The soul of the night Book

It's been a long time since I've read as moving, insightful, and beautiful a book as this, so long I'd almost thought those days were behind me, days that went with the discovery of late adolescence and early adulthood. Here I was happily proved wrong. Think Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek meets Timothy Ferris' Coming of Age in the Milky Way meets Loren Eiseley's Immense Journey.

In this book, Raymo continually goes back and forth between earthly images and things, like birds, and fish, and flowers, to the universal wonders of the night sky, galaxies and constellations, weaving them together into a continuous cosmic whole. He often quotes poetry, and it is heartbreakingly beautiful poetry, but his writing is itself poetry, while also discussing real science of astronomy, elaborating on quasars, galaxies, and much else. I'd love to include some quotes from this book to show how exquisite the writing is, but I'd have to quote most of the book. Just read it, and thank me later. As for me, this one's going onto my favorites shelf, and I'll be hunting out more books by Chet Raymo.

By the by, I also enjoyed the lovely woodblock engravings found throughout.