Among Flowers // A Walk in the Himalaya by Jamaica Kincaid

This chronicles a seed-gathering expedition in the Himalayan foothills, and through Kincaid's relentless noticing, the reader sees all sorts of things more sharply: the quantity of human labor is required to support the pleasure of tourists, how easily self-justification comes for whatever one wants to do, the peculiar greed that propels people from one place to another, the need to purchase and acquire and take. There are also rhododendron forests, encounters with leeches, and Maoist insurrection, all described in twining, barbed sentences.