A Third Place: Notes in Nature

A Third Place exists in the extremes, pinpointing the details in nature which demand attention, and finding within those details our place in the bigger picture. Set in a series of observations and experiences, A Third Place on the one hand brings us all closer to nature through the eyes of the author yet makes us wonder if he has been following us around on our afternoon walks.

These lucid and brilliant essays on place, like Thoreau’s, offer a graceful path amid the maelstroms. Bob Kunzinger’s meditations in nature are redemptive and encouraging, and return us to our purpose, renewed.

—Jacki Lyden, author of Daughter of the Queen of Sheba, and former NPR foreign correspondent

“Nature,” Bob Kunzinger, writes, “keeps me in the moment.” A Third Place sparkles with greening moments. Standing on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean and Rappahannock River, Kunzinger describes sights that lift the spirits and make hours and hearts glow. Like Robert Louis Stevenson who wandered the globe “for travel’s sake,” Kunzinger explains that “we all go looking for one thing and often find something else.” What readers discover are descriptions that delight and thoughts that surprise and awaken appreciation. His essays urge, almost impel, readers to kick the dust off their boots and minds. He makes them ache to be up and about and embracing our bruised but glorious world, to treasure it and its inhabitants anew.

—Sam Pickering author of The World Was My Garden, Too