Out of the Woods: Seeing Nature in the Everyday

2018 Reading the West Book Awards Nonfiction Winner

Have you ever wondered about society’s desire to cultivate the perfect lawn, why we view some animals as “good” and some as “bad,” or even thought about the bits of nature inside everyday items–toothbrushes, cell phones, and coffee mugs?  In this fresh and introspective collection of essays, Julia Corbett examines nature in our lives with all of its ironies and contradictions by seamlessly integrating personal narratives with morsels of highly digestible science and research.  Each story delves into an overlooked aspect of our relationship with nature—insects, garbage, backyards, noise, open doors, animals, and language—and how we cover our tracks.

With a keen sense of irony and humor and an awareness of the miraculous in the mundane, Julia recognizes the contradictions of contemporary life. She confronts the owner of a high-end market who insists on keeping his doors open in all temperatures. Takes us on a trip to a new mall with a replica of a trout stream that once flowed nearby.  The phrase “out of the woods” guides us through layers of meaning to a contemplation of grief, remembrance, and resilience.

Out of the Woods leads to surprising insights into the products, practices, and phrases we take for granted in our everyday encounters with nature and encourages us all to consider how we might re-value or reimagine our relationships with nature in our everyday lives.

• Desert Cabal: A New Season in the Wilderness
• Finding Stillness in a Noisy World
• Wilderness, The Gateway To The Soul: Spiritual Enlightenment Through Wilderness
• A Better Man: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel
• Communicating Nature: How We Create and Understand Environmental Messages
• The Hidden Life of Trees: The Illustrated Edition
• The Bitterroots: A Novel
• Call Them by Their True Names: American Crises (and Essays)
• Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World
• Seven Summers: A Naturalist Homesteads in the Modern West