Islands, the Universe, Home (ePub)

Gretel Ehrlich is an award-winning writer and naturalist. Born and raised in California, she was educated at Bennington College and UCLA Film School. She is the author of thirteen books, including the essay collection The Solace of Open Spaces (1985), the novel Heart Mountain (1988), and the memoirs A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck by Lightning (1994) and This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland (2001), as well as The Future of Ice: A Journey into Cold (2004), and, most recently, Facing the Wave: A Journey in the Wake of a Tsunami (2014). Her prose pieces have appeared in Harper's, the Atlantic, the New York Times Magazine, and National Geographic, among many other publications. Ehrlich lives in Montana and Hawaii.

“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
 
“Her essays, delicately combining interior and exterior exploration, are as spare and beautiful as the landscape from which they’ve grown. . . . Each one is a pilgrimage into the secrets of the heart.” —Andrea Barrett, National Book Award–winning author of Ship Fever
 
“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
 
“Her observation is never less than diamond-sharp. . . . Her scrutiny is as exact as any naturalist’s; transcendence occurs without veils and mists, and there is often a delicate sense of social comedy.” —The Boston Globe
 
“A powerful, idiosyncratic collection of naturalistic essays . . . Ehrlich’s prose . . . yields provocative images. . . . Her sharp eye cast unblinking both within and without.” —Publishers Weekly
 
“Ehrlich combines a naturalist’s eye with a philosopher’s meditations. . . . A lyrical, loving appreciation of landscape and life.” —Kirkus Reviews
 
“A practical listener . . . [Ehrlich] repeatedly finds common sense in the wisdom of physicists and astronomers. . . . She has a talent for using a prosaic task, a farm chore for instance, as a way of reaching toward