Scan barcode
intoxicatingreads's review
5.0
One of the most beautifully detailed books I’ve read. The way Bass uses imagery to describe the Yaak Valley is incredible. You can picture everything he describes. You can also sense his passion and the sense of urgency in wanting to protect the valley. Truly an amazing read. If you want to understand why wilderness is important please do read this book. It was definitely a 10/10.
mattstebbins's review
5.0
This may be my favorite Bass. This feels like home, in a way I didn't know a place I've never been could. This feels like the kind of love poem all of our sacred wild places need. This feels like a kick in the pants, a reminder that we each have a voice, and if we aren't using it to advocate for the places and ideas we value most, what's the point?
This may become an annual re-read.
This should be on your to-read list.
This book does not feel dated. If anything, it feels extraordinarily hopeful, in a way I can't imagine being, as if we weren't in the midst of an administration that has made central to their platform the idea of pillaging (land, civil rights, the future) for personal gain.
This book might be one of the best sense of place books I've yet read.
And this book has definitely convinced me that I would love to have a beer with Rick Bass.
[5 stars for the dire need for books like this minus a half-star for how hopeless I felt at times that wild places not designated wilderness would ever not be at risk is 4.5 stars.]
This may become an annual re-read.
This should be on your to-read list.
This book does not feel dated. If anything, it feels extraordinarily hopeful, in a way I can't imagine being, as if we weren't in the midst of an administration that has made central to their platform the idea of pillaging (land, civil rights, the future) for personal gain.
This book might be one of the best sense of place books I've yet read.
And this book has definitely convinced me that I would love to have a beer with Rick Bass.
[5 stars for the dire need for books like this minus a half-star for how hopeless I felt at times that wild places not designated wilderness would ever not be at risk is 4.5 stars.]
jamiereadthis's review
5.0
“You can’t reproduce the wild,” he says, speaking my language. “There is no substitute for the wild.”
This book is speaking my language. (Of course it is. Of course.) There’s a part, though, in the essay “Fires,” about the rule of the West and the rule of the world: if it doesn’t rot, it burns. “All over the West, scientists as well as residents are trying to figure out how to apply this most basic truth: the forests have to burn. Suppression only makes forests lean more toward this truth.”
And the joy with which he repeats it, and the revelation he takes it to be— not only is this so thoroughly my language, it’s so thoroughly the joy I find in it too. The sweetness. The relief. “It all has to rot or burn, and there’s only so much in the bank. Forgive me if I keep repeating the obvious: it just seems like such a revelation to me that in the end it is all the same, and that it is really the part leading up to either of those two ends that makes life so sweet for us.”
In the part leading up to either of those two ends, these are so thoroughly my people:
This book is speaking my language. (Of course it is. Of course.) There’s a part, though, in the essay “Fires,” about the rule of the West and the rule of the world: if it doesn’t rot, it burns. “All over the West, scientists as well as residents are trying to figure out how to apply this most basic truth: the forests have to burn. Suppression only makes forests lean more toward this truth.”
And the joy with which he repeats it, and the revelation he takes it to be— not only is this so thoroughly my language, it’s so thoroughly the joy I find in it too. The sweetness. The relief. “It all has to rot or burn, and there’s only so much in the bank. Forgive me if I keep repeating the obvious: it just seems like such a revelation to me that in the end it is all the same, and that it is really the part leading up to either of those two ends that makes life so sweet for us.”
In the part leading up to either of those two ends, these are so thoroughly my people:
Despite dangers, most of us have stayed. It’s an incredible pull— the bond to home, the bond to your place.
That afternoon I go to the mercantile to get extra gas, but it’s closed. That would be a real bummer, I think, to be evacuating and run out of gas. Murphy’s Law to the nth. A friend is sitting on the porch of the tavern drinking beer, a lot of it, and watching the hypnotic sight of a mountain on fire— the mountain right across the river.
“If we burn, we burn,” he says.
kerrianne's review
5.0
Best, favorite, most poignant and powerful of all of Rick Bass' books/stories/essay collections I've ever read. This book speaks to me as if it were written yesterday, as if it's perpetually re-writing itself to remain (sadly) ever-relevant. As if it came from my own bones. I took notes on almost every chapter, could hardly put it down; nor could I read it anywhere I couldn't also be writing. This is one of those books I wish everyone in this country could, would, read. (My list of must-reads is steadily growing, but this one is particularly mighty.) It's a deep-dive into the power of place, and an even deeper dive into a conservationist's heart—and it's stunning, important, world-changing. Or, it should be.
This book will become one I re-read in whole and in parts each year. If I could I would wear passages of this book on my skin, invite them to live in my bones. If I could, I would have also encouraged Bass to end this collection with what is chapter fourteen: “Cores.” (Trust me, Rick. If you had it to do again, I could help, and would happily. “Cores” is where the heart of this story is, and these sorts of collections are better left with people's hearts singing, screaming, alongside yours.)
We need wildness, always. And we'll always need this sort of honesty, this sort of connection to these lands and to these ecosystems and to these threatened species if we ever hope to truly save them. We'll always need more books like this.
[Five (hundred) stars for voices crying out from the mountaintops and river valleys to save an ever vanishing wildnerness.]
This book will become one I re-read in whole and in parts each year. If I could I would wear passages of this book on my skin, invite them to live in my bones. If I could, I would have also encouraged Bass to end this collection with what is chapter fourteen: “Cores.” (Trust me, Rick. If you had it to do again, I could help, and would happily. “Cores” is where the heart of this story is, and these sorts of collections are better left with people's hearts singing, screaming, alongside yours.)
We need wildness, always. And we'll always need this sort of honesty, this sort of connection to these lands and to these ecosystems and to these threatened species if we ever hope to truly save them. We'll always need more books like this.
[Five (hundred) stars for voices crying out from the mountaintops and river valleys to save an ever vanishing wildnerness.]
More...