The Wild Here and Now

In The Wild Here and Now Susan Charkes writes about nature where you least expect to find it: right in front of you. Charkes is a perceptive observer, a superb storyteller, and a gifted translator of science into accessible language. She writes poetically, lyrically, even humorously, but always eloquently, to reveal unexpected layers of significance in everyday encounters.

Nature in The Wild Here and Now is not something you go somewhere else to discover. It's all around you: a squirrel in a tree cavity, a mayfly on the hood of a car, a turkey vulture overhead, a gnat under the collar. Each essay supplies a fresh perspective, a different magnifying lens, and inspires the reader to experience the hidden wild in a new way: to bring the background into the foreground.

Writing from her vantage point in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Charkes conveys a love for place that comes from devoted attention to the familiar. A poet and a writer of nonfiction, including several books on the outdoors, Charkes has a supple style, conveying the same quality of surprise that she finds in nature.

The Wild Here and Now inspires the reader to see, hear and feel nature with newly sharpened senses: to discover a new world, right outside the front door.