Gregory McNamee has earned a sterling reputation for being a keen observer of the American landscape. Now, in Blue Mountains Far Away, he turns his penetrating eye toward the small wonders of the land and presents a startlingly beautiful vision of the miracle of nature and the dangers that humans present to their continuation. In these thirteen essays, McNamee writes with poignancy and grace about the land and the creatures that surround him in the Southwest. Nearly every piece in this collection speaks to a different aspect of the natural (and occasionally unnatural) world, be it the awesome and mysterious power of lighting, the vigor of the desert wind, the mental and spiritual clarity a river may impart, or the reverence a mountain may command. Often humorous, sometimes contentious, and always wise, in these pieces McNamee never seems to lose sight of the fragile relationship that exists between nature and ourselves. For him it is a relationship that requires respect of a wilderness 'whose inhabitants can kill and eat us, for unmanaged places in which time has a stop.' Interweaving science, environmentalism, art, and literature, he delves into the pleasure of unhurried exploration, meditates on animal communication, mourns the disappearance of his favorite oasis, and mulls over the meaning of Las Vegas. He does it all with a poet's touch and adventurer's gusto that renders Blue Mountains Far Away both a distinctive and distinguished contribution to literature of the land. (5 1/2 X 8 1/2, 178 pages)

In this collection of essays, McNamee presents a startlingly beautiful vision of the miracles of nature and the dangers that humans present to their continuation.