Looking for a good book? Nonfiction? I’m eyeball deep for the second time in The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate, by Peter Wohlleben. If you’ve not read it, do. It will introduce you to a world of wonder.

I read this little tome about three months back, bookmarked about 40 of its 250 pages, and returned it to the library only reluctantly, after I reached the renewal limit. I honestly thought I was done with it at that point (having removed all of my bookmarks). But today I thought of something I learned from it, and I wanted to know I had the right details, so I headed back to the library and checked it out again.

I planned to just look up the one detail I wondered about, but I find myself instead re-reading from page 1. I might just wind up buying the book.

This is something I love about books: I never know when one is going to take me by surprise and send me skittering down a rabbit hole to discover a new world. It’s intoxicating.

Re-reading, rewriting

So intoxicating that it sometimes inspires me. When I first read this book, I pulled out pencil and paper and started drawing; that’s something that happens only rarely. The reason I needed the book again today is because a fact from it started to make its way into a poem I was writing. I kept writing—if you’re me, you don’t risk interrupting a creative process, even for something the creation needs—and flagged the questionable detail to check later.

So here I am, ready to fact check, and instead I’ve fallen back into the wonderland of this book.

At some point, I’m confident I’ll come across the detail I need. I only hope that by then I remember why I need it.