Notes from Source: Carson’s subjects range from the decline and death of her elderly mother, to the magical use of sleep in the works of Virginia Woolf and Homer, to guns, Gnostics, and total solar eclipse. “Totality: The Colour of Eclipse,” one of several strong essays in the book, is a wonderful examination of the color and shadow of eclipses as they have been variously explained and recorded. Fragmented and spare, it reintroduces an intimacy and meticulousness, as well as a simple groundedness in the physical world, that recall the book’s powerful opening sequence.

Further Notes: Place: Cambridge Publisher: Houghton Library of the Harvard College Library