Virtual Author Talk: Margie Patlak “More than Meets the Eye: Exploring Nature and Loss on the Coast of Maine”

Join award-winning science writer Margie Patlak on Thursday, July 8 at 7 p.m. for a virtual talk with the Jesup Memorial Library. Patlak is the author of “More than Meets the Eye: Exploring Nature and Loss on the Coast of Maine” which features 23 essays which encourage readers to more deeply consider the world around them and explores how the unique nature of the Maine coast opens a door to deeper ties and insights into life. 

 

Patlak moved to Corea, Maine and started exploring the area around her. She writes, “As a science writer eager to learn more about the environment of my new abode on the Schoodic Peninsula, I started writing a book about the nature of Maine.  But soon it also became a book about what the nature of Maine taught me about the nature of life.” Watching monarchs that visited her garden and her knowledge that it takes for the butterflies three generations  to make their way from Mexico to Maine revealed the limits of an individual life and what is passed on from generation to generation. Tides show how fleeting time is, and clouds and weather reveal greater forces that take away all illusions of control. Patlak also explores the continental collisions that thrust up and fractured Maine’s mountains; digs into the latest scientific thinking on how animals navigate; and shares the dizzy dance of plankton under the microscope.

 

Sy Montgomery, author of “The Soul of the Octopus,” called “More Than Meets the Eye,” “a beautiful and surprising book…chocked full of natural history observations… in which bereavement gives way to awe.” Bernd Heinrich, author of “A Year in the Maine Woods,” wrote “to read this book is to gain a deep perspective—from looking close, both backwards and forwards in time and space—for living and enjoying the real world, the one of nature.”

 

Patlak is a science writer and memoirist who has written hundreds of articles about the environment, neuroscience, biomedical research and technology for popular publications including Discover magazine, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and many others. Her personal essays have appeared in a number of literary journals and newspapers. She has degrees in Botany and Environmental Studies and divides her time between Philadelphia and Corea, Maine.

 

Copies of “More Than Meets the Eye” can be purchased through co-sponsor Sherman’s Books at any of their locations, online at shermans.com or by calling 20-288-3161. Registration is required to receive the Zoom link. To register fill out the form at jesuplibrary.org/events/patlak or email kchagnon@jesuplibrary.org.