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The Age of Loneliness: Essays
In this debut essay collection, Laura Marris reframes environmental degradation by setting aside the conventional, catastrophic framework of the Anthropocene in favor of that of the Eremocene, the age of loneliness, marked by the dramatic thinning of wildlife populations and by isolation between and among species. She how do we add to archives of ecological memory? How can we notice and document what's missing in the landscapes closest to us?
Filled with equal parts alienation and wonder, each essay immerses readers in a different strange landscape of the Eremocene. Among them are the Buffalo airport with its snowy owls and the purgatories of commuter flights, layovers, and long-distance relationships; a life-size model city built solely for self-driving cars; the coasts of New England and the ever-evolving relationship between humans and horseshoe crabs; and the Connecticut woods Marris revisits for the first time after her father’s death, where she participates in the annual Christmas Bird Count and encounters presence and absence in turn.
Vivid, keenly observed, and driven by a lively and lyrical voice, The Age of Loneliness is a moving examination of the dangers of loneliness, the surprising histories of ecological loss, and the ways that community science―which relies on the embodied evidence of “ground truth”―can help us recognize, and maybe even recover, what we’ve learned to live without.
Filled with equal parts alienation and wonder, each essay immerses readers in a different strange landscape of the Eremocene. Among them are the Buffalo airport with its snowy owls and the purgatories of commuter flights, layovers, and long-distance relationships; a life-size model city built solely for self-driving cars; the coasts of New England and the ever-evolving relationship between humans and horseshoe crabs; and the Connecticut woods Marris revisits for the first time after her father’s death, where she participates in the annual Christmas Bird Count and encounters presence and absence in turn.
Vivid, keenly observed, and driven by a lively and lyrical voice, The Age of Loneliness is a moving examination of the dangers of loneliness, the surprising histories of ecological loss, and the ways that community science―which relies on the embodied evidence of “ground truth”―can help us recognize, and maybe even recover, what we’ve learned to live without.
208 pages, Paperback
Published August 6, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
August 31, 2024
This essay collection crept up on me! Definitely predisposed to enjoy it—it falls right in my areas of research interest—infrastructure and nature/probing at the construction of “nature” & environmental damage and living /with/ companion species (sharing a world) and the deep record of time and history (vertical and horizontal, as John Berger’s cited on)—and also provides a deep land/life/community history of some of my favorite places in the world—Western New York, Niagara Falls, Buffalo, Boston, New England’s coastline, even a (not so celebratory) nod to Providence, where the author fairly shits on (I think) RISD.
But also (and I realized this only at the end of chapter 7) an exploration (in the background) of a period in Marris’s life, particularly as an evolution of her relationship to places AS an evolution of her relationships to her life partner, to her mother, to her father; of meeting her life partner and then living in Buffalo and commuting to Boston, of the decision to stop commuting to Boston; of tracing her father’s highway journey as he was trying to understand if he and Marris’s mother could make their relationship work. This personal story respectfully bows out at times to spotlight the stories of people and animals and plants who have been here longer—indigenous communities, people living with man-made environmental disasters—without backing away into a detached omniscient / scientific viewer, which I find is a very fine line to walk but which Marris does so carefully. I’d even say lovingly. And at its heart this book is about loving the places you live by paying enough attention.
I was expecting to be chafing more against didacticism or for the “age of loneliness” to be a weird wedged metaphor for ~personal relationships- that doesn’t get explored for what it is / on the ecological terms it deserves—I haven’t, and it isn’t. Instead we get these essays that are so understatedly marvelous and winding and without overdoing the endings—about sharing and moving with vs moving /through/ (as if the essay itself has an architecture, or an ecology, that refuses to be a mere pathway to a lesson or endpoint). And yet every essay still feels marvelously unified, deeply well researched (including many government agencies and record keepers of absence I never knew existed, eg the one that tracks birds who have collided with planes), and so expansive, covering so many dimensions of the present human connectivities with the surrounding life and land and with the deep history of that land as it lives on in environmental change, in patterns that chip away at frustrating human structures—(we no longer build monuments, says Rem Koolhaas) the way a tide rises: slowly, inexorably.
Even when she’s writing about shit overflowing its banks in Back Bay and horrific environmental damage caused by Hooker Chem in Love Canal and the terrible beauty of observing a part of a bird feather used to identify the snarge (yes, that’s literally the word, and it’s appropriate to how thoroughly a plane obliterates a bird’s body) of a bird killed by a plane (and being clear and refusing sentimental covering-up about who is responsible—human colonizers who believe land and water and air things to be tamed, harvested, moved through like nothing space), her writing is beautiful in a way that creeps up on you like water, or like a winding path that narrows until you realize you’re following the path of an animal and will not reach your destination.
Subtle and so lovely and so attentive to the patterns of life (that which would otherwise be reduced to noise—a pattern that Marris explicitly asks us to resist), which slowly MAKE a life what it is, that wear you down like concrete under the freeze and thaw of winter, more so than the big climactic moments we point to as “milestones” when we move through the world as if all the world is just a backdrop, set dressing for the dramatic moments of our lives. Through that attentiveness to the world—a slow moving—a full person’s life emerges, both focal and fleshed out and vibrant and also not focal, clearly hinting at life lived outside of the essay’s scope, beyond the edges of vision, a hinting that shows you how vast a life can be and also how little we as readers get to know (a feeling that reinforces the vastness and richness of the world we live in).
There is occasionally name dropping of writers and of concepts that make it clear that Marris is an academic. If you’re willing to chase these nuggets into the citations, I promise they will start to make sense and show you the conversations Marris is entering (conversations that teach me new ways of being with the world every damn day). I can see myself coming back to wander these paths again and again as I observe and think about this odd and marvelous world and all the many decisions and indecisions and non-decisions that make it what it is.
Give this book more love!!! Holy shit!!!
But also (and I realized this only at the end of chapter 7) an exploration (in the background) of a period in Marris’s life, particularly as an evolution of her relationship to places AS an evolution of her relationships to her life partner, to her mother, to her father; of meeting her life partner and then living in Buffalo and commuting to Boston, of the decision to stop commuting to Boston; of tracing her father’s highway journey as he was trying to understand if he and Marris’s mother could make their relationship work. This personal story respectfully bows out at times to spotlight the stories of people and animals and plants who have been here longer—indigenous communities, people living with man-made environmental disasters—without backing away into a detached omniscient / scientific viewer, which I find is a very fine line to walk but which Marris does so carefully. I’d even say lovingly. And at its heart this book is about loving the places you live by paying enough attention.
I was expecting to be chafing more against didacticism or for the “age of loneliness” to be a weird wedged metaphor for ~personal relationships- that doesn’t get explored for what it is / on the ecological terms it deserves—I haven’t, and it isn’t. Instead we get these essays that are so understatedly marvelous and winding and without overdoing the endings—about sharing and moving with vs moving /through/ (as if the essay itself has an architecture, or an ecology, that refuses to be a mere pathway to a lesson or endpoint). And yet every essay still feels marvelously unified, deeply well researched (including many government agencies and record keepers of absence I never knew existed, eg the one that tracks birds who have collided with planes), and so expansive, covering so many dimensions of the present human connectivities with the surrounding life and land and with the deep history of that land as it lives on in environmental change, in patterns that chip away at frustrating human structures—(we no longer build monuments, says Rem Koolhaas) the way a tide rises: slowly, inexorably.
Even when she’s writing about shit overflowing its banks in Back Bay and horrific environmental damage caused by Hooker Chem in Love Canal and the terrible beauty of observing a part of a bird feather used to identify the snarge (yes, that’s literally the word, and it’s appropriate to how thoroughly a plane obliterates a bird’s body) of a bird killed by a plane (and being clear and refusing sentimental covering-up about who is responsible—human colonizers who believe land and water and air things to be tamed, harvested, moved through like nothing space), her writing is beautiful in a way that creeps up on you like water, or like a winding path that narrows until you realize you’re following the path of an animal and will not reach your destination.
Subtle and so lovely and so attentive to the patterns of life (that which would otherwise be reduced to noise—a pattern that Marris explicitly asks us to resist), which slowly MAKE a life what it is, that wear you down like concrete under the freeze and thaw of winter, more so than the big climactic moments we point to as “milestones” when we move through the world as if all the world is just a backdrop, set dressing for the dramatic moments of our lives. Through that attentiveness to the world—a slow moving—a full person’s life emerges, both focal and fleshed out and vibrant and also not focal, clearly hinting at life lived outside of the essay’s scope, beyond the edges of vision, a hinting that shows you how vast a life can be and also how little we as readers get to know (a feeling that reinforces the vastness and richness of the world we live in).
There is occasionally name dropping of writers and of concepts that make it clear that Marris is an academic. If you’re willing to chase these nuggets into the citations, I promise they will start to make sense and show you the conversations Marris is entering (conversations that teach me new ways of being with the world every damn day). I can see myself coming back to wander these paths again and again as I observe and think about this odd and marvelous world and all the many decisions and indecisions and non-decisions that make it what it is.
Give this book more love!!! Holy shit!!!
August 25, 2025
Uncanny how similar our lives are.
August 23, 2024
Beautiful memoir that addrresses a wide range of environmental issues.
July 25, 2025
Don't surround yourself with yourself,
Move on back two squares.
—Yes, “I’ve Seen All Good People”
These song lyrics have been spinning around in my head since a recent family gathering of baby boomers devolved into a trip down memory lane via a Yes listening fest. Then these words of warning kept leaping to mind as I finished Marris’s book.
Common discussions of climate change reference our current existence in the Anthropocene Era, a period where human “needs“ and actions (absorption with ourselves) have devastatingly impacted climate. In this book, however, Marris structures her discussion of environmental loss and personal stories by situating us in E.O. Wilson’s concept of the Eremocene, or Age of Loneliness. In the Eremocene, we begin to recognize that humankind’s surrounding itself with itself—basking in its own concerns via extraction and destruction at the expense of reciprocity with the rest of the natural world—has led to a frightening decline in biodiversity and the monumental loss/extinction of all kinds of species. Move on back two squares.
For example, if we have any affinity for nature at all, even the urban landscapes in which so many of us are embedded, we have probably felt something deeply, enormously troubling about the decline and disappearance of bird populations. (Even in my own back yard I see fewer feathered visitors now than 10 years ago; on my front porch at sunrise, I hear less diversity of music in the bird chorus.) Still, we may be shocked by a recent statistic that Marris shares from a Science article: “since 1970, the U.S. has lost nearly three billion birds, an almost 30 percent decline in abundance” (164, my emphasis).
Marris proceeds to analyze our great loss and how seeing ourselves as apart from/superior to the rest of the natural world contributes to a sense of profound loneliness. In addition to calling on science, history, and statistics, Marris illustrates her chapters with personal stories and pays tribute to her father who taught her so much about observing and interacting with other species. I found particularly interesting the chapters on the Love Canal, the Boston Fens (especially the historical context in which Olmstead designed them), and bird counting.
This is the way I like my science and ecology: facts and theories given depth and heft by personal stories to help me understand my place in the world and my obligation to it. Don’t surround yourself with yourself: I am a part of the natural world, not apart from it. 4.5 🌟
Move on back two squares.
—Yes, “I’ve Seen All Good People”
These song lyrics have been spinning around in my head since a recent family gathering of baby boomers devolved into a trip down memory lane via a Yes listening fest. Then these words of warning kept leaping to mind as I finished Marris’s book.
Common discussions of climate change reference our current existence in the Anthropocene Era, a period where human “needs“ and actions (absorption with ourselves) have devastatingly impacted climate. In this book, however, Marris structures her discussion of environmental loss and personal stories by situating us in E.O. Wilson’s concept of the Eremocene, or Age of Loneliness. In the Eremocene, we begin to recognize that humankind’s surrounding itself with itself—basking in its own concerns via extraction and destruction at the expense of reciprocity with the rest of the natural world—has led to a frightening decline in biodiversity and the monumental loss/extinction of all kinds of species. Move on back two squares.
For example, if we have any affinity for nature at all, even the urban landscapes in which so many of us are embedded, we have probably felt something deeply, enormously troubling about the decline and disappearance of bird populations. (Even in my own back yard I see fewer feathered visitors now than 10 years ago; on my front porch at sunrise, I hear less diversity of music in the bird chorus.) Still, we may be shocked by a recent statistic that Marris shares from a Science article: “since 1970, the U.S. has lost nearly three billion birds, an almost 30 percent decline in abundance” (164, my emphasis).
Marris proceeds to analyze our great loss and how seeing ourselves as apart from/superior to the rest of the natural world contributes to a sense of profound loneliness. In addition to calling on science, history, and statistics, Marris illustrates her chapters with personal stories and pays tribute to her father who taught her so much about observing and interacting with other species. I found particularly interesting the chapters on the Love Canal, the Boston Fens (especially the historical context in which Olmstead designed them), and bird counting.
This is the way I like my science and ecology: facts and theories given depth and heft by personal stories to help me understand my place in the world and my obligation to it. Don’t surround yourself with yourself: I am a part of the natural world, not apart from it. 4.5 🌟
November 4, 2024
i think if you like books that blend memoir with scientific journalism and essays, you will enjoy this book. overall a compelling piece that links human relationships with the idea that environmental collapse is due largely to the destruction of the human-nature relationship secondary to the usual suspects (industrialization, urban expansion, etc.)
i overall enjoyed the book, but it did tend to fatalistic understandings of environmentalism and our inability to affect change that i found unhelpful :(
the prose is beautifully-written, but it does assume a certain intimacy and level of huh-huh-huh on the part of the reader. marris references her background in French translation at one point, and it suddenly all clicked for me. ça se voit.
i did get a good chuckle over the way she pointedly refused to clearly reference whatever university she was at until her partner worked at RISD. i also enjoyed the A2, Boston, Providence, etc. references. how timely!
sometimes, the MFA quality of the book really jumped out at me. sometimes i had to be like okayyyyyyy
for example: "As Anne Boyer argues, 'fuck cancer' has always been the wrong slogan when the cells of our bodies rebel. In a place where known hazards are buried, it would be better to say 'Fuck white supremacist capitalist patriarchy's ruinous carcinogenosphere."
marris also, in my opinion, just acts a little bit too much like she splits her time between LA and NYC for me. at multiple points, she's like "eww gross gentrifiers!" without acknowledging that she definitely is one herself. also i think the yassification of love canal is the least of its worries? maybe a generational gap, but there were some #buzzfeed moments.
i overall enjoyed the book, but it did tend to fatalistic understandings of environmentalism and our inability to affect change that i found unhelpful :(
the prose is beautifully-written, but it does assume a certain intimacy and level of huh-huh-huh on the part of the reader. marris references her background in French translation at one point, and it suddenly all clicked for me. ça se voit.
i did get a good chuckle over the way she pointedly refused to clearly reference whatever university she was at until her partner worked at RISD. i also enjoyed the A2, Boston, Providence, etc. references. how timely!
sometimes, the MFA quality of the book really jumped out at me. sometimes i had to be like okayyyyyyy
for example: "As Anne Boyer argues, 'fuck cancer' has always been the wrong slogan when the cells of our bodies rebel. In a place where known hazards are buried, it would be better to say 'Fuck white supremacist capitalist patriarchy's ruinous carcinogenosphere."
marris also, in my opinion, just acts a little bit too much like she splits her time between LA and NYC for me. at multiple points, she's like "eww gross gentrifiers!" without acknowledging that she definitely is one herself. also i think the yassification of love canal is the least of its worries? maybe a generational gap, but there were some #buzzfeed moments.
October 8, 2025
This collection of essays came at a perfect time when I've been reading Robin Wall Kimmerer and wanting more connection to nature. If you like birding, attuning yourself to nature, railing against the destruction of ecologies, learning to love a place by noticing its flora and fauna, thinking about loneliness, or just really damn good writing, pick up The Age of Loneliness.
Each one of these essays stabbed me in the heart, in a beautiful way. My personal favorites include
• Chapter 3, "Flat-Earthers" - On habitat loss, memory loss, and simulacra cities built to train self-driving cars. Featuring this excerpt that knocked me out in a coffee shop:
• Chapter 4, "Cancerine" - On horseshoe crabs, extractive capitalism, a father's cancer, community science, and the ways human and non-human creatures depend on each other for survival and thriving.
• Chapter 8, "The Echo" - On the generational persistence of pollution on the communities left behind to deal with the mess, on grief, and on starting to heal even in less-than-ideal conditions.
Genuinely one of the best books I've read this year. Do yourself a favor and get a copy.
Each one of these essays stabbed me in the heart, in a beautiful way. My personal favorites include
• Chapter 3, "Flat-Earthers" - On habitat loss, memory loss, and simulacra cities built to train self-driving cars. Featuring this excerpt that knocked me out in a coffee shop:
That afternoon, as we stood in the dead quiet overlooking the fake self-driving city, we could imagine a future where the last man on Earth summons an autonomous car from the ruins of a Detroit auto show. The car knows each turn of the road, each shape of an animal that might cross its path, though the landscape will be almost empty. This pattern recognition will be a form of ecological memory. Like a bird watcher's list, as if the birds were remembered only as obstacles, as varying nonhuman shapes with limited potential to fuck up a car.
• Chapter 4, "Cancerine" - On horseshoe crabs, extractive capitalism, a father's cancer, community science, and the ways human and non-human creatures depend on each other for survival and thriving.
• Chapter 8, "The Echo" - On the generational persistence of pollution on the communities left behind to deal with the mess, on grief, and on starting to heal even in less-than-ideal conditions.
Genuinely one of the best books I've read this year. Do yourself a favor and get a copy.
March 26, 2025
Reading Laura Marris's superb translation of Camus' "The Plague" recently, and immediately following that up with "States of Plague: Reading Albert Camus in a Pandemic," which she and Alice Kaplan co-wrote, left me hungering for more, so I was delighted to find her book of essays--"The Age of Loneliness," published by Graywolf Press in 2024--that continues to show what a fabulous voice she shares on the printed page.
This book of essays is one of those wonderful works that slowly immerses us in a world well worth exploring and continually, through repeated words and imagery, leaves us with a set of essays that are masterfully interconnected and beg to be read and reread slowly just for the pleasure of seeing how she pulls them into a single cohesive work. We follow her through her explorations of what creates the sense of loneliness that plagues so many of us; the loss of her father (to cancer) and how his presence remains a part of her life; and how an appreciation for nature--which she connects to all her father gave her--offers us an important grounding we often overlook.
An excerpt:
“To lose someone is to be exiled from the landscape of their knowledge—to be reminded of all the things you didn’t know or didn’t ask. How did he understand the interactions of creatures through their naming? Now when I try to close the gap myself, I’m left with shadows of birds’ wings and the syllables that sometimes don’t come until hours later, if they come at all. When I’m lucky, the wing shapes pull names from deep in my memory, like a language I haven’t used.”
--Laura Marris, "The Age of Loneliness," p. 64
This book of essays is one of those wonderful works that slowly immerses us in a world well worth exploring and continually, through repeated words and imagery, leaves us with a set of essays that are masterfully interconnected and beg to be read and reread slowly just for the pleasure of seeing how she pulls them into a single cohesive work. We follow her through her explorations of what creates the sense of loneliness that plagues so many of us; the loss of her father (to cancer) and how his presence remains a part of her life; and how an appreciation for nature--which she connects to all her father gave her--offers us an important grounding we often overlook.
An excerpt:
“To lose someone is to be exiled from the landscape of their knowledge—to be reminded of all the things you didn’t know or didn’t ask. How did he understand the interactions of creatures through their naming? Now when I try to close the gap myself, I’m left with shadows of birds’ wings and the syllables that sometimes don’t come until hours later, if they come at all. When I’m lucky, the wing shapes pull names from deep in my memory, like a language I haven’t used.”
--Laura Marris, "The Age of Loneliness," p. 64
June 30, 2024
I received an ARC of The Age of Loneliness: Essays by Laura Marris from a Goodreads giveaway. The expected publication date is August 6, 2024.
The Age of Loneliness is a collection of poetic and melancholy essays about life during the sixth extinction. Laura Marris uses personal history, ecology, and wildlife biology to talk about our isolation from the natural world, and the loneliness of grief, travel, and long-distance relationships. I especially liked the chapters about Hermit Crabs, plane/bird strikes, and remediation.
This is a beautifully written book. Laura Marris isn't a scientist, but her writing and the subjects she chooses to write about are reminiscent of Loren Eiseley, Lewis Thomas, and Robin Wall Kimmerer.
I'm feeling uncomfortable about posting the first review on Goodreads. I tried to find reviews elsewhere. There are some on Amazon and one at Grey Wolf Press if you find my mediocre review inadequate. Publishers Weekly describes this as "elegiac prose" which is much better than my poetic and melancholy.
The Age of Loneliness is a collection of poetic and melancholy essays about life during the sixth extinction. Laura Marris uses personal history, ecology, and wildlife biology to talk about our isolation from the natural world, and the loneliness of grief, travel, and long-distance relationships. I especially liked the chapters about Hermit Crabs, plane/bird strikes, and remediation.
This is a beautifully written book. Laura Marris isn't a scientist, but her writing and the subjects she chooses to write about are reminiscent of Loren Eiseley, Lewis Thomas, and Robin Wall Kimmerer.
I'm feeling uncomfortable about posting the first review on Goodreads. I tried to find reviews elsewhere. There are some on Amazon and one at Grey Wolf Press if you find my mediocre review inadequate. Publishers Weekly describes this as "elegiac prose" which is much better than my poetic and melancholy.
September 17, 2024
I'm sorry, but the author claims to care about the environment and how species are increasingly facing declines in numbers at the same time she is flying across the country on regular basis (weekly?, biweekly?) simply because she needs to sleep with guys that love in other places? Not buying it. I'm sorry I read this book. I'm sorry it was published. I'm sorry this passes as being environmentally sensitive when the behavior of the individual writing the book is such a large contributor to the problem, all for selfish carnal, needs.
I'm glad I got this through the library because I would hate to think I'm contributing to the author's neediness to feel like she cares about the environment when she really only cares about herself. Pathetic.
I'm glad I got this through the library because I would hate to think I'm contributing to the author's neediness to feel like she cares about the environment when she really only cares about herself. Pathetic.
January 11, 2025
Non-fiction mixing memoir and science journalism that begins with a revision of "the Anthropocene," as "the Eremocene, the Age of Loneliness."
Most appreciated Chapter 8, "The Echo," as it deals with Love Canal, U.S. weapons manufacture, the Niagara river, and meaning making. Had a lot of conversations w/it and, in turn, w/the place I live--Buffalo: "How could I explain that when these acres lose their use value to industry or real estate, they're both discarded and, in a strange sense, set free?"
"I knew when we moved that nowhere is untouched by human interventions, but I didn't know we'd chosen a place that could hold such depths of loss and abundance and braid them together. This too is a form of tending" (160).
Most appreciated Chapter 8, "The Echo," as it deals with Love Canal, U.S. weapons manufacture, the Niagara river, and meaning making. Had a lot of conversations w/it and, in turn, w/the place I live--Buffalo: "How could I explain that when these acres lose their use value to industry or real estate, they're both discarded and, in a strange sense, set free?"
"I knew when we moved that nowhere is untouched by human interventions, but I didn't know we'd chosen a place that could hold such depths of loss and abundance and braid them together. This too is a form of tending" (160).
March 23, 2025
This is the longest 200 page book I have ever read. In general, I thought there were interesting and poignant thoughts surrounded by boring prose. It gave me topics I didn't know I wanted to learn more about, and a book recommendation from one of the quotes. Finishing this book was such a chore though.
What gets me is that the author is trying to present herself as someone who cares deeply about the ecological damages... Yet, her airplane commute isn't stopped by identifying gory bird snarge she supposedly feels guilty about, but rather flying to work when she actually had the day off? Really? As the book blends scientific and personal elements, her general attitude and lack of accountability bothered me a lot.
What gets me is that the author is trying to present herself as someone who cares deeply about the ecological damages... Yet, her airplane commute isn't stopped by identifying gory bird snarge she supposedly feels guilty about, but rather flying to work when she actually had the day off? Really? As the book blends scientific and personal elements, her general attitude and lack of accountability bothered me a lot.
December 5, 2024
Marris writes about ecological loss, the death of her father, the isolation of airline commuting, long-distance relationships, landscapes, gulls, wild turkeys, horseshoe crabs, blue herons, starlings, tardigrades, Bachman’s warbler, and longing for reconnection with what we have lost. In each piece, she asks: “what am I not seeing?” With precise, delicate prose, written in three parts—each partition marked with an artifact of her father’s bird lists—Marris explores ecological memory, drawing our attention to what has been lost and how loneliness can be regenerative. And oh what a gorgeous ending.
May 21, 2025
In this book Laura Marris writes essays that look closely at the way everyday human activity has profound impact on the ecosystems we share with other species. Often humans shape their landscapes with little planning or consideration for these species. Loneliness and longing creep in so slowly that we often do not realize. Through reading these beautifully written essays one is compelled to become more aware of their surrounds and think carefully about how humans can minimize future impacts on the landscape.
June 17, 2025
Laura is a wonderful writer, a thoughtful and well researched book. I was pleasantly caught off guard by the last few pages which I loved and it rose to 5 stars from 4. As some readers noted, her personal commutes to visit partner involved lots of flying and there is the feel of New Yorker / academic type of writing to it and to the title; readers can justifiably mention this and it does register, but hey, we’re probably all envious, it’s very well written. All in all, I very much enjoyed reading it.
December 2, 2024
Gorgeous writing. The first few essays I wanted to underline everything. The way she weaves in quotes, history, and personal anecdotes is masterful. I thought bc of the title that this would be about social connectedness and lack there of but it’s much more about humans being individualistic in the world and negatively impacting the environment. Lots about birds, horseshoe crabs and pollution. Many interesting tidbits.
September 8, 2024
Melancholy, but what would we expect from the title? Marris narrates loss - of her father, of birds, of ecologies. Seems like an argument towards hopelessness. Hopelessness is not how I receive the challenges of the changing world. So for me, the book came together at the Love Canal: an ugly story told very well, with insight and interestingly with rays of hope.
December 4, 2024
Marris manages an extremely satisfying mix of lyricism and scientific/historical knowledge. She is attuned to her personal experiences of loneliness alongside a shifting world of bird strikes by airplanes, the harvesting of Atlantic horseshoe crabs, and the lives of tardigrades--these essays are filled with the kind of weirdness that can only be noticed with close observation.
March 16, 2025
It's wonderfully written, but it was a slog to finish this one. I've never read a nature book, so this was a challenge for me from the start. And while the overarching theme usually became clear by the chapter's end, I often felt like the author was trying to sound more academic than necessary, as if she wasn't even fully buying the intellectual garble she was positing.
October 23, 2024
The first and last essays deal with the subject of the titles, whereas the others blend the author’s background in nature and ornithology to make wonderful observations that blend a lyrical poetry with poignant observations and reflections on her life.
November 15, 2024
A lovely collection of thoughts and research. There's a bit more lingering on the "positive" outcomes of ecological destruction but overall it's an intriguing collection of thoughtful essays on human life and our changing environment.
December 16, 2024
I really enjoyed this collection of essays. I especially loved the connection being made between the natural world and the authors personal life. Super interesting, nostalgic, thought provoking, and relatable.
December 5, 2024
Sooooooo beautifully written. Genuinely made me think about my environment completely differently. Laura Marris is able to translate the scientific abstract to the emotion of the human experience.
April 7, 2025
Written as beautifully as the nature it portrays. This book speaks to the frailty of the human species and the endurance of our impact on the planet and the animals we share it with. So lovely.
November 9, 2025
Reading “Safer Skies for All Who Fly” while waiting for a flight in JFK was a surreal experience.
Incredible essays!!
Incredible essays!!
September 3, 2024
Hard to overstate the impact this book made on me. Such a beautiful exploration of grief, loneliness, and the way we experience the natural world around us. It is a stunning read, equal parts heartbreaking and inspiring.
August 21, 2025
Marris is such a great creative writer and you can just tell the level of dedication, love, and thought that went into this. I did find discomfort in the whole plane discussion, especially the lack of recognition of how weekly plane trips contribute the climate crisis. I also kinda feel like there was a glossing over too of Marris’ personal impact when discussing upstate New York and gentrification. Overall, a well researched, heartfelt, and beautifully written book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 26, 2025
A beautiful and relevant collection. Marris reflects poignantly on the way in which we interact with the environment and how nature has reacted to us. A sad read, but a true one.
A star off because it's a bit hard to get through the end as each essay does hold a weight to it and by the end the reader's shoulders are very tired.
A star off because it's a bit hard to get through the end as each essay does hold a weight to it and by the end the reader's shoulders are very tired.
December 17, 2025
A beautiful collection of essays about our relationship to nature explored through human loneliness and the depleting natural world. Beautifully written and impactful - and I’m not usually a fan of science or nature writing.
September 13, 2025
incredibly moving
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