Wild Spectacle: Seeking Wonders in a World Beyond Humans by Janisse Ray

Wild Spectacle: Seeking Wonders in a World Beyond Humans Reviews

• 
  Monica

  Janisse Ray’s writing is breathtaking. Each essay in this collection is a vivid, engaging story and reflection of her life in various places of wilderness. I only have hyperbolic words to describe them.
• 
  Mallory McDuff

  Janisse Ray is a masterful storyteller, weaving the beauty of the land with the poignant struggle and humility of being human at this time in history. In each landscape she traverses, I felt the utter privilege and sheer honor, in some sense, of living at a time when humans could actually make a difference in this climate crisis. Her sentences help to connect people to places, and her stories reveal our bonds with each other. As a Southerner, I felt kinship for each chapter. And who doesn't love those brilliant blue and orange hues on the cover of the book? It's like a sunset writ large, bound within the pages of her narrative.
• 
  Claire Matturro

  Just as in her acclaimed Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, Ray’s insightful, eloquent writing shines in Wild Spectacle: Seeking Wonders in a World Beyond Humans (Trinity University Press (October 26,
  2021)), a collection of nonfiction essays about wilderness and life, ranging from Costa Rico to
  Alaska, the western USA, and home to her own native South Georgia. Make no mistake, with its
  combination of lyrical sentences, heartfelt truths, and profound observations, this book is a gem
  and a worthy sequel to Cracker Childhood.
• 
  Eva Silverfine

  Wild Spectacle is an essay collection of experiences that span over many years, arranged in sections exploring the West, farther abroad, and, finally, closer to home. This last section includes most of my personal favorites. Perhaps what I admire most is Ray’s intentionality in seeking out these natural, or as she refers to them, “wild,” landscapes and experiences. I share her perspective of the value of connecting to the natural world as well as the sadness at its diminishment by humanity’s hand. Ray writes with beauty, with honesty, and with insightfulness.
• 
  Dianne

  p. 184: "Some of us meditate in old growth forests. Some of us watch birds. Some of us gaze out at a beautiful view of a lake. Some of us hunt. But the instinct is the same, I think, to understand that the earth is wild, and that we are of the earth, and also wild. Some of us are willing to feel this more strongly than others."
• 
  Cassandra

  I received a complimentary copy.
  
  Great stories that range in emotion. The author keeps you wanting to dive into more as time passes by.
• 
  Sarah Kennedy

  Travel to the wild areas of Montana, Costa Rica, Belize, Mexico, Florida and more. Hike, snorkel, camp, canoe, and settle in for a while. Observe the monarchs, frogs, birds, elk, manatees, and other fascinating creatures. Feel the beauty and grandeur and mourn the effects of climate change and the shrinking areas of wilderness. Each essay is beautiful and wonderfully written. My favorites are paddling through the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia and the spiders in a Mississippi graveyard.
• 
  Marjorie

  Read it in a few days. The word smithing is admirable, personal, and yet familiar in my own experience. Things like get out in nature so it can scare the shit outta ya. Yup, know that feeling. IT seems I too have been to many of the places she writes about; more than I would have considered likely.
  
  Fresh discerning eyes and mind to express details for us all to savor and to hone within ourselves.
  
  There is something about Okefenokee swamp that calls for me to return too. Janisse introduced me to that in an earlier book. Have been, will go again.
  
  I wish I could tell what years some these essays were written; when she was younger and ideas of the time were shared. I began to get annoyed that she is being welcomed with open arms by environmental advocating giants because of her writing prowess, reputation. Retreats to write, grants acquired. All well deserved of course. BUT, all the rest of us are relegated to the scorn of the privileged as trampling herds of eco tourists.
  
  I’m not going to have that Alaskan super meal surrounded by special people devoted to consuming the wilderness bounty. Can’t afford it. They wouldn’t think to invite. I’d be too boring. Opportunity to the best of environmental experiences is increasingly based on superior attributes; like scholarships. A fellow geography graduate student pointed this likihood back in the early 70s.
  
  Best to develop fresh eyes to now. Janisse does help us to do that if we pay attention.
  
  It’s good to be alive, expressive, kind, generous. Appreciate the world can kill you, us.
  
  
• 
  Maureen

  I could read this book over and over again. Lovely.
• 
  Christy Knight

  Haunting, colorful and poetic, this collection of stories from a beloved southern author offers a feasting on Nature in some of her most vulnerable and treasured places in the Americas. From Alaska to Belize, life and death see-saw as creatures cry for help and humans devote their lives to the precarious stewardship of wild territory. However brief their lives in the vastness of geologic time, these heroes create sanctuaries that the author visits in pursuit of Nature in her purest, most terrifying, and delicate forms. Ray makes intricate connections between scars on the land, loss of life, and the ultimate transformation with a message that ends on a powerful and uplifting note. Everyone should read this book to gain perspective on earth’s spiraling wonders and why and how we should protect them.
  
  
• 
  Sheri S.

  This beautifully written book is a reflection on the value and specialness of nature. The author writers about experiences she has had and lessons she has learned while out in the wild terrain. She finds value and worth in the monarch butterfly, the frog and spider among many other creatures. Each story stands independently and they are all worth reading.
• 
  Anne

  I heartily recommend Janisse Ray to anyone who loves nature writing, wild species, or travel essays. Her writing is really beautiful and her adventures are memorable.
• 
  Lynne Thomas

  Ray writes a very personal and deeply moving memoir of her journeys through the natural world.
• 
  Susan Dermond

  wonderful, like all of her writing. She reveals her spirit, her integrity, and her dedication to living consciously through beautiful writing about the natural world.
• 
  Katy Manley

  A delightful recollection of Ray's experiences as a naturalist and her wildness.
• 
  Angela

  Very good.
  She is talented with word usage that brings the reader directly into the story. She plops you down right into the heart of the place.
• 
  Rebecca Gregory

  Beautiful. Lyrical. Ray writes from her heart about places I've been to. She put in words how I have felt in nature.
• 
  Cristian

  The book is divided into three parts: Meridian, where she writes about her ventures through Montana and speaks on land conservation and the risk of animals becoming extinct, primarily bears. In the second part, she travels from Costa Rica to Belize to Alaska. Traveling from the Southern to the Northern Hemisphere. Hence the title Migration. In Magnitude, we learn about frogs and spiders and the immense variations between these tiny species. She also tells about a near-accidental experience with death.
  
  There is a strong connection between the author and the wild. She painted every location she visited with such elegance. Iridescent colors were used to sketch the wildlife and fauna she encountered. It was gentle and protective, inspiring us to be environmentally conscious. And it solidified my thoughts on traveling to Montana next year.
  
  The author was admirable in the way that when she traveled alone she put herself first. And even when life presented her with a life-changing decision, she put her needs ahead of everything else. She had recently become a mother and had to decide between staying grounded and raising the child or retreating back into the wilderness. As a young woman who just graduated from college, she understood the difficulty of such a decision. Therefore, she decided to pursue her journey through the wilderness of the world. In the end, she recounts a kayaking trip with her son and his friends. She has to part ways due to one of her sons' friends ingesting poison and having to return to the starting point to get the child help (while carrying the child through marsh and wetlands!). She manages to return hours later and her son says, “I knew you’d be back.” It was touching because she mentions the decision about leaving her child early in the book.
  
  Sometimes, the author travels with friends. Occasionally, she is accompanied by her husband. There were powerful moments of grief shared between those closest to her and the wildlife. Yet, I sensed a longing for something missing. Perhaps it was a sense of sadness over the cruelty humans have shown to nature. Perhaps what's missing is a universal approach to protecting and preserving wildlife and the environment.
  
  Beautifully written. 5 out of 5 stars. Definitely recommend.
  
  
  
  
  Biomes - James Heather
• 
  Emily Fly like a Bird

  I’m not finished yet. I enjoy the book but dislike the bias toward describing men by their looks positively and women as going gray and old.
  Also, the story of volunteering and ‘succumbing’ to a superior at a park is triggering.
  
• 
  Ray Zimmerman

  I liked the middle section best.
• 
  Sylvia So

  DNF @ 33% - just not for me I guess.