The Company of Owls: A Memoir

Atkin (Some of Us Just Fall) crafts a poignant account of her kinship with the owls near her home in England’s Lake District. While walking their property one afternoon, Atkin and her partner happened upon a tawny owl and were utterly mesmerized by the “angle of her huge head as she looked down” as well as “the lushness of her feathers [and] her still, cutting gaze.” As Atkin started noticing more of the creatures on her property, including a nest of owlets, she became enamored with their strangeness and self-possession, finding in the birds a mirror for her own sense of “only-ness and difference.” Reflecting on her feelings of isolation during the 2020 Covid lockdowns and her life with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which affects the body’s connective tissues and can cause hypermobility, Atkins considers what lessons animals have to teach humans about solitude and belonging. “All owls are one owl when we hear them cry in the night,” she writes. “Like the moon, they bring us together even as we realize our aloneness under their gaze.” Pensive and deeply felt, Atkins’s musings will leave readers wondering what they might learn about themselves by taking a closer look at the natural world around them. Fans of Katherine May will be charmed. (Feb.)