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
"Never self-congratulatory or maudlin, often brutally honest, always deeply personal, Spagna's...search leads to a deeper understanding ...of all those in the civil rights movement who put their fears aside to do what they knew was right." Oregonian
Review
"[A] magnificent testament and tribute to the lives of many people.... Her surprising story renewed my awe in the interconnectedness of all of our lives." Kathleen Finneran, author of The Tender Land: A Family Love Story
Review
"While Ana Maria Spagna’s ability to capture the nuances of her father’s life is impressive, it is the wonder and persistence she brings to her tale that make this such an engaging book." Danielle Trussoni, author of Falling Through the Earth
Synopsis
Test Ride on the Sunnyland Bus chronicles the story of an American family against the backdrop of one of the civil rights movement's lesser-known stories. In January 1957, Joseph Spagna and five other young men waited to board a city bus called the Sunnyland in Tallahassee, Florida. Their plan was simple but dangerous: ride the bus together — three blacks and three whites — get arrested, and take their case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Fifty years later Ana Maria Spagna sets off on a journey to understand what happened and why.
Spagna travels from her remote mountain home in the Pacific Northwest to contemporary Tallahassee, searching for the truth of the incident and her father's involvement. Her journey is complicated by the fact that her father never spoke of the Sunnyland experience and died unexpectedly when she was eleven. Seeking out the other bus riders, now in their seventies, Spagna tries to make sense of their conflicting stories. Her odyssey becomes further troubled by the sudden diagnosis of her mother's terminal cancer.
Winner of the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction prize, Test Ride on the Sunnyland Bus deftly weaves cultural and personal history, memoir, and reportage in this fascinating look at a family and a nation's past.
Synopsis
John W. Evans was twenty-nine years old and his wife, Katie, was thirty. They had met in the Peace Corps in Bangladesh, taught in Chicago, studied in Miami, and were working for a year in Romania when they set off with friends to hike into the Carpathian Mountains. In an instant their life together was shattered. Katie became separated from the group. When Evans finally found her, he could only watch helplessly as she was mauled to death by a brown bear.
In such a love story, such a life story, how could a person ever move forward? That is the question Evans, traumatized and restless, confronts in this book as he learns the language of grief, the rhetoric of survival, and the contrary algorithms of holding fast and letting go. His memories of Katie and their time together, and the strangeness of his life with her family in the year after her death, create an unsentimental but deeply moving picture of loss, the brutality of nature, and the unfairness of needing to narrate a story that nothing can prepare a person to tell.
Told with unyielding witness, elegance, and care, Young Widower is a heartbreaking account of a senseless tragedy and the persistence of grief in a young persons life.
About the Author
Ana Maria Spagna is the author of Now Go Home: Wilderness, Belonging, and the Crosscut Saw, which was named a Best Book of 2004 by the Seattle Times. Her work has appeared widely in publications such as Orion, Utne Reader, and North American Review. She lives and writes in Stehekin, Washington.