FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
New Book from Charles Hood, Double Hyenas and Lazarus Birds Explores the Pacific Ocean and the Wonders of Nature
An adventurous, sometimes anxious, always surprising trip around the Pacific Rim with
one of the best contemporary nature writers.
BERKELEY, CALIF. — In Double Hyenas and Lazarus Birds: A Sideways Look at the Pacific Ocean and Everything in It (on sale June 3, 2025), renowned essayist Charles Hood embarks on an extraordinary voyage across one of the planet’s most mysterious and awe-inspiring landscapes: the Pacific Ocean. Following the success of his Foreword INDIES Book of the Year–winning A Salad Only the Devil Would Eat: The Joys of Ugly Nature, Hood once again blends his passion for the natural world with curiosity, sharp insight, and wit.
Despite his fear of water, or perhaps because of it, Hood takes readers along the Pacific Rim, navigating the vast expanse of the Pacific in search of elusive seabirds, tempestuous weather, and personal revelations. With an eye trained on the skies for petrels, frigate birds, and flying fish, Hood also delves into the ocean’s deep cultural and ecological significance, connecting the natural world to art, history, and the deep wounds—both emotional and ecological—left by World War II.
In his most personal book to date, Double Hyenas and Lazarus Birds offers a compelling new entry into the genre of nature writing. With his trademark blend of encyclopedic knowledge and literary flair, Hood is poised to solidify his position as one of the most celebrated nature writers of his generation. Blending travelogue, nature writing, and memoir, Hood sees both the ghosts of the Pacific and all of the wondrous, strange life that calls it home.
Media Contact:
Mary Bisbee-Beek
Publicist
For review copies, feature interest, and interview and image requests, get in touch: mbisbee.beek@gmail.com
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Praise for Charles Hood
“Among nature writers now working, Charles Hood is my favorite. He never stops telling stories, and his perspective is fundamentally comic, even when he’s recounting a tragedy.”
—JONATHAN FRANZEN
“”Reading Hood’s work will make you feel smarter but, even more crucially in this dire age, more open to the sublime.”
—LOS ANGELES TIMES
“Once you’ve had a taste of the world of Charles Hood, you’ll want to follow him wherever he goes. He’s brilliantly entertaining.”
—ELIZABETH McKENZIE, author of The Dog of the North
“With a poet’s sensitivity, Hood shows himself to be as in love with words as with what he sees around him […] his essays will charm, delight, and bring attention into high gear so that even a walk through an empty city lot will reveal treasures for the mind and heart.”
—FOREWORD REVIEWS
“Hood is the love child of Rebecca Solnit and Edward Abbey, assuming such a child had been raised in an art colony by demented garden gnomes.”
—MICHAEL GUISTA, author of Brain Work
“Charles Hood’s essay about James Audubon’s work should be required for anyone who possesses a pair of eyes, whether or not they use them for birdwatching or perusing art.”
—WILLIAM FOX, Director of The Center for Land + Environment, Nevada Museum of Art
Poet and essayist Charles Hood has been a factory worker, a ski instructor, and a birding guide in Africa. His recent books published by Heyday include Nocturnalia, an appreciation of nature after dark, and the essay collection A Salad Only the Devil Would Eat: The Joys of Ugly Nature. His wildlife studies have taken him around the world, from the high Arctic to the South Pole, and from Tibet to West Africa to the Amazon. Mammal no. 1,000 seen and recorded on his world animal list was a Crossley’s dwarf lemur in Madagascar. (Mammal no. 999 was a Malagasy white-bellied free-tailed bat.) Recently retired and now professor emeritus, Hood lives in the Mojave Desert with two kayaks, two mountain bikes, two dogs, and five thousand books.
