When anxieties about politics, natural disasters and the impending holidays get to be too much, may I prescribe an antidote? Consider turning your attention away from human concerns for a little while to immerse yourself in the natural world. That might take the form of a hike in the woods, a walk around the neighborhood with your dog, or (my current recommendation) pausing over a page or two of Katherine Rundell's gem of a book, VANISHING TREASURES.

Rundell herself is quite an extraordinary writer --- and extraordinarily prolific. An award-winning author of novels for children (her most recent, IMPOSSIBLE CREATURES, is on many best-of-the-year lists), she also has published a nonfiction book for adults about children's literature, as well as an award-winning biography of the poet John Donne. To that impressive portfolio, she now adds this lovely compendium of short essays (many originally published in the London Review of Books), each focusing on a different animal that is either endangered or contains a subspecies that is endangered.

"These essays are full of facts about animals' physiology and behavior, but they also are informed by history, folklore and literature. ... Rundell's language is lyrical and compelling, even as it's laden with information."

Rundell opens VANISHING TREASURES with an introduction that starts with the concept of wonder: "These things [the extraordinary qualities of animals] sound like fables we tell children. But it's only that the real world is so startling that our capacity for wonder, huge as it is, can barely skim the truth." Readers should be advised to keep that capacity to wonder, that childlike curiosity, close at hand as they page through the book. It’s easy to do so when Rundell includes fascinating anecdotes about these creatures whose world we share.

They range from the Greenland shark, a creature previously unknown to me but that lives for a half-century or perhaps even more, to the golden mole, the only mammal with iridescent properties, the function of which is not clearly understood. And did you know that the humble wombat could probably defeat Usain Bolt in a 90-second foot race? Readers are even likely to learn something new about the creatures in their own backyards, from the crow (which has a remarkable capacity for both loyalty to and grudges against humans) to the raccoon (which might surpass humans at solving some types of puzzles) to the spider (which collectively eat more insects than birds and bats combined).

These essays are full of facts about animals' physiology and behavior, but they also are informed by history, folklore and literature. They often trace the various ways in which humans have (mis)understood creatures throughout our own history or used their encounters with animals to inform their own understanding of their world. The essay on seals, for example, explores selkie tales as well as Norse sagas, all of which feature seals as alluring, shape-shifting and perhaps supernaturally wise.

Rundell's language is lyrical and compelling, even as it's laden with information. The density and lyricism of the prose, in fact, makes this book best suited for dipping into gradually, or perhaps reading aloud an essay a night during the darkest days of winter. Each essay is accompanied by a gorgeous portrait of each animal, drawn by artist Talya Baldwin. And of course, the book is also a call to action for readers. As Rundell writes in her introduction: "We risk losing all this magnificence before we begin to understand it…. We are Noah's Ark in reverse: it is as if we are raging through the bowels of the boat, setting fire to the stables, poisoning the water. Faced with such destruction at such pace, acquiescence becomes impossible. The time to fight, with all our ingenuity and tenacity, and love and fury, is now."

To that end, Rundell is donating all her royalties on VANISHING TREASURES, in perpetuity, to organizations fighting against climate change --- as if there needed to be yet another reason to acquire a copy (and maybe give some as gifts) of this exquisite book.