Book Review: Courting the Wild: Love Affairs with the Land, edited by Jamie K. Reaser
Courting the Wild: Love Affairs with the Land, edited by Jamie K. Reaser and Susan Chernak McElroy. ©2008 Hiraeth Press. ISBN 9780979924637. Trade Paperback. Bioregionalism. 160 pages. Source: review copy provided by the publishers.
Synopsis: Do you remember the first time you feel in love? Within these pages you will find love stories, rapturous love affairs with the land, shameless seductions, betrothals, vows exchanged, marriages of the soul, heartaches, partings, healings, and renewals. The authors are the courters and the courted…Their landscape paramours embrace them and they grow forth from within.
Review: Courting with the Wild contains 16 anecdotal eco-romances and renewals detailing the moments when the contributing authors felt the love of the land blossom within them. Along with recollections of their fervent rendezvouses with nature, Courting the Wild also provides practices for readers to use in improving their relationship to the land.
Having felt the same soul-filling connection with the land around me, I enjoyed the anecdotes but I did find some things a little cheesy, for lack of a better word. For instance, using a percussion instrument to “befriend the night.” Not my style as it feels a bit too New Age for me but there was still a great deal to enjoy — even if I wish there would have been a touch more environmentalism tossed in. Loving the land is one thing, fighting for the object of your affection is quite another entirely. 3/5.
