The Wild Out Your Window: Exploring Nature Near at Hand

by Sy Montgomery

What could be better than watching the natural world out your window or on your television? Going out and experiencing it firsthand. In these fifty essays, acclaimed nature and science writer Sy Montgomery takes her readers on a season-by-season tour of the wilderness that is often as close as the backyard. Sy invites ― almost dares ― readers to follow her and form hands-on relationships with the plants, animals, birds, and even the insects that share space with people. These essays, most of which originally appeared in Sy's Boston Globe column Nature Journal, are by turns enlightening, entertaining, sometimes amusing, and always absorbing and informative. Filled with natural history and lore, the essays urge readers to appreciate what they find around them.

Genres: Nonfiction, Nature, Animals

250 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Part Indiana Jones, part Emily Dickinson, as the Boston Globe describes her, Sy Montgomery is an author, naturalist, documentary scriptwriter, and radio commentator who has traveled to some of the worlds most remote wildernesses for her work. She has worked in a pit crawling with 18,000 snakes in Manitoba, been hunted by a tiger in India, swum with pink dolphins in the Amazon, and been undressed by an orangutan in Borneo. She is the author of 13 award-winning books, including her national best-selling memoir, The Good Good Pig. Montgomery lives in Hancock, New Hampshire.

Reviews

[Giselle Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It's by the same author who wrote "How to be a Good Creature". This title was written prior to Wild. It is mostly about the wild in the New England area but the content is so well written and engaging that it is well worth your time. I learned many new things about the natural world from insects to mammals to plants.

Sy writes with humor and passion about these subjects and she has backed up the facts with worthy research from other sources.

It is written in sort of short story style so you can read aloud to your friends and family.

[Elaine Burnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful collection of nature essays, apparently from a Boston Globe column she writes. Especially good if you live in New England since she keeps it quite local to Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Wonderful insights and things to learn. I like that in my reading. A little wow on every page. Sometimes every line! It’s arranged by season, so I started with fall, appropriately.

[Suzanne Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting

Not what i expected . Focus solely on New England. The constant reference to scientists names and their place of work distracted from the content.

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sy Montgomery is always entertaining and thought provoking.

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a great book to read piecemeal as each chapter takes a close look at different members of the wildlife you can find nearby. The book is divided seasonally, and while the author lives in New England and the wildlife reflects that locality, this does not detract from the enjoyment of these well written and interesting essays. If you are a birder, a number of the chapters are directed your way, and very interesting they were too. (I will have to tell my sister-in-law who is a birder about the book). Another winning read by this author.

[Diann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Seriously inspires me to OBSERVE when I get outside! I picked this book up because I enjoyed The Soul of an Octopus. This is a collection of naturalist essays mostly based in New England (New Hampshire and Massachusetts), and I'm learning some interesting facts along the way. The most unsettling is that turkey vultures can projectile-vomit 10 feet at whatever is disturbing them... But there are a lot of other, more hopeful behaviors out there in the animal and vegetative worlds, too.