Divine Ratios

The reach of Divine Ratios is global, ranging from Tang Dynasty China and the Florentine Renaissance to contemporary Baltimore, post–World War II Berlin, and the landscapes of the Mountain West. The speed and mobility evoked in this new collection by Jacqueline Osherow are not only physical—a traveler’s movement in a crowded, thrilling world—but imaginative, and its poetic idiom is no less varied, as a breezy conversational tone serves as a counterpoint to traditional form. With striking juxtapositions of natural and cultural wonders, this enrapturing volume asks, what is the right proportion—or “ratio”—for living in a world of such splendors, horrors, and possibilities?