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Join us for a book talk with Leigh Ann Henion, author of Night Magic: Adventures Among Glowworms, Moon Gardens, and Other Marvels of the Dark. This in-person event will be free and open to the public. We recommend arriving early for the best seating.About the Book: Nature’s magic still exists, often in the places we least expect it.
Night Magic is a glorious celebration of the dark! Leigh Ann Henion makes the case for embracing night as a profoundly beautiful part of the world we inhabit—and she invites us to leave our well-lit homes and step outside. It turns out we don’t have to go far to find marvels: we are surrounded by animals that rise with the moon, gigantic moths, and nocturnal blooms that reveal themselves, incrementally, as light fades. In her quest to know night with greater intimacy, Henion travels through forests alight with bioluminescent mushrooms and mountain valleys teeming with migratory salamanders. She ventures into the dark alongside naturalists, biologists, primitive-skills experts, and others who’ve dedicated their lives to cultivating relationships with darkness and the creatures who depend on it.
Every page of this lyrical book feels like an opportunity to ask: how did I not know about this before? For example, we learn that it can take hours, not minutes, for human eyes to reach full night vision capacity. And that there are thousands of firefly species on earth, each with flash patterns as unique as fingerprints—with one million tourists making pilgrimages to witness synchronous fireflies every year. In this age of increasing artificial light, Night Magic is an invitation to focus on the biodiversity that surrounds us. We do not need to stargaze into the distant cosmos or to dive into the depths of oceans to find awe in the dark—when we reclaim night, dazzling wonders can be found in our own backyards.
About the Author: Leigh Ann Henion is the New York Times–bestselling author of Phenomenal: A Hesitant Adventurer’s Search for Wonder in the Natural World. Her forthcoming book, Night Magic: Adventures Among Glowworms, Moon Gardens, and Other Marvels of the Dark, will be released this September. Henion’s writing has appeared in Smithsonian, The Washington Post, Garden & Gun, Men’s Journal, Backpacker, and a variety of other publications. She is a former Alicia Patterson Fellow, and her work is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Henion lives in Boone, North Carolina.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
New Dominion Bookshop, 404 E Main St,Charlottesville,VA,United States
