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Finding Hope in the High Country
by Pam Houston
Book Reviewed by:"How do we become who we are in the world? We ask the world to teach us."
On her 120-acre homestead high in the Colorado Rockies, beloved writer Pam Houston learns what it means to care for a piece of land and the creatures on it. Elk calves and bluebirds mark the changing seasons, winter temperatures drop to 35 below, and lightning sparks a 110,000-acre wildfire, threatening her century-old barn and all its inhabitants. Through her travels from the Gulf of Mexico to Alaska, she explores what ties her to the earth, the ranch most of all. Alongside her devoted Irish wolfhounds and a spirited troupe of horses, donkeys, and Icelandic sheep, the ranch becomes Houston's sanctuary, a place where she discovers how the natural world has mothered and healed her after a childhood of horrific parental abuse and neglect.
In essays as lucid and invigorating as mountain air, Deep Creek delivers Houston's most profound meditations yet on how "to live simultaneously inside the wonder and the grief…to love the damaged world and do what I can to help it thrive."
Houston considers large and vexing questions that stem from climate change: "Would I give up my life to save the earth?" Her answers weave in and out of her essays, mostly as the physical details that move her toward gratitude and awe. She shows passion for the living and grieves the creatures she can no longer protect...continued
Full Review
(902 words)
(Reviewed by Chris Fredrick).
On June 5, 2013, lightning struck dead spruce trees 15 miles south of Pam Houston's ranch, sparking what would become known as West Fork Complex – one of the largest wildfires in Colorado history. West Fork Complex eventually consumed over 100,000 acres in Colorado and became one in a long and growing list of recent wildfires that have ravaged swaths of the Western U.S.
Wildfires in this area are on the increase, whether measured as a count of large fires, the number of acres burned, or a count of states setting records for single wildfire size. A few data points summarize this trend:
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These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin Thomas
"[An] atmospheric tale of unexpected hope." —Lisa Wingate, New York Times bestselling author
B. K. Loren, author of Animal, Mineral, Radical
In the face of the world's turmoil, this book is utter clarity. In the face of the world's harshness, this book is a soft place to land…If you find yourself careening toward despair, pick up Deep Creek and read even just one page. The words there will lift you back to hope--not the sentimental kind, but the kind that can and does change the world for the better.
