My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Random House Publishing Group-Random House for an advanced copy of this collection of essays.

This is my first time reading a collection by David Searcy which is good because The Tiny Bee That Hovers at the Center of the World might be my new favorite collection of personal essays. The writing is sparse, in some places a good sigh might send them flying off the page. However, as you read, the words come together and the reader grasps what the essay is about or what the reader wants to believe it is about. Time is a major theme, loss, of course but not in the usual sense. Loss in that things have changed, that he let them go to long and things can't be fixed, or even want to be fixed. So like an old trampoline in the backyard it rusts and breaks, while he stands there and watches it. There is also an essay on Betty Crocker that is quite amusing and she appears in other essays in the book, usually just a photo. You get the feeling that he prefers the old ways, but at the same time his essays on science show that he is not a man afraid of the unknown.

Mr. Searcy's style is reminiscent of the English writer Geoff Dyer. Both use essays to describe the big issues, to tell the story of the world, and how the world is seen. Mr. Searcy takes awhile longer to get to there. Sometimes the reader might get lost on the way, but each essay is worth the travel and the trouble. Very different, very interesting.

The publisher of The Tiny Bee That Hovers at the Center of the World suggested I might like to read this, based on some of my past reviews, and so I downloaded an ARC without really looking too hard at what it is. And now that I’ve read it, I’m finding it pretty hard to describe just what this is: More one book-length essay than a collection of related essays, author David Searcy writes of the past, present, and future, the personal and the public, circling back to ideas, foreshadowing events that won’t be revealed for many chapters, finding meaning in the gaps and ellipses and those things that can only be glimpsed when we don’t look at them directly. In a later section, Searcy describes a project he had assigned himself — to view Mars nightly from his homemade backyard observatory and to make an inkwash drawing of what he sees, without thinking too much about it — and that’s what this entire book feels like: The eyes squinting skyward while the hand describes a circular smudge and meaning found in the distance between these acts. This is art, and as a reading experience, I was engaged and always interested in Searcy’s experiences, but can’t say that I always understood what he was making of it; but isn't that just like any art? A very engaging read and completely worth the time.

A collection of ethereal, esoteric ramblings, wandering through the years, through our world, through memories, he shares thoughts about finding our place, our longings for people, places and things that call our name and speak to our hearts. Seeing the world through our eyes, cameras and telescopes, science expanding our vision, and exploring the meanings of the loss that we’ve had along the way. The occasional longing to return, if not physically, to older, simpler times, to the innocence of those moments but with the wisdom gained that, like old friends, some are worth keeping, while others are best left behind.

A literary passage to, hopefully, find our ...better self, our better, stranger selves out there somewhere…

This is the first time I’ve read anything by this author, and initially I wasn’t really sure how I would feel, but I fell into this as Alice fell down the rabbit hole, into a magical place. Once there, I didn’t want to leave.

This journey is like most life-long ones, as way leads on to way, choices must be made. We aren’t limited to a single place, or a single idea, and he shares thoughts on places, science, art, telescopes, our terrestrial home, along with those moments of our lives that hold special meaning only through memories. Memories that become a part of who we were and who we become over time. Fond memories of other times, times of longing or that fuel a longing, and times of loss along with a recognition that time is both transient and dwindling.


Pub Date: 20 Jul 2021

Many thanks for the ARC provided by Random House Publishing Group - Random House, and special thanks to Madison Dettlinger for pointing the way.

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