Synopses & Reviews
and#147;Of all the wondrous things that are catalogued in this brave little book, the most wondrously fresh and novel may be the uncanny Ms. Leachand#8217;s own gamin-sly, rhythm-rhymey voice, and oh that flint-flighty, rapt-capacious mind of hers. Besides which, no one conjures a presenter present tense than she. Sheer scrambling delight.and#8221;
and#151;Lawrence Weschler, author of Mr Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder and Uncanny Valley: Adventures in the Narrative
and#147;Like a descendant of Lewis Carroll and Emily Dickinson, Amy Leach brings new meaning to the world without us, and within. A reader entering this book to learn more about the universe will exit knowing much more about her own self. At once large and intimate, these essays introduce one of the most exciting and original writers in America.and#8221;
and#151;Yiyun Li, author of Gold Boy, Emerald Girl and The Vagrants
and#147;I know of no other writer on earthand#151;or in the skyand#151;like Amy Leach. One of the pleasures of Things That Are is the surprise of finding, among the mouldywarps and whimwhams and leguminous exoplanets of our galaxy, truths about ourselvesand#151;unearthed and unaired.and#8221;
and#151;Eula Biss, author of Notes from No Manand#8217;s Land
and#147;Infernally addictive.and#8221;
and#151;David Abram, author of Becoming Animal
In a series of essays that progress from the tiniest Earth dwellers to far-flung celestial bodiesand#151;considering everything from the similarity of gods to donkeys, to exploding stars and exploding sea cucumbersand#151;Amy Leach (Rona Jaffe and Whiting Award winner) rekindles our communion with the world. This groundbreaking debut delights and confounds the senses in wondrous ways.
Cover illustration:
and#169; Nate Christopherson
Review
A
HUFFINGTON POST BEST BOOK PICK
BEST OF 2012 PICK FROM INDIEBOUND
"Words of wisdom....Ms. Leach humanizes and elevates"
Rachel Hodin, The Local, on NYT.com
"If Donald Barthelme had made nature documentaries, the commentary might have sounded like this. Lyrical and strange, this engaging book is filled with short tales whose most perfect sentences stay with you, especially in your dreams. "
Huffington Post
"One of those rare writers who fearlessly follows her muse through the maze. (She amuses, and amazes.) Some pieces read like columns for Scientific American, written by a more cheerful Kafka. Others are like books of the Old Testament, rewritten by Charles Darwin. Reading her fresh, surprising pages, you realise how often other writers bend what they wish to say out of its natural shape, to suit markets, to fit existing genres."
The Guardian
"This slim book from the American essayist Amy Leach is a rarity, a work 'empty of human commotion.'"
The Financial Times
"My new favorite author...her essays explore the lives of caterpillars and frogs, peas and constellations in gorgeous sentences that soar so high you think they're going to fly off the page."
Mary Ann Grossman, St. Paul Pioneer Press
"Beautiful, graceful essays
. It's science made into poetry
.. If you'd like a break from the awfully boring language of adulthood, from customer service numbers and insurance claims, Leach's essays are the perfect escape."
Kate Whittle, Missoula Independent
"A debut collection of essays blends the natural world with, well, everything else...Leach's essays are both fanciful and erudite...Her diction is electrically poetic...Hers is a realistic, though affirmative philosophy: Life is chancy, she admits, and throughout these inventive, sparkling essays, she proposes that for us mortals the way to serenity is through laughter...Leach [is] a gifted writer/naturalist, whose essays are reminiscent of Diane Ackerman's, with a bit more fizz. Her first book, captivatingly illustrated in the woodblock tradition by Nate Christopherson, portends a bright literary future."
Kathryn Lang, Minneapolis StarTribune
"A magical work of natural history... filled with crystalline imagery and intriguing nuggets of information."
Carolyn Sienkiewicz, Washington Independent Review of Books
"Her style is whimsical and enchanting, like being led down a rabbit hole.... She shows us our world in rich, researched detail, while still reserving space for mystery."
Andrew Johnson, New Letters
"This is The Origin of Species as a fairy story. Leach has written essays and stories, together in one; essays that explain, that explore, that assay far and wide, into depths and nooks and crannies and the vast expanse of sky, that show the incredible things we've learned from Earth and heavenbut all done sneakily, with the fabulist's knack for narrative."
Diagram
"You need this book, friend."
Seth Marko, the Book Catapult
"The living world has a new and sprightly champion in Leach, winner of a Whiting Writers Award and a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers Award. In her first collection of essays, gracefully illustrated by Nate Christopherson in the mode of Barry Moser and Rockwell Kent, Leach is nimble, precise, dynamic, witty, and metaphysical. She writes of wondrously adaptive goats, penguins enduring blizzards to protect what may well be a stone instead of an egg, and tiny warblers who travel thousands of miles. Leach discerns the pea plants yearning” for connection as it sends out its searching tendrils and compares bamboodependent pandas to penitents. In her heady and astute approach to natural history, her disarming concoctions of science and fancy, she is part Diane Ackerman, part Margaret Atwood. Also a bluegrass musician, she writes delectably rhythmic, singing sentences. Here be dragons, water lilies, jellyfish, and spiritual quests. Leach looks to the heavens, too, considering with high imagination the forces that shape stars and galaxies. Even as she fashions a bit of bluesy satire to decry our abuse of nature, Leach is ecstatic in her knowledgeable, resplendent, and exhilarating contemplations of everything from subatomic particles to dust, Spinoza, donkeys, and caterpillars.
Donna Seaman, Booklist (STARRED)
"This debut collection by Leach, winner of a Whiting Writers' Award and a Pushcart Prize, explores fantastical and curious subjects pertaining to natural phenomena....The authors appreciation for absurdity and the joys of wildlife infuses her pieces with a childlike suspension of disbelief; her descriptions strike a balance between imagination and science, with dashes of magical realism, and some of her wording is far more similar to poetry than prose...this is a bonbon of a book."
Kirkus
"This is not a laborious scientific book, nor is it written from Christian sentiment. Rather, sources tell us that Leach's expositions take on a mythic tone likened to a fairy tale or a bedtime story."
Maggie Hellwig, the Chicagoist
"Of all the wondrous things that are catalogued in this brave little book, the most wondrously fresh and novel may be the uncanny Ms Leach's own gamin-sly, rhythm-rhymey voice, and oh that flint-flighty, rapt-capacious mind of hers. Besides which, no one conjures a presenter present tense than she. Sheer scrambling delight."
Lawrence Weschler, author of Mr Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder and Uncanny Valley
Like a descendant of Lewis Carroll and Emily Dickinson, Amy Leach brings new meaning to the world without us, and within. A reader entering this book to learn more about the universe will exit knowing much more about her own self. At once large and intimate, these essays introduce one of the most exciting and original writers in America.”
Yiyun Li, author of Gold Boy, Emerald Girl and The Vagrants
"I know of no other writer on earth or in the sky like Amy Leach. One of the pleasures of Things That Are is the surprise of finding, among the mouldywarps and whimwhams and leguminous exoplanets of our galaxy, truths about ourselves unearthed and unaired."
Eula Biss, author of Notes from No Man's Land
"Loopy, mad-hatterish, infernally addictive writing that makes you sneeze."
David Abram, author of Becoming Animal
"I havent seen such imagination and magical use of language in nature writing since I first read Annie Dillards Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Spend some time with Amy Leach and your perception of the world will inevitably be altered."
Dale Szczeblowski, Porter Square Books, Cambridge, MA
"If you love words and the natural world, Amy Leach will lead you through the world with new eyes. Amy Leach invites you to see the world with wonder and joy, wisdom and grief. You have never seen the world like this and it will delight you. This gorgeous hardcover is an illustrated book of essays and a crazy good deal for $18.00 and will be my go-to gift for years to come."
Jeanne Costello, Maria's Bookshop, Durango, CO
"Amy Leach's lyrical collection of essays on the natural world inhabits the same aesthetic space as Annie Dillard's classic Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Brimming with delight and curiosity, Leach roves across the universe, from the minute (there's an essay on peas) to the unfathomably large ("In the year 3,000,002,012 the Andromeda Galaxy may collide with our Milky Way."), in the process loading this ark of a book full of the most wondrous creatures."
Green Apple Books (July e-newsletter), San Francisco, CA
"With Seussian rhythms and Thoreauvian observations, Amy Leach explores how nature reflects our own humanity in this sparkling, priceless gem of an essay collection. Whether discoursing on the familial carpentry partnerships of beavers, why ferrets likely do not utter the word 'God,' or the destiny of our galaxy after the stars burn out, she enlarges the tiniest microcosms of nature - the things we do not see unless we stop to look, quietly and closely - until we feel as much a part of the birds and the earth as we do our homes and cities.
Stacie, The Boswellians, Boswell Book Company blog, Milwaukee, WI
This is just the book to tuck into a backpack for a thoughtful read under open skies, or for curling up with while sitting on the deck.”
Kristine Kaufman, Snow Goose Bookstore, Stanwood, WA
Verbal delight...”
Publishers Weekly
"These essays that make up Things That Are are part encyclopedia entry, part whirlwind tour of a peculiar imagination . . . From past to present, Holocene to Anthropocene, from fantasy to realityThings That Areleads us through the looking glass and to the other side, even if were never sure which side were on. Its part celebration of the Earths strange bounty, and part swan song at natures dimming twilight. It goes from the bottom of the ocean where tender, sessile jellyfish polyps watch the sunflower stars eat sea urchins, and it leads us far into the night sky where constellations migrate. And for a brief moment in the middle humans are considered, given a brief voice before silenced again. We are but a blip in all of this, just one more thing that is."
Hot Metal Bridge, published by Writing MFA students at the University of Pittsburgh
PRAISE FOR AMY LEACH
. . . The sheer audacity of her invention . . . the constant bridge too far she manages to cross as she's building it. [Her] prose is shimmering, filled with vitality and astonishing intelligence. The moments where she makes a swerve into larger philosophic observation are absolutely mind-blowing, as is the sense the pieces provide of everything we're about to lose. She is a true original, has a remarkable mind, a glorious imagination, and shares her fascination with the largest and smallest things of this world."
Whiting Writers Award Prize Committee
Review
BEST OF 2012 PICK FROM INDIEBOUND
BEST BOOK OF SUMMER PICK BY THE HUFFINGTON POST
"Sheer scrambling delight." and#151;Lawrence Weschler
and#147;One of the most exciting and original writers in America.and#8221; and#151;Yiyun Li
"Loopy, mad-hatterish, infernally addictive writing that makes you sneeze." and#151;David Abram
"You need this book." and#151;Seth Marko, UCSD Bookstore
"I havenand#8217;t seen such imagination and magical use of language in nature writing since I first read Annie Dillardand#8217;s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek." and#151;Dale Szczeblowski, Porter Square Books
"If you love words and the natural world, Amy Leach will lead you through the world with new eyes." and#151;Jeanne Costello, Maria's Bookshop
"Sparkling, priceless.and#8221; and#151;Stacie Williams, Boswell Book Company
and#147;This is just the book to tuck into a backpack for a thoughtful read under open skies, or for curling up with while sitting on the deck.and#8221; and#151;Kristine Kaufman, Snow Goose Bookstore
"Words of wisdom....Ms. Leach humanizes and elevates." and#151;NYT.com
"[Leach] amuses, and amazes." and#151;The Guardian
"A rarity.and#8221; and#151;Financial Times
"Magical." and#151;Washington Independent Review of Books
"My new favorite author." and#151;St. Paul Pioneer Press
"Beautiful, graceful essaysand#133;. It's science made into poetry." and#151;Missoula Independent
"Reminiscent of Diane Ackerman's [essays], with a bit more fizz." and#151;Minneapolis StarTribune
"Whimsical and enchanting." and#151;New Letters
"Leach's expositions take on a mythic tone likened to a fairy tale or a bedtime story." and#151;Chicagoist.com
"This is a bonbon of a book." and#151;Kirkus
and#147;Verbal delight.and#8221; and#151;Publishers Weekly
"The living world has a new and sprightly champion in Leach, winner of a Whiting Writersand#8217; Award and a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writersand#8217; Award. In her first collection of essays, gracefully illustrated by Nate Christopherson in the mode of Barry Moser and Rockwell Kent, Leach is nimble, precise, dynamic, witty, and metaphysical. She writes of wondrously adaptive goats, penguins enduring blizzards to protect what may well be a stone instead of an egg, and tiny warblers who travel thousands of miles. Leach discerns the pea plantand#8217;s and#145;yearningand#8217; for connection as it sends out its searching tendrils and compares bamboodependent pandas to penitents. In her heady and astute approach to natural history, her disarming concoctions of science and fancy, she is part Diane Ackerman, part Margaret Atwood. Also a bluegrass musician, she writes delectably rhythmic, singing sentences. Here be dragons, water lilies, jellyfish, and spiritual quests. Leach looks to the heavens, too, considering with high imagination the forces that shape stars and galaxies. Even as she fashions a bit of bluesy satire to decry our abuse of nature, Leach is ecstatic in her knowledgeable, resplendent, and exhilarating contemplations of everything from subatomic particles to dust, Spinoza, donkeys, and caterpillars." and#151;Booklist (STARRED REVIEW)
Synopsis
The debut collection of a writer whose accolades precede her: a Whiting Award, a Rona Jaffe Award, a
Best American Essays selection, and a Pushcart Prize, all received before her first book-length publication. This book represents a major break-out of an entirely new brand of nonfiction writer, in a mode like that of Ander Monson, John D'Agata, and Eula Biss, but a new sort of beast entirely its own.
Things That Are takes jellyfish, fainting goats, and imperturbable caterpillars as just a few of its many inspirations. In a series of essays that progress from the tiniest earth dwellers to the most far flung celestial bodiesand#151;considering the similarity of gods to donkeys, the inexorability of love and vines, the relations of exploding stars to exploding sea cucumbersand#151;Amy Leach rekindles a vital communion with the wild world, dormant for far too long. Things That Are is not specifically of the animal, the human, or the phenomenal; it is a book of wonder, one the reader cannot help but leave with their perceptions both expanded and confounded in delightful ways.
About the Author
Since receiving her MFA from the University of Iowa in 2005,
Amy Leach has been recognized with the Whiting Writers Award (2010), a
Best American Essays selection (2009), a Rona Jaffe Foundation Award (2008), and a 2011 Pushcart Prize. Her essays have appeared in numerous literary journals and reviews, including
Tin House,
Orion Magazine,
A Public Space, and
Los Angeles Review. She lives in Chicago, where she plays the piano, performs in a bluegrass band, and teaches writing at Loyola and Northwestern Universities.