A review by kdraw333
Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology by David Abram

1.0

I'm all for poetic and personal writing in creative non-fiction (I loved what I've read by Philip Hoare for instance) and I can see that the author wants us to feel as much as think about the natural world, but unfortunately I felt the writing here was getting in the way by calling too much attention to itself. Maybe I was hoping for it to get more academic? It seemed to promise an examination of humanity's relationship with nature, which I thought would draw from historical, literary, anthropological research in a more rigorous way. But this feels more like a stream-of-consciousness love letter based on anecdotal, subjective experiences that just didn't hold my interest. I'm sure the author is a lovely person and I'd love to see what other books are on his bookshelf.