Dawn light : dancing with cranes and other ways to start the day

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Title:

Dawn light : dancing with cranes and other ways to start the day

Author:

Ackerman, Diane, 1948- author.

ISBN:

9780393061734

Edition:

1st ed.

Publication Information:

New York : W.W. Norton & Co., c2009.

Physical Description:

xiv, 240 p., [8] p. of plates : col. ill. ; 22 cm.

Contents:

Prologue: a dawning pleasure -- Dawn mother -- Spring: Palm Beach, Florida. Dawn among the palms -- Just a little rain -- A calamity of cranes -- The lost night sky -- Forget bats -- Some tales we tell -- Venus observed -- In the spirit of Monet -- Festivals of the dawn -- Troubadours -- Missive -- Red dawns and fields of green -- Time races Dawn's many faces -- Summer: Ithaca, New York. Dangerous dawn -- In the spirit of Sei Shōnagon -- Dawn in the garden of cosmic reflection --Matins with the neighbors (two-legged and four) -- The solstice bird -- In the spirit of Hokusai -- On the ledge of the morning -- Dew drop in -- Where it's summer -- Woodpecker dawn -- Glory days -- Autumn.The murmuring of innumerable bees -- Honeycombing -- An angle on Archimedes -- A little Sabbath with the sun -- Autumn dawn -- False dawn -- Nothing doing -- In the vase of the universe -- Clever as clever -- Field guides -- Winter. Where it's winter -- Water, water everywhere -- Crystals -- One bad rooster spoils the barnyard -- After hours -- The silence that is not there and the silence that is -- Time well spent.

Personal Subject:

Monet, Claude, 1840-1926.

Sei Shōnagon, approximately 967-

Katsushika, Hokusai, 1760-1849.

Subject Term:

Natural history.

Seasons -- Psychological aspects.

Nature -- Psychological aspects.

Human beings -- Effect of environment on.

Geographic Term:

Summary:

A celebrated storyteller-poet-naturalist explores a year of dawns, drawing on sources as diverse as meteorology, world religion, etymology, art history, poetry, organic farming, and beekeeping.

Holds:

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Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Stillwater Public Library	508 ACK	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

In an eye-opening sequence of personal meditations through the cycle of seasons, Diane Ackerman awakens us to the world at dawn--drawing on sources as diverse as meteorology, world religion, etymology, art history, poetry, organic farming, and beekeeping. As a patient and learned observer of animal and human physiology and behavior, she introduces us to varieties of bird music and other signs of avian intelligence, while she herself "migrates" from winter in Florida to spring, summer, and fall in upstate New York.Humans might luxuriate in the idea of being "in" nature, Ackerman points out, but we often forget that we are nature--for "no facet of nature is as unlikely as we, the tiny bipeds with the giant dreams." Joining science's devotion to detail with religion's appreciation of the sublime, Dawn Light is an impassioned celebration of the miracles of evolution--especially human consciousness of our numbered days on a turning earth.

Author Notes

Diane Ackerman was born on October 7, 1948 in Waukegan, Illinois. She received a B.A. in English from Pennsylvania State University and her M.A., M.F.A., and Ph.D. in English from Cornell University. Poet, author, educator, adventurer, and naturalist, she tries to bridge science and art in her writing, exploring questions of who we are, where we come from, and how we fit into the fabric of the world.

She has written many books of poetry including The Planets: A Cosmic Pastoral; Wife of Light; Jaguar of Sweet Laughter: New and Selected Poems; Origami Bridges: Poems of Psychoanalysis and Fire; and I Praise My Destroyer. Her nonfiction works include A Natural History of the Senses; A Natural History of Love; The Moon by Whale Light: And Other Adventures Among Bats, Crocodilians, Penguins, and Whales; An Alchemy of Mind; and On Extended Wings. She also writes nature books for children including Animal Sense; Monk Seal Hideaway; and Bats: Shadows in the Night. She is coeditor of a Norton anthology, The Book of Love. Her essays about nature and human nature have appeared in Parade, National Geographic, The New York Times, and The New Yorker magazines. She hosted a five-hour PBS television series inspired by A Natural History of the Senses.

She received the Orion Book Award for The Zookeepers Wife. Her other awards include the Abbie Copps Poetry Prize, Black Warrior Poetry Prize, Pushcart Prize, Peter I. B. Lavan award, and the Wordsmith award. She has taught at a variety of universities, including Columbia and Cornell.

(Bowker Author Biography)

Reviews (3)

Kirkus Review

Ackerman (An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain, 2004, etc.) luxuriates in the break of day. The author experiences dawn as a powerful borderland that accommodates both dreaminess and awareness. She celebrates the sighting of a crane flying overhead and meditates on the use of the bird in Oriental art and Greek myth. Moving gracefully between erudition and whimsy, Ackerman demonstrates an intelligent, humble approach to science: "Science is a tribute to our cleverness, but we are fallible and we filter out so much of the world." The book is arranged by season; the chapters are mostly short and rich with imagery and insight. The author is always comfortable following her fancy, whether considering a spider's web illuminated at first light, the mechanics of sunflowers, an astounding daybreak cloud, a lover slipping away at dawn in The Pillow Book, Monet painting "the lavish spell of the senses detained by a pink and blue sunrise" or the "chatterbox chorale" coming through the window from all manner of bird, the best of which has got to be the crow: "I'm up, dammit. I'm up! I survived another night on this godforsaken planet! Beat that!"an imagined greeting that reminds the author "that a mass of crows is called a murder of crows." A lovely, learned invitation to "the ancient thrill of impending sunlight." Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* Ackerman contemplates the many faces of dawn by way of her inimitable mesh of science and art, the personal and the historical. Dawn, she writes, is always a rebirth, a fresh start. She witnesses this threshold in time at home in Palm Beach, Florida, and Ithaca, New York, and then chronicles all that the first light of day delivers, stirs up, and transforms. As in each of her metaphor-lush, scintillating, and affecting books, from the seminal A Natural History of the Senses (1990) to the best-selling Zookeeper's Wife (2007), Ackerman creates a luxuriant word garden brimming with spirited observations, stories, and musings. Birds of all kinds get top billing, but since Ackerman always casts her net wide, here, too, are spiders and honeybees, milkweed and lotuses, rain and rust ( a very slow fire ). Because humankind is intrinsic to the story of dawn, Ackerman's roaming meditation embraces dawn rituals and divinities, as well as two artists inspired by dawn's half-open doorway between dream and wakefulness, Japanese painter and printmaker Hokusai and impressionist Monet. Cascading details, sensuous celebrations, and hard-won insights form a glorious spectrum reaching from deep dark to dawn light as Ackerman, fluent in both sorrow and joy, awakens a keen appreciation for the cycles and interconnectivity of life.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2009 Booklist

Library Journal Review

The award-winning author of books on an eclectic range of subjects, Ackerman (The Zookeeper's Wife) now turns her attention to the dawn. This collection of essays is arranged seasonally from spring to winter and ranges geographically between Palm Beach, FL, and Ithaca, NY. Essays cover everything from the behavior of doves in Florida at dawn and Monet's use of light in his art to a discussion of festivals that take place at dawn and teaching young whooping cranes to migrate. Ackerman focuses on the natural world, especially birds, but she also explores mythology, art, and literature. Verdict These pieces are accessible and lyrically written, and they flow well, one after another, making reading the book a true pleasure. Ackerman's fans and readers who appreciate nature writing at its finest will love this. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 5/1/09.]-Sue O'Brien, Downers Grove P.L., IL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Bound With These Titles

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Summary

Summary

Author Notes

Reviews (3)

Kirkus Review

Booklist Review

Library Journal Review

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