Barbara Hurd's Fascinating Books on Caves, Swamps, and Shorelines

                         

Barbara Hurd has three superlative books out from the University of Georgia Press this summer: Walking the Wrack Line: On Tidal Shifts and What Remains; Stirring the Mud: On Swamps, Bogs, and Human Imagination; and Entering the Stone: On Caves and Feeling Through the Dark. The latter two are reprints that were honored with being a Los Angeles Times book of the year and Library Journal's best natural history book of the year respectively. Walking the Wrack Line is more than likely to win some awards as well, being just as good as the first two, if not better.

In each book, Hurd collects her essays about the subject at hand. Each is a finely crafted gem of insight, imagination, and information. The way in which she collects specific detail and makes it as interesting to the reader as to her is a kind of gift. The focus of her attention in Walking the Wrack Line is as finely tuned as it is at times lyrical. In such essays as "Moon Snail: Unseemly Proportions," "Spider Crab: Disguise," "Jellyfish: The Unfinished," "Bottle and Feather: A Different Question," Hurd not only celebrates the natural world, she also slowly builds up a complete picture of an ecosystem through its component parts. In addition, she manages to infuse her observations with universal themes.

But, for me at least, there's another pleasure that comes from reading Walking the Wrack Line, and it's selfishly personal. I'm one of those readers who also likes mucking about in tidal pools and searching the beach for seaweed, driftwood, and exotic creatures washed up far from home. On that level, Hurd's book also has great appeal. Because nothing in Walking the Wrack Line seems false; instead, it's as if someone had had the same experience, and knew the best way to get it down in prose.

I should add that I not only recommend these books for their content. The University of Georgia Press has done a marvelous job with the packaging. All three volumes are beautiful books, and deserve space on your shelf.