Micrograms

by Nicole Walker

"There is no other writer like Nicole Walker for weaving a fabric that incorporates all the threads of her the scientific and the poetic, the trivial and the dire, the mundane and the apocalyptic, all held together by her deep pleasure in the operations of language itself." --Katharine Coles "Like Galeano's BOOK OF EMBRACES or Weil's GRAVITY AND GRACE, Nicole Walker's MICROGRAMS portray the force of a keen mind fully engaged with disparate, successive parts of the world, which unify, reconfigure, and become new things in her strange, wondrous prose. These essays are not description or depiction but revelation; they both show and prophesy." --Patrick Madden "Though I'm tempted to applaud the micro-joys, micro-fascinations, and micro-revelations of Nicole Walker's MICROGRAMS, the truth is that this miniscule book of micro-essays offers inquisitive readers gargantuan pleasures. A micro-burst of essays, fresh and intriguing." --Dinty W. Moore "MICROGRAMS by Nicole Walker is a cause for swooning and celebration. I cleaned my glasses and caught my breath. She is a microscope and a telescope, gives us a book writ large, writ small. 'Let's go smaller,' she asks us, but never in import as, in her delightful deadpan, she leads us through life and death. Yes, it's a small world after all. And an extraordinary book about looking close, and thinking far." --David Lazar

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Poetry, Memoir

80 pages, Paperback

First published March 22, 2016

Reviews

[Cindy Newton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked these short essays. I started the first one and it sounded very scientific and I groaned inwardly--science is NOT my thing! But it had a humorous twist at the end that won me over. Many of them do, which I enjoyed. She also goes from scientific pondering, with plenty of esoteric vocabulary thrown in, to lyric description with effortless ease. Highly recommended!

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yeah!! I love these microessays and the format of this book.
I love how Nicole weaves science and nature and human existence into tiny little gem/poem/essays.
There is much to be admired in this book and I will be rereading it again and again!!

[Linden · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Hayli Cox · Rating 4 out of 5]

As it juxtaposes the microscopic and macroscopic, Nicole Walker’s Micrograms binds narrative and experimental together between stunningly designed covers, with some essays memoiristic, some playful, and others scientific. Domestic imagery and explorations of womanhood live alongside the gastronomic, the astronomic. From protons to climate change, from the tiniest mites to horses, cows, and goats, micrograms explores life and universe with a variety of lenses and narration styles. Walker compels us to consider things within a new scope.

Though we often look to the universe and imagine ourselves insignificant, Micrograms reminds us that we are also enormous, that within our universe there are other smaller universes of which we must be mindful. Micrograms uses creative nonfiction to its fullest potential, expanding beyond the limitations of form and genre to braid history with science, science with story, word with world. This collection of micro nonfiction, with its many explorations, feels somehow colossal. When I finished reading the second time I had dog-eared nearly every page.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was really excited to read this, having read a couple of the essays collected here when they appeared in magazines, and also really loving Walker's previous book of essays. This is pretty much what you'd expect-- short essays, most only a page or two, on the topics Walker writes about regularly: nature and environmental peril, parenting, writing and being a little daffy about writing. This is a strong collection of essays that swerve alternately toward lyricism and science, and it reads really well. And still at the end, I wanted more, and I felt a wish that of these pieces stretched longer and tied more things together like some of the essays in Walker's previous book.