About this Life – Barry Lopez – Journeys on the threshold of memory –

“The acclaimed American National Book Award winner gives us a collection of spellbinding new essays that form a jigsaw puzzle portarit of an extraordinary man.

With the publication of his best-selling Of Wolves and Men, and with the astonishing and original Arctic Dreams, Barry Lopez established himself as a rare writer whose every book is an event for both critics and his devoted readership.

In About This life, Lopez takes us on a literal and figurative journey across the landscape of autobiography, assembling essays of great wisdom and insight. Here is far-flung travel (the beauty of remote Hokkaido Island, the over-explored Galápagos, enigmatic Bonaire); a naturalist’s contention (Why does our society inevitable strip political power away from people with an intimate knowledge of the land – small-scale farmers, Native Americans, Eskimos, cowboys?); and pure adventure (a dizzying series of around-the-world journeys wit air freight – everything from penguins to pianos). And here, too, are seven exquisite memory pieces – haunting, lyrical yet unsentimental recollections that represent Barry Lopez’s most intimate work to date, and which will be read as classics of the personal essay for years to come.

In writing about nature and people from around the world, by exploring the questions of our age, Barry Lopez gives us a book that is both vastly erudite and intimate. It is a magically written and provocative work by a major American writer.”