Over nine essays, Quinn finds connections between the natural world and her life, from grappling with her religious upbringing to adopting a child. Currently living in Wisconsin, a state with more than 15,000 lakes, Quinn compares herself to a 10-year-old boy: hiking through the woods and waters in search of critters, insects, and eggs. Hunting the female ichneumon wasp and its strange way of reproducing, she meditates on evolution, the afterlife, and humans' predisposition to believe in creation myths. Obsessively looking for the elusive, yet surprisingly abundant, salamander and her eggs coincides with her and her husband's decision to adopt a child and the process that follows. While her essays tend to meander and she may periodically lose the reader among overly confusing metaphors, this really does little to affect the enjoyment of reading these beautifully detailed pieces. Plus, the meandering leads to fascinating tidbits: nuggets of science and nature information and theories. A natural choice for folks who enjoy memoirs similar to Late Migrations (2019), by Margaret Renkl, and Lab Girl (2016), by Hope Jahren.

Quinn's uneven second essay collection (after Deranged: Finding a Sense in the Landscape and in the Lifespan) uses forays into the environment of the Great Lakes to illuminate and ground larger questions, such as the existence of an afterlife or the nature of motherhood. Throughout the book's nine selections, Quinn has a propensity for making connections between personal and scientific topics. Sometimes this technique is effective, as when she describes the complex life cycle of a single insect species, the ichneumon wasp, to address the theory of evolution, and its ramifications for the Christianity of her upbringing. It's more intriguing still when she reflects on the protracted process she and her husband went through to adopt a child in terms of the question of whether all humans have an innate urge to have children (she opines that the truly "innate biological drive is the creating, not the offspring. It's sex we want, not children.") Other linkages feel contrived, such as when she compares rigid geological categories to how platonic same-sex relationships have been categorized, and often miscategorized as sexual, by various people over time, or connects feelings of homesickness to a theorized human yearning for the savanna landscapes of the earliest humans. Fans of Annie Dillard will appreciate some of the insights found here, but there are enough flaws to prevent Quinn's intermittently intriguing offering from standing out in its genre. (Aug.)

A nature writer reflects on existential ideas while exploring backwoods landscapes near her Wisconsin home. In this deeply introspective collection of essays, Quinn applies her scientific knowledge to local wildlife phenomena that have inspired her to reflect on spiritual and evolutionary questions. In the title essay, one of the standouts, the author investigates the life cycle of giant ichneumon (parasitic) wasps while pondering the existence of God in relation to evolution and natural selection, questioning how either may serve the possibility or assurance of an afterlife. In "Enskyment" she focuses on the vultures that roost near her church while considering the relevancy of religious teachings and practices. Throughout, Quinn's parallel explorations are uniformly thought-provoking, effectively connecting often unrelated themes--though "Metamorphic," her study of rock formations in relation to the expansiveness of human sexuality, doesn't quite hold up to the rest. Though not interconnected initially, the final few essays loosely track the author's experiences leading up to the adoption of her son, a process that "seemed at times rather cold-blooded. Mechanical. Deliberate. Too conscious." Quinn demonstrates a graceful prose style, and her lyrical sense of discovery and wonder may draw comparison to writers like Annie Dillard. "There is much we cannot see, in the ecosystem and in ourselves," she writes. "Perhaps when we look both outward and inward, we need to use only the coarse focus and increase our field of view, because what at first appears blurry may be actually the truest version of a thing. We are more than the amalgam of genes and memes we imagine ourselves to be; we have pigeonholed the soldiers in the nature-nurture squabble too narrowly….We have been thinking of ourselves as persons, when we are more like the land. I see the pond; therefore, I see the muskrat. And the snapping turtle. And me." Engaging, insightful musings at the intersection of natural science and spiritual exploration. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.