A Salad Only the Devil Would Eat
The Joys of Ugly Nature
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A quirky and reverent romp through nature with an irreverently funny guide.
"Among nature writers now working, Charles Hood may be my favorite. He never stops telling stories, and his perspective is fundamentally comic, even when he's recounting a tragedy." —Jonathan Franzen
In these wry and explosively funny essays, nature obsessive Charles Hood reveals his abiding affection for the overlooked and undervalued parts of the natural world. Like a Bill Bryson of the Mojave exurbs, Hood takes us on a joyride through the obscure, finding wilderness in Hollywood palms, the airports of Alaska, and the empty lots of Palmdale. In a zinger-filled whirl of literary and artistic allusions, he celebrates Audubon’s droopy condor, the world-changing history of a cactus parasite, and the weird art of natural history dioramas. This debut collection of creative nonfiction from a widely published poet, photographer, and wildlife guide unveils the wonderment of nature’s underbelly with poetic vision and singular wit.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"I have come to prefer ugly nature best," writes poet and natural historian Hood (Wild LA) in this eccentric collection on Earth's oddities. The meaning of "ugly nature" is most apparent in "I Heart Ugly Nature," about living in Palmdale, Calif., a desert area of "few palms and no dales." Still, he delights in the "spindly" creosote bushes, "slim, tan" kit foxes, and young Joshua trees living in a "field of broken bikes." "A Small, Humble Addiction" celebrates the magnificence of British field guides compared to their paltry American counterparts, and "Two Thousand Palm Trees" tells the tale of the arrival of palm trees in L.A. (they were brought from Mexico in the 19th century to provide fronds for Palm Sunday). "Cochineal and the Color Red" describes a parasite that infests prickly pears, leaving it looking as if "spackled with crusty toothpaste." When scraped off and dried, the substance creates a dye that Hood calls "the red that out-reds everything else." The collection ends up being more about the nature of Hood than a deep dive into the natural world itself: it's full of his ruminations on his relationship with the wild, especially how, during lonely periods, he finds solace there. Still, green-minded readers will appreciate the author's ability to find meaning in nature's quirky side.
