Strange Harvests (Viking, 2019) is an exploration of our relationship with nature through the stories of seven objects from the wild, all of which are commodities: eiderdown, edible birds’ nests, civet coffee, sea silk, vicuña fibre, vegetable ivory and guano.

It follows these materials from wild animals and plants all the way to the cities where they encounter human hands. The book asks whether a balance is possible between humans and the rest of nature; or whether we are destined to destroy what we desire.

The book was published in the UK under the title Harvest (The Bodley Head). Translations have appeared in German (Hanser) and Italian (Ponte alle Grazie).

“A truly remarkable debut, weird, inquisitive and swarming with memorable characters”
— John Carey in The Sunday Times
“Edward Posnett has written an exceptional first book; Strange Harvests is a subtle, fascinating braiding of travel, cultural and natural history, ethnography and economic analysis; a modern-day Wunderkammer with echoes of Pico Iyer as well as Sir Thomas Browne. Clear-eyed but never blithe, Posnett records the destructiveness of market rapacity as well as rare, hopeful examples of human and more-than-human harmony. It is a pleasure and an education to journey with him in these pages.”
— Robert Macfarlane, author of Underland and The Old Ways
“An original and bracing read. Posnett engages the reader sensually, intellectually, and poetically, dispelling any sense of separateness between our human existence and the material goods that rise from the earth and pass through our hands. The great gift of this book is that it inspires us to look with new depth into the varied stuff of life, and with this widened perspective, to act with care, grace, intelligence, and joy.”
— Lyanda Lynn Haupt, author of Crow Planet and Mozart’s Starling
“A beautiful exploration of our fraught connections with other species. With seemingly boundless curiosity, Posnett invites us on journeys through the surprising webs created by international trade. Uniting these stories from around the world are essential questions for our time: Is a balance between humans and the rest of nature possible? Or do we inevitably destroy what we harvest and desire? Full of surprise, delight, and horror, these lively tales illuminate and captivate.”
— David George Haskell, author of The Songs of Trees and The Forest Unseen
“Strange Harvests turns nature’s fairy tales inside out [and] usurps the reader’s expectations . . . an impressive addition to the modern travelogue, painting some of the world’s most remote terrain in visceral and sometimes breathtaking prose . . . an engrossing read.”
— NPR