Settled in the Wild is a beautiful and eloquent collection of essays that Susan Hand Shetterly has written about her home in rural Maine. The first story, “April Nights,” are her observations of cold April nights; from the sound of snow falling, to a flock of Canadian geese flying over her house, to a porcupine bent on tearing up a tree just outside her bedroom window. I found myself, a city girl, yearning for winter nights in a log cabin and that quiet you hear and feel when you are alone in the wilderness.

My favorite essay is called “The Inward Eye” in which she talks about William Wordsworth’s poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” and how her inward eye has always seen hummingbirds and so she plants nasturtiums for them every May. Shetterly also shares her experiences and thoughts of how humans have interacted and interfered with nature. I really loved this book. -- it had a poetic quality to it that had me completely enthralled. ~Mara