Hidden Cargoes

In this collection, prize-winning Irish essayist Chris Arthur ranges over subjects as various as a girl's ear, a vulture's egg, the letters in a Scrabble game, a sprig of witch-hazel, and the chasms of complexity contained in an ordinary moment. Whether he's writing about owls, leaves, a street in his hometown, the symbiotic interrelationships in the stomach of a termite, a souvenir cigarette box from a ship sunk in World War II, or the coincidence of three hearts beating simultaneously together