In Essays from Essex, Sydney M. Williams III shares new musings on family, nature, and the miracles to be found in everyday life. The nearly two dozen entries in this, his third collection, range from stories of growing up in the 1940s and ’50s, Christmases past, and remembrances of friends, to observations on the joys of motherhood and the return of Atlantic sturgeon to the Connecticut River. The book also includes a half-dozen drawings by Williams’s grandson, Alex.