"Hurd is a consummate naturalist, writing with the grace and precision of a Peter Matthiessen or an Annie Dillard, but she is also remarkably curious about human nature, spinning her discussion to bring in Joseph Campbell, the I Ching, and Thomas Edison. One moment you're holding a bog turtle in the palm of your hand or watching a dragonfly unfold its wings, and the next you're learning how Monet went about exhibiting his water lily canvases in 1922 or why the cold acidic water of peat bogs so perfectly preserves a body. It is a measure of her skill that she steps among these elements so effortlessly, and it is a measure of her ambition that keeps the aperture of her camera wide open to capture what might otherwise have laid hidden in the dark."-- Los Angeles Times.