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Books
ONE HUNDRED NAMES FOR LOVE
Pulitzer Prize Finalist National Book Circle Critics Award Finalist "A gorgeously engrossing, affecting, sweetly funny, and mind-opening love story of crisis, determination, creativity, and repair."-- Booklist Intensely lyrical and profoundly moving, One Hundred Names for Love is at once a tender love story and an inspiring chronicle of illness and recovery. Diane Ackerman brings us an absorbing, uplifting account of the near-miraculous recovery of her husband, the gifted writer Paul West, after a massive stroke that rendered him unable to communicate or understand language. Here is a story about hope and patience in the face of heartbreak, and of the triumph of love and creativity. One Hundred Names for Love—Ackerman’s most personal work of nonfiction yet—is a compassionate yet unsentimental portrait of a marriage; a work of poetic, lucid science writing; and a celebration of the written word and the wonders of language.
THE ZOOKEEPER'S WIFE, a War Story
The Zookeeper's Wife is a strange, but historically true story of WWII. It reveals the extraordinary efforts of Jan and Antonina Zabinski, Christian zookeepers horrified by Nazi racism, who capitalized on the Nazis' obsession with pureblood animals in order to save over 300 doomed people by hiding them in the bombed-out cages at the Warsaw Zoo. A tale of people, animals, and subversive acts of compassion. ORION MAGAZINE ANNOUNCES THE WINNER OF THE 2008 ORION BOOK AWARD "The Zookeeper's Wife is a groundbreaking work of nonfiction,"said selection committee member Mark Kurlansky, "in which the human relationship to nature is explored in an absolutely original way through looking at the Holocaust." Kathleen Dean Moore, the committee's chairperson, said: "A few years ago, 'nature' writers were asking themselves, How can a book be at the same time a work of art, an act of conscientious objection to the destruction of the world, and an affirmation of hope and human decency? The Zookeeper's Wife answers this question."
DAWN LIGHT: Dancing with Cranes and Other Ways To Greet the Day
In an eye-opening sequence of personal meditations through the cycle of seasons, celebrated storyteller-poet-naturalist Diane Ackerman awakens us to the world at dawn, bringing into stunning focus a time of day that many of us literally or metaphorically sleep through. Drawing on sources as diverse as meteorology, world religion, etymology, art history, poetry, organic farming, and beekeeping, Ackerman explores dawn’s every aspect from bird and animal behavior, to the incomparable morning light that has long inspired artists such as Monet, to dawn rituals the world over, to the many connotations of the word “dawn.” In prose so rich and evocative that one can feel the earth turning beneath one’s feet as one reads, Ackerman’s thrilling observations—of things ranging from cloud glories to the endangered whooping cranes of the book’s title—urge us to live in the moment, to wake up to nature’s everyday miracles.
AN ALCHEMY OF MIND
An Alchemy of Mind explores the mysteries of the brain and the marvel of the mind. "In prose that is not simply accessible but also beautiful and electric, it distills the hard, objective truths of science in order to yield vivid, heavily anecdotal responses to a range of existential questions regarding consciousness, human thought, memory, and the nature of identity."
CULTIVATING DELIGHT
Cultivating Delight is a poetic book about gardens, growth, our relationship with nature, the intimate lives of animal neighbors, the zaniness of some famous gardeners; questions of mortality, garden etiquette, curiosity and wonder; how a garden becomes an extension of the self and can give an important shape to one’s life.
ORIGAMI BRIDGES: Poems of Psychoanalysis and Fire
At the heart of Origami Bridges is the delicate relationship of trust between analyst and patient, a relationship that grows out of the emotional give-and-take of the psychoanalytic process.
A NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SENSES
"A Natural History of the Senses is full of answers to the sorts of questions that the child in each of us often asks. But what draws you most happily through the book is the language. Ms. Ackerman gives the reader the richest possible feeling of the worlds that the human senses take in." -- Christopher Lehman-Haupt, The New York Times
DEEP PLAY
"Ackerman brings such joy to the page.... The very act of reading this original, exultant, sage, poetic, and generous meditation on the importance of enchantment is deep play, and you can't ask that a book be anything more wonderful than that." --Booklist
THE MOON BY WHALE LIGHT
A unique blend of poetic essays and scientific descriptions of endangered animals and the natural world. Ackerman writes with the precision of a scientist and the soul of a romantic, luring readers with provocative word pictures while educating them on the importance of such animals in the global scheme of nature. She maintains that near-perfect balance of animal lore, objective study, and conservation, and includes some downright hair-raising adventures. Her goal, to underscore our responsibility to respond to the protection of these creatures, is met admirably. This is nonfiction storytelling at its best.
ANIMAL SENSE (poems for children)
“Caldecott Honor winner Peter Sís teams up with acclaimed author Diane Ackerman in this stunning, sophisticated collection of poetry about animals' senses.... Ideal for animal and poetry lovers -- yet made for anyone looking for a work of true art -- this extraordinary read will expand the mind and soothe the spirit.” --Barnes & Noble.com |
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