cover image Field Notes from a Hidden City: An Urban Nature Diary

Field Notes from a Hidden City: An Urban Nature Diary

Esther Woolfson. Counterpoint (PGW, dist.), $28 (368p) ISBN 978-1-61902-240-9

Award-winning nature writer Woolfson muses on the natural ecosystem of her adopted home of Aberdeen, Scotland, over the course of a full year. A departure from her most recent work (Corvus), in which she focused on the lives of crows, in Field Notes she casts her sharp eye more broadly. Through richly crafted prose she depicts the city and its inhabitants, both human and non-human, as they manage their lives and come to grips with natural elements and each other. Woolfson describes the “Den,” a narrow wooded valley surrounded by houses and fenced off from visitors: “You could live here for a long time and never know it’s there.” While her short, almost-daily musings are evocative, Woolfson is at her best when she gives herself the space to explore her thoughts more deeply. Her sections on living with rats, the lives of slugs, and of herring gulls are joys to read, and she is both passionate and poetic when she turns her attention to the human species, focusing on the nature of cruelty or what it means to be Jewish (as she is). Woolfson’s careful observations bring to our attention elements of the natural world often taken for granted. (Feb.)