Using the historical "curiosity cabinet" as a backdrop, debut author Posnett follows seven objects from their origin to their use: eiderdown, vicuña fiber, sea silk, tagua, civet coffee, guano, and swiftlet bird nests. Starting at the source, he attempts to peel back each item's commodification to reveal the item itself and its myth, folklore, history, and use. In doing so, he traces each object's meaning and relationship with humanity. Posnett's book tries to be more than just a general history in that it does not tell a linear story but instead uses each chapter to weave together the histories, myths, traditions, and current practices of each individual object. To tell this story, he visits harvesters and producers, trekking across different countries in order to experience the object itself instead of the object just as a commodity. As such the book also becomes a travelog and a philosophical muse on humanity's relationship to nature and whether it can change to be more beneficial instead of solely exploitative. VERDICT Readers who like microhistories and travelogs will enjoy.--Laura Hiatt, Fort Collins, CO

First-time author Posnett combines a background in modern-day finance and an interest in historical trade practices in this evocative look at precious natural objects. He begins with eiderdown, the soft down feathers of eider ducks, long used around in the world in bedding and garments. He goes on to edible bird's nests, vegetable ivory, sea silk, guano, and other trade items, examining their fluctuating value as international commodities and their natural environs, many of which are now endangered. Occasionally, Posnett offers the objects as history in a nutshell, noting that if Iceland's cultivation of eider, where the species has long been protected, attests to the country's "steady rhythms, its insulation from cataclysms, then Russian eiderdown is a portrait of the country's constant political upheavals"; a Russian biologist notes her country has never successfully cultivated the species. But for the most part, he is careful not to overextend his reach and concentrates on delivering scrupulous descriptions of his subjects and their locales, including both desolate fjords and tropical caves. In the best passages, he capture the harvesters at work, from an Icelandic priest gently lifting eiderdown from abandoned nests, to a Borneo bird nest harvester trodding in flip-flops through ankle-deep guano. Posnett aims to record "for posterity" the wondrous details of these objects-and he succeeds marvelously. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Building from an award-winning essay about Icelandic families who harvest eiderdown, Posnett went into the field to learn more about six other natural objects: sea silk, vegetable ivory, civet coffee, guano, edible birds' nests, and vicuña fiber. At first his travels mirror the wonder and excitement recorded by earlier naturalists and explorers, but as he learns more about the manner in which these materials are harvested (the report on civets is particularly bleak) and how much people at the end of the supply chain reap profits at the expense of those who do the actual work, he reconsiders the allure of his subjects and transforms himself into a determined investigator. The themes of economic inequality and cultural disruption, combined with issues of animal husbandry and ecology, make Strange Harvests a deeper, more thoughtful narrative than readers may expect. Posnett's essays far and meaningfully exceed the promise of his title and show this debut author to be more than worthy of comparisons to other questing and curious nonfiction writers, such as Edward Humes, David Kirby, and Heather Rogers.--Colleen Mondor Copyright 2019 Booklist