In my experience, collections of essays come in several forms. The book I’ll be discussing today is a 2016 collection of essays by Mary Oliver, a very well-known poet and essayist (I reviewed her book Dog Songs on the blog a while back). But now that we’re back and it seems that we’re (sadly) on the downhill side of Summer, I thought I’d share a new book review and some pictures from the first part of our trip.

It's Monday again.Happy Friday! It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted anything on the blog, mainly because I’ve been out of town for almost two weeks on a wonderful family vacation.It's Monday, who's reading something good?.Listened via Overdrive through my library Just be prepared for some strange looks when people walk into the room and suddenly hear about malevolent voices or the appearance of tiny people. Sacks teaches you a lot without losing those of us who don't have advanced degrees in brain science. I usually find nonfiction a good genre to listen to, and this book was no exception. When I saw this book recommended as a starting point for his work, I found the audiobook through my library. I have been meaning to read something by Oliver Sacks for a while. In this book, we learn about the wide range of hallucinations from a doctor who wants readers to understand them instead of fear them. Others purposefully seek out these experiences by taking drugs. Some people experience hallucinations because of injury or illness. Oliver Sacks reveals that, instead, there are a variety of kinds of hallucinations and reasons for them to occur. Hallucinations are a manifestation of mental illness, right? Dr. These essays are a reminder for each of us to pay attention to our lives, to the small joys of every day, and to the wonders of nature all around us. Some essays focus solely on the life of animals, like fish and turtles and even a single spider, as she reports her observations.Īs always, reading words from Mary Oliver is a balm for the soul. Another essay holds her musings on the nature of creativity and the meeting of hard, regular work and the spark of inspiration. Some of the earlier essays deal with Oliver's childhood discovery that both the quiet forest and the pages of a book could offer companionship. For the reader familiar with her poems, it should be no surprise that her prose is sparse and beautiful. In Upstream, she uses essays to examine her favorite writers and extol the ways that nature can give us hope and put things in perspective.

Mary Oliver is a writer known for her poems that praise the beauty of nature.

Mary oliver upstream review