Reviews

Things That Are: Encounters with Plants, Stars and Animals by Amy Leach

wynwicket's review against another edition

4.0

In these brilliant, poetic little nature essays, Amy Leach tackles everything from jellyfish to Ursa Minor, pandas, and mayflies, and love-lies-bleeding. Lovely, lovely writing, full of unexpected metaphors and the occasional flight of fancy.

This would have been a 5-star book, but I made the mistake of reading the book cover-to-cover -- I highly recommend reading this one slowly, an essay at a time, over a week or so.

melloves2read's review against another edition

5.0

This was a beautifully written collection of essays. Amy Leach has an amazing way with words. I read a lot of it it loud to myself (and the cat when she was interested) just to hear the beauty of the words she chose.

saffpaff's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective relaxing fast-paced

2.5

kitkot's review

3.0

This book took AGES to read.

How do I describe this book?
A mix of descriptions in the middle of factual information on the biology and evolution of animals. It’s like when a science teacher decided to write poetry?

The Guardian said “These are the gold flakes you scatter on the rice dish of your everyday reading” and I couldn’t agree more.

It’s hard to read this consecutively because all the chapters are all written in a manner that requires full attention otherwise you miss out. The descriptions are new and takes time to catch on so it was exhausting to catching up.

moonsweetie's review against another edition

5.0

This book is just gorgeous in every way.

sarahjjs's review against another edition

5.0

This is amazing. Buy it, read it and then purchase more and give it to every person you know who cares about animals, the planets and space.

toad_maiden's review against another edition

4.0

This book challenges one's conception of creative nonfiction as a genre. Leach writes essays at once poetical and frank, scientific and fantastical, minutely specific and vast. I delighted in each chapter of this book.

nataliejohansen's review against another edition

5.0

Amy Leach took GK Chesterton's statement to heart: "The world will never starve for want of wonders, but for want of wonder." Simply put, this book wonders on the wonders of the world, and it is magical.

keepreadingbooks's review

adventurous funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

I don’t know how to explain this book other than to call it a romp – a delightful, philosophical, intelligent, educational, entertaining romp. Just listen to some of these essay titles: Radical Bears in the Forest Delicious, Please Do Not Yell at the Sea Cucumber, The Wild What. It’s the kind of book that makes you excited about learning something new and seeing well-known things in a new light. It’s a book for lovers of all things wild and free. It even sometimes reminded me of Mary Oliver, most specifically in the essays titled “God” and “Comfortless”. It’ll make you chuckle, and it’ll definitely make you google lots of interesting stuff you’d never heard of before, but it will hopefully also make you go out into the day and appreciate the little and big wonders of the world.

zuzana_be's review

5.0

Beautiful poetic essays about nature and the world around us. A bit difficult language sometimes (or maybe just a higher level than my English) but still, it makes you focus on things which you never focus on the basic day.
Also one of my favourite reads this year. This is the book you really want to read.

And please. Do not yell at the sea cucumbers.