Holdfast: At Home in the Natural World

Reminiscent of the work of Annie Dillard and others who have combined their observations of the natural world with philosophical reflections, this collection of 21 lyrical essays by the author of Riverwalking intently probes the ways we are bound to our planet and to one another. Moore's governing metaphor is the ""holdfast,"" a mysterious structure that glues algae to the ocean floor. In ""Howling with Strangers,"" she describes an evening when she and six other people gathered in the Minnesota woods to listen to wolves howling and to howl in return, an exercise that left Moore with a feeling of joyful connection to the universe. In an effort to conjure the details of the boathouse on the island in Ontario where her husband's family summered, Moore calls her husband's parents in ""Memory (the Boathouse)"" and finds comfort as they grope together for memories (of ""new pine boards and gasoline"" and the beaver who lived in a corner under a pile of sticks) like ""children holding hands in the dark."" Although, as a philosopher, Moore does not assign special meaning to life, she takes great pleasure in the ""preening, threatening, posturing"" birds and the raucous chorus of frogs she observes during a visit to a marshland because ""life directs all its power to one end, and that is to continue to be."" (June)