whether lived experience is distorted not
by unreliable memory but by an unreliable
perception of the present. Whatever the
chosen topic, Gabbert’s essays manage to
be by turns poetic, philosophical, and
exhaustively researched. This is a superb
collection. (Aug.)
Vesper Flights
Helen Macdonald. Grove, $27 (272p)
ISBN 978-0-8021-2881-2
English naturalist Macdonald (H Is for
Hawk) offers meditations on the natural
world and its inhabitants in an inviting
collection of 41 new and previously pub-
lished essays that are infused with wonder,
nostalgia, and melancholy. Macdonald
ruminates on the pleasures of watching
animals in “Wicken,” and recalls encoun-
ters with fierce creatures in “Nothing Like
a Pig,” about wild boars, and in “Hares,”
about boxing hares—“magical harbingers
of spring” that are increasingly rare in
Britain. She reflects on her childhood in
“Nests,” in which she recalls collecting
detritus like seeds and pinecones, and in
“Tekels Park,” about roaming a meadow
in the 1970s that’s since been sold to
developers. Her appreciation of birds is
displayed in essays including “A Cuckoo
in the House,” which details how
cuckoos trick other birds into sheltering
them, and the title essay, about the flight
patterns of “magical” swifts. The message
throughout is clear: the world humans
enjoy today may not be around tomorrow,
so it should not be taken for granted.
This will inspire readers to get outside.
(Aug.)World of Wonders:
In Praise of Fireflies, Whale
Sharks, and Other Astonishments
Aimee Nezhukumatathil. Milkweed, $24
(184p) ISBN 978-1-57131-365-2
Nezhukumatathil (Oceanic) applies her
skill as a poet to a scintillating series of
short essays on nature. She takes up topics
that fascinate her—the bizarre-looking
potoo birds of Central and South America;
corpse flowers, with their rich colors and
acrid odor—and connects them to her
own experience of the world. She’ll begin
with a study of dancing flamingos, only to
pivot to memories of going to dance clubs
as a young woman, and end with anexhortation for everyone to “keep
in step with our small dances on
this earth.” Elsewhere, she con-
siders the vampire squid and its
prodigious aptitude for conceal-
ment, then intently examines her
own so-called lonely “cephalopod”
year at a new high school. A
memory of being laughed at by
bonnet macaque monkeys serves
as a reminder to laugh at herself.
Throughout, she vividly describes
sounds, smells, and color—the
myriad hues of a “sea of saris” from
India—and folds in touches of
poetry. Fumi Nakamura’s lush
illustrations add to the book’s
appeal. Readers of Terry Tempest
Williams and Annie Dillard will
appreciate Nezhukumatathil’s
lyrical look at nature. Christopher
Rhodes, Stuart Agency. (Aug.)★ 27 Essential Principles
of Story: Master the Secrets
of Great Storytelling, from
Shakespeare to South Park
Daniel Joshua Rubin. Workman, $19.95 trade
paper (400p) ISBN 978-1-5235-07016-0
Rubin, a playwright and TV script-
writer, aims with this manual to give
writers “enough direction to avoid getting
lost, but not so much that it strangles your
creativity,” and succeeds in creating an
invaluable resource. He offers an array of
techniques (escalate risk, provoke dilemma,
confront evil, etc.) for effective storytelling,
first demonstrating how a master used a
technique to great effect, and then
explaining how neophytes may do so as
well. His choices of “masters” may surprise.
Rubin includes the usual suspects—
Shakespeare (who “drops the hammer” when
he has Hamlet learn the truth behind his
father’s death) and Shirley Jackson (who
“confronts evil” with her depiction of a
seemingly tranquil small town’s dark side
in “The Lottery”), among others—but he
also uses TV shows, movies, and even a
video game, Red Dead Redemption, the
runaway success of which he attributes to
its creators obeying the principle “make
your hero active and decisive.” This is a
no-brainer for both pro and would-be
novelists. Lisa DiMona, Writer’s House.
(July)Nonfiction