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Ten essays on nature, ritual, and philosophy. Gretel Ehrlich's world is one of solitude and wonder, pain and beauty, and these elements give life to her stunning prose. Ever since her acclaimed debut, The Solace of Open Spaces, she has illuminated the particular qualities of nature and the self with graceful precision. In Islands, the Universe, Home, Ehrlich expands her explorations, traveling to the remote reaches of the earth and deep into her soul. She tells of a voyage of discovery in northern Japan, where she finds her 'bridge to heaven.' She captures a 'light moving down a mountain slope.' She sees a ruined city in the face of a fire-scarred mountain. Above all, she recalls what a painter once told her about art when she was twelve years old, as she sat for her portrait: 'You have to mix death into everything. Then you have to mix life into that.' In this unforgettable collection, Ehrlich mixes life and death, real and sacred, to offer a stunning vision of our world that is both achingly familiar and miraculously strange.
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Reviews
"Gorgeously original prose . . . a sensibility drawn to the mystical yet grounded in science."
Newsday
"A volume of ten deep, wandering essays that at times are so point-blank vital you nearly need to put down the book to settle yourself."
San Francisco Chronicle
"Ehrlich eschews logic and finds order in paradox. . . . Accounts of a heifer in trouble, training a horse, a wounded eagle, and always, the land and the weather in an infinity of permutations-subjects Ehrlich's eloquence and passion elevate to poetry."
Chicago Tribune