Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of four collections of poems, including, most recently, Oceanic, winner of the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award. Other awards for her writing include fellowships and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, Mississippi Arts Council, and MacDowell. Her writing appears in Poetry, the New York Times Magazine, ESPN, and Tin House. She serves as poetry faculty for the Writing Workshops in Greece and is professor of English and creative writing in the University of Mississippi’s MFA program.
"From its gorgeous illustrations to its unusual combination of
lyrical nature writing and memoir, World of Wonders is hands-down
one of the most beautiful books of the year." —NPR, "Best Books of
2020"
"Within two pages, nature writing feels different and fresh and
new. Nezhukumatathil has written a timely story about love,
identity and belonging . . . We are losing the language and the
ability to see and understand the wondrous things around us. And
our lives are impoverished by this process . . . This book demands
we find the eyes to see and the heart to love such things once
more. It is a very fine book indeed, truly full of wonder." —New
York Times Book Review“
"From peacocks to eels and dragon fruit, it’s immediately clear the
poet is right at home in the world of the essay.”—Shondaland
"It can be helpful to focus on the wonder of the natural world when
so much of what is happening around us feels out of our control . .
. World of Wonders urges us to take a breath and look around." —NPR
Morning Edition
“This book is part nature writing, part memoir, part cultural
criticism…and every bit of it is rendered in thoughtful and
striking prose...There’s something magical about the combination of
personal storytelling and naturalist information. Essays like
'Peacock' will have you near tears on behalf of the child
Nezhukumatathil, whose closed-minded teacher does such terrible
damage over a simple drawing of a bird. Others, like 'Axolotl,'
will immerse you in fascinating details of the unusual amphibian’s
wondrous abilities even as it infuriates you about the impact of
racist microaggressions. And while such a culmination of ideas
could easily feel contrived, World of Wonders is as natural as the
amazing creatures that populate its pages.”—Book Riot, "9
Unforgettable Prose Books Written By Poets"
"A truly wondrous essay collection that reminds us that when we
look close enough we can see that we are surrounded by
extraordinary things."—Roxane Gay
"World of Wonders, kind of like Aimee, is flabbergasted,
gobsmacked, and astonished with glee by all kinds of creatures and
phenomena, all kinds of kin, from flamingos to catalpas, from
monsoons to corpse flowers, from dancing frogs to axolotls." —Ross
Gay, Poets & Writers
"In thirty bewitching essays, Nezhukumatathil spotlights natural
astonishments raining from monsoon season in India to clusters of
fireflies in western New York, each one a microcosm of joy and
amazement. With her ecstatic prose and her rapturous powers of
insight, Nezhukumatathil proves herself a worthy spiritual
successor to the likes of Mary Oliver and Annie Dillard, setting
the bar high for a new generation of nature writers." —Esquire,
"Best Books of Fall 2020
"The nature writing we have been exposed to has been overwhelmingly
male and white, which is just one reason that Aimee
Nezhukumatathil's latest essay collection, World of Wonders: In
Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments is a
breath of fresh air . . . What makes her work shine is its joyful
embrace of difference, revealing that true beauty resides only in
diversity." —San Francisco Chronicle
"This slim volume is packed with gorgeous, thoughtful essays on the
natural world by award-winning poet Nezhukumatathil." —Boston
Globe, "20 Books We're Excited to Read This Fall 2020"
"World of Wonders is a stunning union of biography, poetry,
philosophy, and science; it is imbued with a love for her readers
and for the natural world, and with a hope that people of color
will feel more seen in nature writing . . . With a sense of
amazement for the creatures around us, Aimee makes an ardent and
artistic case for a compassionate ethics grounded in a deeper
understanding—and love—of nature." —The Rumpus
"Nezhukumatathil's investigations, enhanced by Nakamura's vividly
rendered full-color illustrations, range across the world, from a
rapturous rendering of monsoon season in her father's native India
to her formative years in Iowa, Kansas, and Arizona, where she
learned from the native flora and fauna that it was common to be
different . . . The writing dazzles with the marvel of being fully
alive." —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
"Nezhukumatathil's essays, with vibrant illustrations from
Nakamura, are in turn humorous, poignant, relatable, passionate
(especially when she's bemoaning disappearing species and
habitats), and always interesting." —Booklist
"A lyrical exploration of a woman finding her true home in the
world, interspersed with hauntingly beautiful descriptions of the
lives on the animals and plants that illuminate it, this natural
history will appeal to nature lovers and readers who relish
thoughtful, introspective works. Also suggest to fans of Margaret
Renkl's Late Migrations." —Library Journal
"Aimee Nezhukumatathil's shimmering essay collection about
fantastic creatures and plants, World of Wonders, is shot through
with memories of her peripatetic life and observations about race,
motherhood, and environmental issues . . . [It's] a bibliophilic
and visual delight that dazzles the senses, much like
Nezhukumatathil's beloved comb jellies. Her entrancing essays are a
reminder to spend more time outdoors wondering at and cherishing
this 'magnificent and wondrous planet.'" —Foreword Reviews, Starred
Review
"Reading World of Wonders, it's clear that Nezhukumtathil is a
poet. These essays sing with joy and longing—each focusing on a
different natural wonder, all connected by the thread of
Nezhukumtathil's curiosity and her identification with the world's
beautiful oddities . . . It's a heartwarming, poignant, and often
funny collection, enlivened by Fumi Nakamura's dreamy
illustrations." —BuzzFeed, "Summer Books You Won't Be Able to Put
Down"
"Should the wonderful David Attenborough ever retire, my hope is
someone at BBC has read the work of Aimee Nezhukumatathil . . .
What a lovely book this is, gentle in its pacing, well-illustrated
by Fumi Nakamura, and quietly subversive in the way she channels
its gusts of joy." —Literary Hub, "Best New Books to Read This
Summer"
"Aimee Nezhukumatathil's World of Wonders is a gorgeous collection
of essays that ruminate on flora, fauna, and what they can teach us
about life itself. Moving between vignettes from Nezhukumatathil's
life and her ponderings on nature, World of Wonders is a
one-of-a-kind book you won't want to miss this year." —Bustle, "The
Best Books of Fall 2020"
"Nezhukumatathil's 30 essays are brightly crafted microcosms of
childhood, identity, belonging, parenthood, and memory. From
fireflies recalling summer nights in rural western New York to
touch-me-not plants sparking contemplation on closeness, the
writing shines with a tactile and beautiful lyricism that
reimagines the world we see every day and sparks new magic in it."
—Ralph Lauren Magazine, "The Summer Reading List"
"Nezhukumatathil is the environmental writer we should be reading
in schools, instead of Emerson or Thoreau." —The New Southern
Fugitives
"Aimee Nezhukumatathil's World of Wonders is the first book to make
me feel like a firefly as much as it reminds me I'm still a black
boy playing in Central Mississippi woods. The book walks. It
sprints. It leaps. Most importantly, the book lingers in a world
where power, people, and the literal outside wrestle painfully,
beautifully. This book is a world of wonders. This book is about to
shake the Earth." —Kiese Laymon
"Sometimes we need teachers who remind us how to be flabbergasted
and gobsmacked and flummoxed and enswooned by the wonders of this
earth. How to be in stupefied and devotional love to the wonders of
this earth. How to be in love with this, our beloved earth. Aimee
Nezhukumatathil's World of Wonders is as good and generous a
teacher as one could ever ask for. This book enraptures with its
own astonishments and reveries while showing us how to be
enraptured, how to revere. Which, again, is showing us how to be in
love. I can think of nothing more important. Or wonderful." —Ross
Gay, author of The Books of Delights
"Nezhukumtathil applies her skill as a poet to a scintillating
series of short essays on nature. She takes up topics that
fascinate her—the bizarre-looking potoo birds of Central and South
America; corpse flowers, with their rich colors and acrid odor—and
connects them to her own experience of the world . . . Throughout,
she vividly describes sounds, smells, and color—the myriad hues of
a 'sea of saris' from India—and folds in touches of poetry. Fumi
Nakamura's lush illustrations add to the book's appeal. Readers of
Terry Tempest Williams and Annie Dillard will appreciate
Nezhukumtathil's lyrical look at nature." —Publishers Weekly
"In her debut essay collection, World of Wonders: In Praise of
Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments, Aimee
Nezhukumtathil's prose exalts a heightened practice of attention by
leading readers through a stunning menagerie of curious species,
from dancing frogs and vampire squids to corpse flowers and dragon
fruit—creatures that often seem alien and otherworldly, but reveal
so much about what it means to be a co-inhibitor of this planet."
—Great River Review
“These are the praise songs of a poet working brilliantly in prose.
Each essay compresses a great deal of art and truth into a small
space, whether about fireflies or flamingos, monkeys or monsoons,
childhood or motherhood, or the trials and triumphs of living with
a brown skin in a dominant white world. You will not find a more
elegant, exuberant braiding of natural and personal history.”
—Scott Russell Sanders
"World of Wonders is a mesmerizing work of essays and tender
illustrations, meditations on nature, cumulative in effect; nature
as memoir, nature as memoir, nature as simply and joyously itself.
Each chapter captures a moment, each centered around a different
natural phenomenon and charts the reverberations of the lived
experience it evokes, be in family, identity, or the notion of
belonging. A centering book, delightful and unexpected." —Sallye L,
Barnes & Noble Book of the Year Finalist selection
"This isn't your typical dry and stuffy nature writing essayist
that you were forced to read in college. No, this ecologist's take
on the natural world is more akin to lyrical prose with social
commentary and pop culture references laced throughout. Relevant
and inspiring, Aimee Nezhukumatathil reminds us once again why
nature is so absolutely amazing and beautiful." —Mike O, Barnes &
Noble Book of the Year Finalist selection
"This is the kind of gentle and lyrical ecotone [I am] thrilled for
everyone on planet Earth to read. Through ancestry, travel,
academic study, and her childhood, motherhood, and career
experiences as a woman of color, Nezhukumtathil illuminates a brief
yet moving display of life through nature." —Katelynn Tefft, Third
Place Books
"A truly whimsical and vibrant journey through a world of odd and
lovable creatures and plants . . . A perfect read for anyone
looking for beautiful writing about the natural world." —Katie
Kenny, Bank Square Books
"[Nezhukumatathil's] poet's eye, irrepressible spirit, and
unquenchable love of nature bestow previously untold riches."
—Kelly Barth, Raven Book Store
"This lovely and informative collection of essays on things from
the natural world somehow manages to transcend the boundaries of
the 'nature essay' genre and is itself something much more intimate
with a life of its own. Beautifully done and a satisfying read."
—Lauren Nopenz Fairley, Curious Iguana
"Buoyant and lyrical, Aimee Nezhukumtathil weaves imagistic musings
on a few of our planet's particularly mesmerizing flora and fauna
with personal experiences in all sorts of places: Kansas, Arizona,
Mississippi, India, Greece. The fascinating observations of plants
and animals she explores—axolotls, cactus wrens, ribbon eels,
cassowaries, narwhals, dragon fruit, and so on—are nuanced by her
insights into her childhood, her family, herself, her fellow human
creatures. A taut profusion, an effortless melding of nature
writing and memoir, this joyous book begs the reader to slow down
and savor its language and ideas the way one should the ripest cara
cara orange." —Ben Groner, Parnassus Books
"World of Wonders is a magical book with deep, subtle, resonant
power. Filled with short essays accompanied by gorgeous
illustrations that Nezhukumtathil uses as a springboard for often
poetic reflections on her own experience. Each vignette, whether
about fireflies, flamingoes, or newts; offers the reader an
opportunity to pause, reflect, and truly wonder with
Nezhukumtathil. A perfect book for readers of memoir, nature
writing, and poetry!" —Caleb Masters, Book Marks
"This gentle but brutal poetic exploration of nature and the
effects of climate change on the author's life is nothing short of
magical. We need more books like this." —Cristy Gross, Winchester
Book Gallery
"As you might expect from a writer fluent in cardinal since age
six, Nezhukumtathil's essays are brimming with intimate scenes of
natural life, each presented with exuberant prose that mingles
scientific exactitude (the stunning pink of the dragon fruit is due
to 'a rind chock full of lycopene') with unabashed whimsy (a gray
cockatiel is 'about three apples tall' and a piece of quartz tastes
'like campfire smoke'). As much vivid snapshots as impeccably
crafted prose, these brief pieces draw on fable, travel, and memoir
to introduce plants and animals ranging from dancing frogs and the
impossibly cute smiling axolotl to the more familiar monarch
butterfly and flamingo. Linking each creature to the stages of her
life—from her childhood as the rare brown person in overwhelmingly
white communities, through the loneliness of college, her marriage
(to a man who understood the charms of the foul-smelling
corpse-flower), motherhood, and career as a teacher and
award-winning poet—Nezhukumtathil illuminates the essential bonds
between people and the beautiful, singular, awesome—wonderful—flora
and fauna we share this planet with. While recognizing the troubles
of this divided time, Nezhukumtathil's first foray into prose is a
genuine and whole-heartedly upbeat book." —Laurie Greer, Politics
and Prose Bookstore
"World of Wonders is as delicate as a flower, filling us with awe
and reminding us of the beauty of the world and all its people.
Aimee Nezhukumtathil's book has the strength of a stone,
engendering respect. How can a writer sustain these diametrically
opposed conditions? She does and rewards us with joy." —Lyn
Roberts, Square Books
"Aimee didn't know it at the time (or maybe she did in her mystical
way), but this book was written for me and all the other
brown-skinned, nature-loving, quiet-questers in the world. This
beautiful package asks the reader to pick-me-up and go for a walk
down memory lane where you will find essays on a diversity of flora
and fauna from the dragon fruit to the narwhal and the corpse
flower to the axolotl; all of which are gorgeously illustrated
inside. Her writing asks everyone to find beauty and connection to
the wonders that are nature's stories." —Jessica Palacios, Once
Upon a Time Bookstore
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