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    Acquainted with the Night: Excursions Through the World After Dark
    Acquainted with the Night: Excursions Through the World After Dark
    Acquainted with the Night: Excursions Through the World After Dark
    Ebook360 pages7 hours

    Acquainted with the Night: Excursions Through the World After Dark

    By Christopher Dewdney

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Weaving together science and storytelling, art and anthropology, Dewdney takes readers on a fascinating journey through the nocturnal realm. In twelve chapters corresponding to the twelve hours of night, he illuminates night's central themes, including sunsets, nocturnal animals, bedtime stories, festivals of the night, fireworks, astronomy, nightclubs, sleep and dreams, the graveyard shift, the art of darkness, and endless nights. With infectious curiosity, a lyrical, intimate tone, and an eye for nighttime beauties both natural and man-made, Christopher Dewdney paints a captivating portrait of our hours in darkness.
    Christopher Dewdney is the author of three books of nonfiction-Last Flesh, The Secular Grail, and The Immaculate Perception-as well as eleven books of poetry. A three-time nominee for Governor General's Awards and a first-prize winner of the CBC Literary Competition, Dewdney lives in Toronto, Ontario.
    "As you read these pages, your life will change, because the way you see half of it will change. The night we're all familiar with will emerge as a fresh thing, deeper, fuller, older, younger, more evocative, more intimate, larger, more spectacular and, yes, more magical, and much more thrilling."-Margaret Atwood, Globe and Mail
    "[A] felicitous literary gambol from dusk till dawn...Dewdney throws himself headlong into the deep pool of his subject."-Sue Halpern, Newsday
    "An enjoyable and instructive read."-Sven Birkerts, Boston Globe
    Also available: HC 1-58234-396-9 $24.95
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury USA
    Release dateDec 6, 2008
    ISBN9781596917682
    Acquainted with the Night: Excursions Through the World After Dark
    Author

    Christopher Dewdney

    Christopher Dewdney is one of Canada's most articulate and thoughtful cultural commentators. He has published three books of popular non-fiction, including The Immaculate Perception, which was nominated for the Governor General's Award, and Last Flesh. He also penned 11 highly acclaimed books of poetry and won first prize for poetry in the CBC Literary Competition. Fluent in several scientific disciplines, Christopher Dewdney makes his home in Toronto, where he teaches creative writing at York University.

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    Reviews for Acquainted with the Night

    3.5/5

    32 ratings2 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Acquainted With The Night is an amazing book that chronicles the twelve hours of the night. Seemingly disparate topics such as science, art, history, philosophy, fireworks, astronomy, psychology, bed time stories, nocturnal animals and dreams are woven together to create a fascinating look at a time when most people are asleep. Not just for night owls, Acquainted With The Night is for anyone looking for a book that balances scientific facts with lyrically wrought sentences that allude to Dewdney's background as a poet. Highly recommended!
    • 4/5
      Wonderfully intriguing -- an invitation to take a journey through the 12 hours of darkness, with a trustworthy and wise guide. This book is like a curiosity cabinet -- full of delightful items you've probably never considered before, some of which go bump, and some of which entrance: sleep, murder, dreams, bats, goddesses, astronomy, a wide variety of nocturnal creatures, meditations on philosophy, science and literature -- all explored with a poet's sensibility. Dewdney's interests in things of the night is so far ranging that I suspect not every single thing in the book with interest every single reader, and but where else could you discover that we are most sensitive to dust at 11 p.m. or, discover that the Panzer divisions invading Poland were on methamphetamine, or hear a comet described thusly: "there is something fascinating yet unearthly and menacing about a comet, as if it were a cold, phosphorescent angel of calamity - it hangs in the sky like a beautiful jinx." Lovely. Now, grab your lantern and a pair of stout boots, it's time to a little nocturnal wandering...

    Book preview

    Acquainted with the Night - Christopher Dewdney

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