What ties your soul to a specific place, such as 23 (or 22) acres of land? Is it events that happened there-both joyful and tragic? Or is it also simply being in the moment in the place? Say just breathing in the smell of ripening corn on an August day. Or watching your dog run full-speed across a field neatly rowed with newly-cut hay. Maybe a quiet conversation with your mother when out for a walk in the early spring while listening to a chorus of peepers in a nearby swamp-a conversation about things one might be searching for in life.

Glenn Reed's Searching for the Wild Asparagus is a from-the-heart homage to his parents' former home and acreage in a small, Vermont town-a place to which he was intimately tied for 48 years of his life. Its collection of essays and mostly original photos tell a story of how a place and all associated with it, over time, helped shape who the author is as a person. And how those experiences are both unique to each of us as well as universal.