Gifts of Gravity and Light: A Nature Almanac for the Twenty-first Century

by Pippa Marland (Editor), Anita Roy (Editor), Bernardine Evaristo (Foreword)

With a foreword from Bernardine Evaristo and contributions from the likes of Simon Armitage and Jackie Kay, Gifts of Gravity and Light is a stunning almanac featuring essays and poetry on nature's magical transformations throughout the four seasons.

The changing seasons of the year are an endless source of strangeness and wonder. Gifts of Gravity and Light invites you to experience Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter through fourteen different voices. Greet the arrival of spring in East London with a Cambodian new year's dance; watch sea otters at play in the summer sun; gather armfuls of hops in a Romany song to the autumn; yield to the icy stillness of winter in the Cairngorms or pine for 'sun drunk' days of a Jamaican childhood.

With a foreword by Bernardine Evaristo and contributions from Jackie Kay, Kaliane Bradley, Pippa Marland, Testament, Michael Malay, Tishani Doshi, Jay Griffiths, Luke Turner, Anita Roy, Raine Geoghegan, Zakiya McKenzie, Alys Fowler, Amanda Thomson and Simon Armitage, this almanac reflects not only the diversity of the writers featured, but the endlessly changing natural world itself.

Genres: Nature, Nonfiction

272 pages, Hardcover

Published July 8, 2021

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hadn’t heard about this upcoming nature anthology when a surprise copy dropped through my letterbox. I’m delighted the publisher thought of me, as this ended up being just my sort of book: 12 autobiographical essays infused with musings on landscapes in Britain and elsewhere; structured by the seasons to create a gentle progression through the year, starting with the spring. Best of all, the contributors are mostly female, BIPOC (and Romany), working class and/or queer – all told, the sort of voices that are heard far too infrequently in UK nature writing. In momentous rites of passage, as in routine days, nature plays a big role.

A few of my favourite pieces were by Kaliane Bradley, about her Cambodian heritage (the Wishing Dance associated with cherry blossom, her ancestors lost to genocide, the Buddhist belief that people can be reincarnated in other species); Testament, a rapper based in Leeds, about capturing moments through photography and poetry and about the seasons feeling awry both now and in March 2008, when snow was swirling outside the bus window as he received word of his uni friend’s untimely death; and Tishani Doshi, comparing childhood summers of freedom in Wales with growing up in India and 2020’s Covid restrictions.

Most of the authors hold two places in mind at the same time: for Michael Malay, it’s Indonesia, where he grew up, and the Severn estuary, where he now lives and ponders eels’ journeys; for Zakiya McKenzie, it’s Jamaica and England; for editor Anita Roy, it’s Delhi versus the Somerset field her friend let her wander during lockdown. Trees lend an awareness of time and animals a sense of movement and individuality. Alys Fowler thinks of how the wood she secretly coppices and lays on park paths to combat the mud will long outlive her, disintegrating until it forms the very soil under future generations’ feet.

A favourite passage (from Bradley): “When nature is the cuddly bunny and the friendly old hill, it becomes too easy to dismiss it as a faithful retainer who will never retire. But nature is the panic at the end of a talon, and it’s the tree with a heart of fire where lightning has struck. It is not our friend, and we do not want to make it our enemy.”

Also featured: Bernardine Evaristo (foreword), Raine Geoghegan, Jay Griffiths, Amanda Thomson, and Luke Turner.

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Chantal Lyons · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provides a fascinating mix of perspectives and topics from writers with roots all over the world, though focusing on nature in the UK. Nature-writing collections are rarely disappointing and this one is no exception. I loved learning about things like how to make mud (from Alys Fowler) or the deep cultural memory of Romany people picking fruit and hops in a sadly bygone era.

Most of the essays are quite long, so the book hosts fewer writers than that of other collections. For some of the pieces, I enjoyed sinking deep into them, although I felt that others went on for too long; overall I would have liked a few more contributions. There was also something of a Bristol bias! (And I say that as someone who recently moved to Bristol).

One thing I am particularly grateful for is that only one essay focused on the pandemic; and that essay was an exceptionally beautiful one. While it's hard to get away from mentioning the pandemic these days, literature is an escape as well as a lens to the world around us, and I can't be alone in wanting to avoid it in my reading.

P.S. That cover is GORGEOUS

(With thanks to Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for this ebook in exchange for an honest review)

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful and unexpected. Loved all the different viewpoints and perspectives, a breath of fresh air.

[Carol Griffiths · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting collection of essays about the seasons and nature in genera.