Strange Harvests

The Hidden Histories of Seven Natural Objects

By: Edward Posnett

Narrated by: Roy McMillan

"[Strange Harvests is] an impressive addition to the modern travelogue, painting some of the world's most remote terrain in visceral and sometimes breathtaking prose...an engrossing read." (NPR)

An original and magical map of our world and its riches, formed of the stories of the small-scale harvests of seven natural objects

In this beguiling audiobook, Edward Posnett journeys to some of the most far-flung locales on the planet to bring us seven wonders of the natural world—eiderdown, vicuña fiber, sea silk, vegetable ivory, civet coffee, guano, and edible birds' nests—that promise ways of using nature without damaging it. To the rest of the world these materials are mere commodities, but to their harvesters they are imbued with myth, tradition, folklore, and ritual, and form part of a shared identity and history.

Strange Harvests follows the journeys of these uncommon products from some of the most remote areas of the world to its most populated urban centers, drawing on the voices of the people and little-known communities who harvest, process, and trade them. Blending history, travel writing, and interviews, Posnett sets these human stories against our changing economic and ecological landscape. What do they tell us about capitalism, global market forces, and overharvesting? How do local microeconomies survive in a hyperconnected world? Is it possible for us to live together with different species? Strange Harvests makes us see the world with wonder, curiosity, and new concern.

©2019 Edward Posnett (P)2019 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“Strange Harvests turns nature’s fairy tales inside out [and] usurps the reader's expectations . . . an impressive addition to the modern travelogue, painting some of the world's most remote terrain in visceral and sometimes breathtaking prose . . . an engrossing read.”—NPR

“Posnett moves from one example to another with moral precision, wryness and a refusal to be discouraged. Stories build subtly and sometimes with sudden drama; all are entangled in complex political, cultural and ecological circumstances . . . The non-human creatures [...] too are heroic.”—The Guardian

“A truly remarkable debut, weird, inquisitive and swarming with memorable characters.”—The Sunday Times

Rare animal histories

Background to all sorts of things we do not ordinarily think about, such as bird nest soup. Fun for the curious mind. Sometimes a little slow, but I am spoiled by fast paced sci-fi novels!