Wolves and Honey: A Hidden History of the Natural World

By Susan Brind Morrow

Book Overview

Susan Brind Morrow brings her singular sensibility as a classicist and linguist to this strikingly original reflection on the fine but resilient threads that bind humans to the natural world.

Anchored in the emblematic experiences of a trapper and a beekeeper, Wolves and Honey explores the implications of their very different relationships to the natural world, while illuminating Morrow's own experience of the lives and tragic deaths of these men who deeply influenced her.

Ultimately for Morrow these two--the tracker and trapper of wolves, the keeper of bees--are a touchstone for a memoir of the land itself, the rich soil of the Finger Lakes region in upstate New York. From the ancient myth of the Tree of Life to the mysterious reappearance of wolves in the New York wilderness, from the inner life of the word "nectar," whose Greek root ("that which overcomes death") reveals our most fundamental experience of wonder, to the surprising links between the physics of light and the chemistry of sweetness, Morrow's richly evocative writing traces startling historical, scientific, and metaphorical resonances.

Wolves and Honey, attuned to the connections among various realms of culture and nature, time and language, jolts us into thinking anew about our sometimes neglected but always profound relationship to the natural world.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0618619208
• ISBN13: 9780618619207
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

The first-person blend of memoir and observational piece is wonderfully rich in detail and insight

Two of author Morrow's best friends are a trapper and a beekeeper: together the tree reflect on the nature of the Finger Lakes region of upper New York State in WOLVES AND HONEY: A HIDDEN HISTORY OF THE NATURAL WORLD. The juxtaposition of two very different, eccentric personalities in Morrow's friends reflect the variations of the land and wildlife they're involved with in Morrow's reflection of man and nature. The first-person blend of memoir and observational piece is wonderfully rich in detail and insight. Diane C. Donovan, Editor California Bookwatch

Touching the truth

Her words like skipping stones, Seeing afar from the air, Splashing down again and again In truth's lake.

Wolves is a Honey

Flora and fauna aren't my strong points. But after reading Morrow's new book, I feel I can hold my own on bees, the Finger Lakes, apples, trees and yes, wolves. The book is a meditation and needs to be read slowly so that the reader doesn't miss the subtleties of her language and thought. The interconnections between the natural world of upstate New York and its political, social and religious worlds is fascinating. In the book's first pages Morrow transported this lifelong city dweller to upstate New York with such ease and pleasure that I didn't want to return. It is the perfect read for a quiet afternoon in a hammock.