Narrative theme: environmental issues / the natural world

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Book SynopsisFor readers of Rachel Cusk and Jenny Odell, a lyrical work of autofiction that explores the dissolution of boundaries between the self and our earth as we head towards ecological catastrophe.“Emergency is an incisive kaleidoscope of past and present, nature and industry, stillness and pace, collapsing all into a tapestry of consciousness.” —Ayşegül Savaş, author of Walking on the Ceiling Emergency is a novel about the interconnectedness of all life on Earth. Our narrator is at home during lockdown, where she ponders both past and present. She remembers her 1990s childhood in rural Yorkshire. She recalls a kestrel hunt, helping a farmer save a renegade bull, and days playing with her best friend, Clare. In her village, neighbors argue, keep secrets, care for one another, and try to hold down jobs. Fox cubs fight in the woods, plants compete for space, a quarry slowly falls apart, and we see a three-legged deer who likes cake. With painterly vision, Hildyard evokes the bygone, pre-internet world of her schooldays, whose irretrievability signals at something far greater than fleeting youth. With urgent intimacy, Emergency asks us to look at the essential; the people who help define us, animals, local and global ecologies, and to consider what the slow disappearance of Hildyard’s and our own native environment might mean for humanity at large. A requiem for the English countryside, a story of remote violence, and a work of praise for a persistently lively world, Daisy Hildyard’s Emergency reinvents the pastoral novel for the climate change era.Trade Review"In refusing to privilege human drama over natural processes, Hildyard captures the ecosystem’s delicate interconnectedness and suggests a new way of writing about our toll on the environment." —The New Yorker"[Emergency is] a gorgeous novel of a youth spent on the cusp of societal upheaval."—Publishers Weekly"The beauty of Emergency is in its attempt to glimpse an expanded paradigm of meaning, which encompasses but isn’t limited to our own." —Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal "Emergency is a crucial intervention. It drives a stake into the heart of the pastoral genre . . . This is what nature writing should be: absurd, overwhelming, and chaotically alive with the din of the world." —Lauren Collee, The Rumpus"There is something energetic in Emergency, something mystical about the human and non-human really meeting . . . Emergency reminds us, through its young protagonist, that we often miss so much of the world, so much of reality."—Alan Rossi, Literary Hub"In meditative and exquisitely constructed descriptions . . . the natural world comes to us, blazingly alive, and our place in it does too." —Hannah Hutchings-Georgiou, The White Review "A stunning book—a balm for our times—containing the incredible gift of the everyday."—Kirkus, Starred Review"A quiet, complicated hymn to nature . . . [Emergency] is a novel with an elastic strangeness, gliding seamlessly between the familiar and the surreal . . . In the wake of the biggest natural melodrama of recent times, Emergency is a thoughtful, poised reflection on how much change we humans, among the animals, can ever bring to bear." —Natalie Whittle, Financial Times “This quiet, well-written novel, which has a surprise ending, is worth a look.” —Barbara Love, Library Journal"Daisy Hildyard has confronted our new nature and, bravely, compellingly, makes our shared emergency visible." —Clare Pettitt, Times Literary Supplement "A keenly observed book of naturalism, [Emergency] is about a place, an era and the tenuous epoch of childhood which are all as fragile and fleeting as they are eternal in symbol and memory. I loved this book. When I finished it, I started over at the beginning." —Sarah Blackman, Heavy Feather Review "Emergency is a quiet novel that explores with remarkable subtlety the deep and fraying interconnectedness of life on earth. Hildyard writes with the precision and associative leaps of a poet . . . It’s something new that will linger long after you’ve finished reading."—Stephen Sparks, Bookseller at Point Reyes Books “A common fragility unites all species in this quietly magnificent novel.”—Damian Walsh, Literary Review “This book succeeds because of the chilly and beautifully sustained voice of its narrator, the precise embroidery of its sentences and paragraphs, its observations of the natural world and insistence that there is no distinction between humans and environments.” —Sarah Moss, The Guardian“Daisy Hildyard’s Emergency is a pastoral novel for the age of dissolving boundaries.The slowness and gentleness of the text, its pace and its language, make you consider its title.”—Abi Andrews, The Irish Times“Past and present, nature and humanity, life and death intermix, ebbing and flowing in a stream of prose that carries the reader on an exhilarating … and violent ride.”—Philippa Nutall, The New Statesman“Hildyard doesn’t offer the narratives of therapy, social criticism or self-development to be found in other English pastoralists …. Her style is more reminiscent of such contemporary poets as Kathleen Jamie and Alice Oswald, with their quiet and attentive watchfulness to a non-human reality they only half-understand. Her prose calls for, and frequently earns, the same respectful attentiveness from its readers.”—Dr. Nikhil Krishnan, The Telegraph

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Book SynopsisA New Yorker Best Book of 2023A new novel from National Book Award nominee Daniel Gumbiner about a California grape-grower, his family, and the climate disaster that upends their quiet lives.Since his release from prison after serving an eighteen-month sentence for growing cannabis, Ben Hecht’s life has settled into a familiar routine. On his farm in the foothills of California, he stays busy cultivating a dozen acres of grapes and tending to a flock of mistrustful sheep. Meanwhile, from her desk in their old redwood barn, his novelist wife, Ada, continues to work on what may be her most important book yet. When their only son, Yoel, comes home from Los Angeles for a rare visit, Ben is forced to confront their long troubled relationship, which has continued to degrade in recent years. But before the two of them can truly address their past, a wildfire sweeps through the region, forcing the Hecht family to flee to the coast, and setting into motion a chain of events that will transform them all. This is a story about grape growing and wine, financial and familial struggles, and the peculiar characters and unlikely heroes one will always find in small-town California. Through the experiences of the Hechts and the escalating challenges that face their community, Fire in the Canyon is an intimate look at the lives of those already living through the climate crisis.Trade ReviewA New Yorker Best Book of 2023: Set in the foothills of California’s gold country, this dread-laden novel follows a family who make their living cultivating grapes for winemaking as they attempt to resume their lives in the wake of a wildfire. After an evacuation, they return to the same land, but their environment—increasingly marred by drought, fire, and high temperatures—presents a cascade of fears: not just death and injury from fire but power outages, dangerous air quality, and smoke that might taint their grapes and thus take away their livelihood. The father’s detailed awareness of the region’s weather produces a sense of looming crisis; he notes how often once unusual events now occur—a set of circumstances that make it “hard not to wonder where the bottom was.”"The prose shines in its depictions of nature and setting, as when Gumbiner compares burnt trees to 'spires of obsidian.' Near the end of the novel . . . the reader must also locate the sacred in the natural and mourn all that humanity is losing as we hurtle toward a decimated planet."—Edan Lepucki, Alta Journal"Set in the foothills of California’s gold country, this dread-laden novel follows a family who make their living cultivating grapes for winemaking as they attempt to resume their lives in the wake of a wildfire. . . The father’s detailed awareness of the region’s weather produces a sense of looming crisis."—The New Yorker"“Fire in the Canyon” certainly has mythic overtones. It is a kind of Steinbeck saga with more modern catastrophes in mind; instead of the depredations of the Dust Bowl and the Depression, the Hechts face the twin crises of economic precarity and climate change."—Lorraine Berry, Los Angeles Times"Gumbiner writes with tremendous heart for his characters, as well as meticulous detail about their everyday lives tending their crops, making wine and finding community in a disorienting moment of environmental precarity."—Jessica Zack, San Francisco Chronicle"There is action and drama, but it's not a collage of IPCC report scenarios, it's a real and human story about what happens when a family's own unspectacular life becomes part of the global drama of global warming."—Alexis Madrigal, KQED Forum"Gumbiner crafts an important story, the fictional equivalent of outdoor warning sirens screaming above smoldering pine trees. An engaging, Steinbeckian look at climate change and its emotional costs."—Kirkus Reviews"A soulful masterpiece about the climate crisis in California."—Gabe Hudson, Kurt Vonnegut Radio"Suspenseful . . . Gumbiner skillfully builds tension as the Hecht family’s hard work in the vineyards plays out, pulling them together, even as they ignore the red-flag fire warnings and face the uncertainty of whether the wine produced will be potentially ruined by smoke taint. Readers will be riveted."—Publishers Weekly"Daniel Gumbiner is fast becoming a sort of 21st century Steinbeck, authoritatively illuminating life in California, with all its glories and calamity. Filled with vivid characters and deep knowledge of the land, this is a commanding second novel." —Dave Eggers, author of The Circle"There’s some golden hue or quality that tinges these pages. I have felt for a long time like we need more California novels, and since reading his first novel, more writers like Daniel Gumbiner."—Tommy Orange, author of There There "Stunning. Daniel Gumbiner is one of our greatest living writers on and of the American West, and this book is a thing of beauty." —Claire Vaye Watkins, author of I Love You but I've Chosen Darkness

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisIn Madeleine Kunin’s second poetry collection, Walk With Me, the well-versed poet and three-term Vermont governor invites the audience to step into her world, to slow down and find new serenity in older age and unexpected love. Kunin explores the nuances of everyday moments that cultivate a bittersweet appreciation for simple joys. Walk With Me is a beautifully crafted illustration of not only what it means to be a woman on the eve of ninety years of life, but a feminist, a politician, an immigrant, a mother, a lover, a companion, and a living thing in the midst of an ever-turbulent world. The relationship with the self is a lifelong evolution, a journey that Kunin refuses to tire. Instead, her poems illuminate the confidence and insecurities inherent to all humans, even in older age. The images woven throughout this collection are tender and warm, giving the reader an outlet to appreciate what it means to be alive through each stanza, over and over again.

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