Upstream: Selected Essays by Mary Oliver

In this semi-autobiographic collection of essays, Oliver shares her love of nature and literature.  She describes her communion with nature beginning in her childhood and never feels alone as Walt Whitman is her "friend."  Reading Whitman's Song of Myself reaffirms her conviction as a poet and a sense of belonging that we are all part of a greater whole.  She also pays tributes to Woolf, Emerson, Poe, Wordsworth and Frost and shares her observations of owls and turtles .  If you love nature and poetry, you will find this uplifting.