Synopses & Reviews
The environment may surround us, but when that environment is a natural wonder like Yosemite National Park, it also reaches whats inside us. For Mark Liebenow, Yosemite did just that, and did so when he needed it most. In
Mountains of Light, winner of the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize, Liebenow takes us deep into the heart of this wilderness, introducing us to its grand and subtle marvels—and to the observations, reflections, and insights its scenery evokes. Acting as our guide, Liebenow calls on the spirit and legacy of naturalist John Muir to rediscover nature and recover his own exuberance for life. Whether celebrating the giant sequoias, massive granite mountains, and wild, untamed rivers, or losing himself on an unmarked trail, Liebenow is always accompanied by thoughts of his wife of eighteen years, whose recent and sudden death tempers and informs his journey.
Interwoven with his experiences are the stories of the Native Americans who lived in the valley for thousands of years and of the early settlers who followed. Melding documentary with introspection, environmental reportage with a search for meaning, Liebenows work draws on the lore of geology, botany, biology, and history to show how each aspect of the environment is connected to the rest.
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Review
“A fine debut by a new voice in American nature writing.”—Dennis Covington, author of Salvation on Sand Mountain --Phillip Lopate
Review
“Kurt Caswell has mastered the noble tradition of the essay as walk-around, and he reads the contours of the land, his mind, and the urgency of companions who sometimes choose to accompany him on his solo journey with delicacy, generosity and a sharp attentiveness to the possibility of new life, in all its harmonious contradictions. This is lovely writing and musing.”—Phillip Lopate, author of The Art of the Personal Essay and Totally, Tenderly, Tragically
Review
"In these luminous essays on wanderlust, Caswell . . . embraces travel writer Bruce Chatwin's contention that walking is a poetic act that can cure the world of its ills. . . . His travels culminate in a Death Valley vision that replaces his pervasive sense of dislocation with the answer to a question that has nagged him for years: what is home? "—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Review
“The author moves from place to place, examining the natural world around him with scrupulous care and a keen, sympathetic eye, and examining even more intensely the seasonal transformations in his own heart and mind. By the end, I felt I had traveled along with him, sharing his sorrows and his epiphanies, his vigor and courage and ceaseless quest for experience and understanding. This is a memoir of extraordinary revelation, which transforms the reader as well as the author.”—Lynne Sharon Schwartz, author of Ruined by Reading: A Life in Books
Review
"[Kurt Caswell's] writing brings every sense to bear, and days later you will still have an exotic smell lingering in your nostrils."—Craig Childs, Orion
Review
"An Inside Passage celebrates the best of ecopsychology in contemporary American nature writing. It explores the complex interrelationship between the trajectory of our lives and the places in which we live them."—Gioia Woods, ISLE
Review
"An elegant portrayal of retreat, renewal and return to life with an increased respect for one of the nation's most revered natural sites."—Kirkus Reviews
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"This is a book that cries out for wide availability. It is a book to be read and re-read. I want to study it for what I expect are many deep connections Mark Liebenow has made as he wrote and re-wrote and edited it. This is a book of uncommon humility, honesty, great insight, and finally, ending again in winter, a book of eternal hope."—Blog Critics Books
Review
"Readers don't have to turn too many pages before they find themselves itching to go to Yosemite."—Amy Lou Jenkins, examiner.com
Review
"With Mountains of Light, Mark Liebenow offers a compelling reminder that the Yosemite remains both actual and symbolic evidence of nature's power to create in humanity a sense of awe and humility, even as civilization appears to many to be intent on hurtling itself into environmental degregation."—James Ballowe, North Dakota Quarterly
Review
“With his poets eye and sensibilities, Mark Liebenow leads us through one of the great American wild lands, Yosemite National Park. He also marks out a trail through an even wilder landscape—that of grief in the human heart. . . . The terrain he explores is rough and dramatic, exuberant and awe-inspiring.”—Kelsea Habecker, author of Hollow Out
Review
“This is a book of a heros journey—of a journey deep into the wilderness of our hearts among the wild flowing rivers we try to navigate in the face of pain, the glacial movement of recovering from tragic loss. Its about how when we listen to the gifts of nature we can find deep spiritual power; we can find grace. This is a beautiful book.”—Jeff Knorr, author of Keeper and The Third Body
Review
"Welsch's natural warmth and skill as a storyteller, and his obvious respect for the individuals he encounters, come through clearly in his writing, and it's easy to see why so many people, from so many backgrounds, might be honored to call him "friend.""—Publishers Weekly
Review
"Though an anthropology scholar, Welsch is never pedantic or preachy. Instead, this is a heartfelt and very personal story, rich in wry and self-deprecating humor."—Deborah Donovan, Booklist
Review
"Welsch's gratitude toward the Omahas and Pawnees is real, his outrage at their painful history is justified, and his story is proof that Native American culture is still alive and complex."—Kirkus
Review
"Welsch manifests himself as a listener who has spent fifty-five years involved in Native culture where he has made uncountable friends. His ability to write honest prose, both informative and erudite, captivates from the beginning."—Wynne Summers, Great Plains Quarterly
Review
“If it can be said of anyone who is not an Indian (Native American, American Indian) that he or she has the ‘soul of an Indian, it has to be said of Roger Welsch. He offers the one thing that diverse groups of people, indeed the world, need to get along: understanding.”—Joseph Marshall III, author of
The Lakota Way: Stories and Lessons for Learning Review
“Because of his age, broad experience, travels, open-hearted curiosity, and knowledge, Hilary Masterss book In Rooms of Memory has the kind of reflective depth that few such collections possess. It is gorgeously written and organized, a book of connections—between self and other, past and present, art and life.”—Floyd Skloot, author of In the Shadow of Memory
Review
“Hilary Masters offers humor, insight, anecdote, food-appreciation and more—all while demonstrating the ability to zig (or zag) when others around him would forge straight ahead. . . . In exploring the past as it lives in the present, Masters proves a companionable and erudite guide.”—Pittsburgh City Weekly
Review
“[Masterss] prose seems effortless. . . . This collection is worth reading for those who have not encountered Masters before. It will especially appeal to readers interested in the crafting of essays.”—Library Journal
Synopsis
Although finding a way to feel at home in the world is ultimately the lifes work of us all, rarely has the search ranged as far or found as precise and moving an expression as it does in An Inside Passage. Winner of the 2008 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize, Kurt Caswells narrative chronicles his travels in the rugged mountain forests of Japans Shiretoko National Park, on a vision quest in Death Valley, and to the sacred waters of the Ganges River. Whether contemplating a great blue heron as it rests riverside at the onset of a storm, reflecting on a beloved students untimely death, walking through the Navajo reservation, or receiving the blessing of a Hindu priest, Caswell unerringly finds the moment of truth. His journey also takes us across the landscape of his marriage, both its initial sweetness and its eventual failure. The ensuing inner dislocation echoes a larger estrangement that makes more poignant Caswells quest to find a place he can call home.
Synopsis
When he was out playing Indian, enacting Hollywood-inspired scenarios, it never occurred to the child Roger Welsch that the little girl sitting next to him in school was
Indian. A lifetime of learning later, Welschs enthusiasm is undimmed, if somewhat more enlightened. In
Embracing Fry Bread Welsch tells the story of his lifelong relationship with Native American culture, which, beginning in earnest with the study of linguistic practices of the Omaha tribe during a college anthropology course, resulted in his becoming an adopted member and kin of both the Omaha and the Pawnee tribes. With requisite humility and a healthy dose of humor, Welsch describes his long pilgrimage through Native life, from lessons in the vagaries of “Indian time” and the difficulties of reservation life, to the joy of being allowed to participate in special ceremonies and developing a deep and lasting love of fry bread. Navigating another culture is a complicated task, and Welsch shares his mistakes and successes with engaging candor. Through his serendipitous wanderings, he finds that the more he learns about Native culture the more he learns about himself—and about a way of life whose allure offers true insight into indigenous America.
Synopsis
This mature, exquisite collection of personal essays by Hilary Masters offers a rare pleasure. Here are meditations and reflections distilled in fine prose from a long and varied life—musings that, in the distinguished tradition of essays carried on since the days of Montaigne, articulate the piquant insights of the writers experience. In this collection, one of the most illustrious contemporary essayists transfigures incidents and observations into something far more—a finely crafted window into the workings of experience and memory. Masters makes readers privy to a youthful love affair; an adolescents discovery in Defoes Robinson Crusoe of the key to an immigrant grandfathers plight; and the significance of growing trees, making gravy, and playing cards. He draws intimate portraits of such characters as his famous father, Edgar Lee Masters; his literary friends Wright Morris and William Humphrey; and the strangers who both complicated and enriched his life. In glimpses of moments from naive youth through heady young adulthood to aging maturity, these essays tell the story of a life deeply, broadly, and thoroughly lived.
About the Author
Hilary Masters (1928-2015) published novels, short fiction, and nonfiction and his work has been cited in Best American Short Stories, Best American Essays, and Pushcart Prize anthologies. In 2003 the American Academy of Arts and Letters gave his work its award for literature. He is the author of the novel Elegy for Sam Emerson and the book-length essay, Shadows on a Wall: Juan OGorman and the Mural in Patzcuaro. Best known for his memoir, Last Stands: Notes from Memory, Masters is also the author of How the Indians Buried Their Dead, a collection of short stories.