



Night Magic
Adventures Among Glowworms, Moon Gardens, and Other Marvels of the Dark
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
From a New York Times bestselling nature writer comes a celebration of what goes on outside in the dark, from blooming moon gardens to nocturnal salamanders, from glowing foxfire and synchronous fireflies that blink in unison like an orchestra of light.
In this glorious celebration of the night, New York Times bestselling nature writer Leigh Ann Henion invites us to leave our well-lit homes, step outside, and embrace the dark as a profoundly beautiful part of the world we inhabit. Because no matter where we live, we are surrounded by animals that rise with the moon, and blooms that reveal themselves as light fades. Henion explores her home region of Appalachia, where she attends a synchronous firefly event in Tennessee, a bat outing in Alabama, and a moth festival in Ohio. In North Carolina, she finds forests alight with bioluminescent mushrooms, neighborhood trees full of screech owls, and valleys teeming with migratory salamanders. Along the way, Henion encounters naturalists, biologists, primitive-skills experts, and others who’ve dedicated their lives to cultivating relationships with darkness.
Every page of this lyrical book feels like an opportunity to ask: How did I not know about this before? For example, we learn that it can take hours, not minutes, for human eyes to reach full night vision capacity. And that there are thousands of firefly species on earth, many with flash patterns as unique as fingerprints. In an age of increasing artificial light, Night Magic focuses on the amazing biodiversity that still surrounds us after sunset. We do not need to stargaze into the distant cosmos or dive into the depths of oceans to find awe in the dark. There are dazzling wonders in our own backyards. And readers of World of Wonders, Entangled Life, and The Hidden Life of Trees will discover joy in Night Magic.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this lyrical account, nature writer Henion (Phenomenal) spotlights the nocturnal wildlife she's observed around her home in western North Carolina. Explaining that spotted salamanders live underground except for a few nights each spring when they emerge to mate, Henion recounts assisting a college biology class transport salamanders across a road that cut the amphibians off from their breeding grounds. Humans benefit when they live in harmony with nature, she contends, discussing how she planted trees and put up "bat houses" (slender bird boxes) to shield bats from light pollution and habitat loss while they, in turn, stemmed the proliferation of mosquitos and the pathogens they carry. Elsewhere, she discusses attending a moth-watching festival, hunting for bioluminescent fungi, and watching jasmine tobacco's nocturnal blooms. The science intrigues ("Moth scales resonate at frequencies almost perfectly matched" to bats' echolocating calls, "muffling echoes that might have otherwise revealed" the moth's location), but Henion's greatest gift is her ability to evoke the sense of wonder that follows from tuning in to the natural world: "Slowly, entire constellations of fireflies rise from the coal-black earth around me, twinkling with oxygen. I attempt to align with their rhythm: Inhale, light. Exhale, dark. We are breathing, in sync, on this complicated planet." This will fill readers with awe.