Issued as part of book collections on Project MUSE.

Originally published: New York, N.Y. : Lyons Press, c1999.

Acknowledgments -- Prologue -- Connection -- The testimony of the marsh -- Holdfast -- Howling with strangers -- A field guide to western birds -- The thing about dogs -- Field notes for an aesthetic of storms -- The western singing fish -- Separation -- The song of the canyon wren -- The Prometheus moth -- Traveling the logging road, coast range -- Cast your frog on the water -- Memory (the boathouse) -- Baking bread with my daughter -- Pale morning dun (ephemerella infrequens) -- Connection -- On being afraid of bears -- Notes from the pig-barn path -- The man with a stump where his head should be -- The only place like this -- Canoeing on the line of a song -- Incoming tide -- Dead reckoning -- Afterword.

Libro Electrónico

Naturalist and philosopher Kathleen Dean Moore meditates on connection and separation in these twenty-one elegant, probing essays. Using the metaphor of holdfasts--the structures that attach seaweed to rocks with a grip strong enough to withstand winter gales--she examines our connections to our own bedrock. "When people lock themselves in their houses at night and seal the windows shut to keep out storms, it is possible to forget, sometimes for years and years, that human beings are part of the natural world," she writes. Holdfast passionately reclaims an awareness of the natural world, exploring the sense of belonging fostered by the communal howls of wolves; the inevitability of losing children to their own lives; the fear of bears and love of storms; the sublimity of life and longing in the creatures of the sea; her agonizing decision when facing her father's bone-deep pain. As Moore travels philosophically and geographically--from Oregon's shores to Alaska's islands--she leaves no doubt of her virtuosity and range. The new afterword is an important statement on the new responsibilities of nature writers as the world faces the consequences of climate change.

Description based on print version record.