In The Promise of Sunrise: Finding Solace in a Broken World, a former Bronx Zoo zoologist and award-winning nature writer, Ted Levin, spent Covid rediscovering his valley and the joys of watching the season pass, day by day by day. The book is a chronicle of his rediscovery of the Thetford, Vermont hillside on which he lived and a recounting of the daily joys of observing home ground as Levin (like many of us) was forced by Covid to stay home for nearly two years. In the end, he sold his home and moved to Hurricane Hill in Hartford, Vermont, which ends the narrative, although he continues the same routine.
Industry Reviews
"I've been a follower of Ted Levin's work for decades. Now, with The Promise of Sunrise, I have accompanied him through COVID and his solitary "sheltering-in-place" journey, although it is not quite that. He has his dogs, early morning walks, and singing, soaring, scurrying companions animating his world. I've come to admire him even more as a writer and observer of life we call nature." --Jack E. Davis, winner of 2018 Pulitzer Prize for History
"Levin is also exquisitely attuned to the larger rhythms of nature, as alive to what's singing in the trees as to what's slithering underfoot. This book resonates with wit, love, and wonder . . ." -- Library Journal, starred review Advance Praise for Promise of Sunrise
"Ted Levin is a naturalist so attuned to the natural world that every line of melodic prose in The Promise of Sunrise: Finding Solace in a Broken World is saturated with details that only a lifetime of observation could provide. Levin's humor, descriptive ability, and his natural history expertise can be found on page after page . . . and are presented with exquisite sensory detail and delightful perspective." --Mary Holland, www.naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com, author, Naturally Curious, Naturally Curious Day By Day
"Ted Levin's Promise of Sunrise does not just invent a beautifully refurbished language for the close observation of nature; it turns the close observation of nature into an act of moral witness in a threatened world. He starts by answering the question of what to do with all the time the pandemic seemed to give us and ends by answering the question of what to do now that time seems to be running out. He's not telling us how to take a walk in the woods so much as he's telling us how to watch, how to listen, how to remember, how to hope and how to live, and he's written one of the most deeply human books about nature I have ever read." --Tom Junod, staffer writer for ESPN and a two-time winner of the National Magazine Award
"The marriage of a great writer and a great subject is always a joy to behold." --Bill McKibben, author The End of Nature
"What Ted Levin's book reveals is the power that comes with the intimate, quiet, and continuous observation of the place one calls home, wherever that may be. The homebound confines of Covid quarantine life were liberating, not isolating, when, as Levin did, care was taken every day to note the changes in the patterns of weather, nature, and animal life that surround us. Levin shows the joy and expansive power of quiet observation to enrich our world and transport us well beyond the horizon of our vision, and to reconnect us to those we lost but still hold dear." --Peter Welch, United States Senator, Vermont
Praise for the Writing of Ted Levin "This beautifully written book demonstrates just how good nature literature can be." --Edward O. Wilson, Two-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize
