In their shapes and meanders, the personal essay and the long walk have much in common, most notably their valuing of the journey over the destination. While the essay seeks to replicate thought, and the walk to take in the view, both wander a terrain fueled as much by sensory input as by the ideas and unlikely juxtapositions that come to us when we're in motion. Both practices involve a heightened imagination — to the act of thinking in the essay, to finding the new in the familiar while on a walk — and both often take place alone; neither, however, happens in true isolation. While the walk may be as solitary as the crafting of the work, each requires an engagement with others — family, friends, cohorts, colleagues — with whom to share findings, challenge ideas and keep digressions relevant." So writes Catherine Reid who directs the undergraduate creative writing program at Warren Wilson College, where she teaches courses in creative nonfiction and environmental writing.

This lyrical passage is a splendid example of the imaginative textures of Reid's thought and prose in this top-drawer collection of essays. In the spirit of Wendell Berry and his reverence for place, the author celebrates the mysteries, wonders, and delights of her farmhouse om the Berkshires where she encounters birds, an otter, a deer, and fish. Reid is also appreciative of rivers, a pond, and a stand of hemlock trees (see the excerpt).

These elegant essays vividly delineate the process whereby "you have become part of the land and how the land now holds part of you." It is in this mystical realization that Reid opens our hearts and minds to the true magic of connecting with a place.