I’m trying to think of ways to best convince you of just how good this book is.
Jane Rawson has an interesting backstory (see below) and much of her recent output has been fiction. In the case of
Human/Nature, however, she presents a series of linked essays that delve, in a very idiosyncratic and personal way, into the many ways we interact with Nature.
In deceptively simple language she prises open the faultlines between what we hope or wish those relationships might be, and the facts on the ground, presenting irrefutable arguments only to subtly pull the rug out from beneath them. She discusses, in no particular order, evolution and extinction, minds and exceptionalism, conservation and killing, and much more, drawing in ideas from right across the spectrum. The quality and - there’s that word again - the
nature, of her prose means that the questions she asks have the capacity to pierce our complacencies, if only because she admits, from the start, that they are also hers.
Jane began her career as a writer by working for Lonely Planet, travelling to places as different as Prague and Phnom Penh, but eventually settled in Melbourne, taking up the position of editor of the environment and energy section of
The Conversation. Almost a decade ago she moved to Tasmania where she now works for a conservation organisation. In the meantime she has found the time to write four novels, including the Aurealis winning
From The Wreck, as well as the non-fiction work,
The Handbook: surviving and living with climate change.
She will be in conversation with Steven Lang.