Ask a Bookseller: 'Fox and I'

Julian Karhumaa of Farley’s Bookshop in New Hope, Pa., said he’s still thinking about Catherine Raven’s memoir “Fox and I: An Uncommon Friendship.”

Having newly finished her PhD in biology, Catherine Raven finds herself living in the woods of Montana, generally removed from other people and uncertain about her next step. As she observes the natural world around her, she notices that a fox comes around at precisely the same time each afternoon.

“How do you befriend a fox?” she wonders. She takes to sitting outside, as near to the fox as she dares, and reading to it from “The Little Prince,” which includes the story of a fox who asks the little prince to tame him. Raven comes to consider her fox a friend.

Karhumaa said “Fox and I” is a beautifully written meditation on our human relationship with nature, and their relationship with us, life and death.

“It was one of those books that sort of stays with you and makes you think,” said Karhumaa.