Mind the Gap: The Education of a Nature Writer

John Hay has been acclaimed as one of the most significant contemporary nature writers and environmentalists. In
Mind the Gap , which is at once an autobiographic memoir and a passionate commentary on our place in the natural world, he retraces the paths that led him to this career and explores the literary and environmental influences that shaped his interest in nature. Much of the book, available now for the first time in paperback, deals with his life in a small rural community on Cape Cod, addressing such subjects as the annual herring spawn, resident and migratory birds, local wildlife, his human neighbors, and the complex rhythms of life in this region of plunging winds and vast seas. Hay’s vivid, closely observed descriptions of his surroundings elegantly support his insightful comments on nature and our intricate relationship to it. He warns us that
in setting ourselves apart from the rest of living creatures, we fall victim to our own ice-bound conceit. It is only in sharing that we know anything at all.
Hay shares his knowledge generously, and as readers we are thereby vastly enriched.