After a Hard Day’s Writing, Michael Pollan Likes to Unwind With a Novel “Getting to read fiction purely for pleasure is the carrot I hold out for myself as a reward for the work of reporting and writing.”
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What’s the last great book you read?
“The Overstory,” by Richard Powers, is a book that, the further I am from reading it, looms larger and larger in my imagination. My über-subject as a writer is our species’ engagement with nature, and in “The Overstory” Powers has done something no one else has done (outside of science fiction): Displace the human in favor of other species in a realistic narrative about people and the natural world...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/08/books/review/michael-pollan-by-the-book-interview.html?smid=em-share
At 17, Dara McAnulty is becoming one of Britain’s most acclaimed nature writers, with work that touches on his autism as much as the world around his home.
MONEYDARRAGH, Northern Ireland — While he carefully stepped from one moss-carpeted rock to another, Dara McAnulty outlined his rules for nature watching.
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“You’ll never see something if you bring a camera,” he said on this coastal stretch of Northern Ireland, “and you’ll definitely never see what you’re intending to find.”
His rules quickly proved true. McAnulty had wanted to use the ramble near his home to show off the local curlew population, but it was high tide — with waves sending salt spray spurting over the rocks — and there were no birds to be seen.
Instead, he squatted down to stare into a rock pool in search of his latest obsession: shrimp. Seaweed swayed in the water, but there were no signs of marine life. Then, suddenly, he noticed the smallest movement. “Oh, there’s a shrimpy boy!” he shouted. “Oh my God, it’s amazing. Can you see it? Can you see it?”
(continues) https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/07/books/dara-mcanulty-diary-of-a-young-naturalist.html?smid=em-share
