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    Acquainted With The Night: Excursions Through the World After Dark
    Unavailable
    Acquainted With The Night: Excursions Through the World After Dark
    Unavailable
    Acquainted With The Night: Excursions Through the World After Dark
    Ebook392 pages6 hours

    Acquainted With The Night: Excursions Through the World After Dark

    By Christopher Dewdney

    3.5/5

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    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this ebook

    Only Christopher Dewdney could mine the darkest pools of lore, legend, natural history, science, cultural history and the arts to recast the seemingly commonplace aspects of an ordinary night into a magical and exhilarating nocturnal tour. Using an original hour-by-hour structure that follows night’s progression from 6:00 pm to 6:00 am, Dewdney explores and celebrates a single representative night at each point on the clock.

    • 6:00 pm: The setting sun begins Dewdney’s search to discover the perfect sunset.
    • 10:00 pm: The evening rhythms of the city hit their stride, from the cop on the night beat to the backbeat of the clubs.
    • Midnight: The hour of romance and magic.
    • 3:00 am: Dewdney is wide awake at a sleep clinic.
    • 5:00 am: “The desperate hour,” we enter a provocative cultural investigation of the “art of darkness.”

    For all those who’ve been wondering what they’ve been missing while they sleep, Acquainted with the Night is an illuminating exploration and a terrific gift book.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJul 10, 2012
    ISBN9781443402927
    Unavailable
    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...