beautiful book. combines personal/family memoir with observations of the Great Salt Lake

Refuge – what an excellent book to bring one up short about prejudices. I knew of this book for years but feared the theme was too religious and nature study for my taste. I knew the author was Mormon and lived in Utah and the book had to do with birds. As soon as I read a few pages, I was very taken with the beauty of the writing, the themes of refuge and grief undertaken by the writer, a naturalist. I even became interested in the different birds described in each chapter and read the book with a Peterson’s Guide to Birds on my lap. The interesting thing about the story is that Refuge might be described by some as a book about losing one’s mother to cancer and seeking a way through grief and loss while others might say it is a book about nature and the birds losing their habitat due to climate changes and pollution. It’s both and richer for it. I can’t recommend it highly enough to both memoir readers and nature lovers and any thoughtful reader.

See what I mean? After I posted above review, GR sends this:

Because you gave 5 stars to Refuge, Goodreads recommends
The End of Nature
The End of Nature
by Bill McKibben
3.93 of 5 stars 3.93 avg rating — 1,684 ratings published 1986
Reissued on the tenth anniversary of its publication, this classic work on our environmental crisis features a new introduction by the author, reviewing both the progress and ground lost in the fight ...more

3.93 of 5 stars 3.93 avg rating — 1,684 ratings — published 1986 ( )

This author was recommended to me and then he shared several of her titles. I was overwhelmed that I had never heard of her before yet TTW has been a well known natural history author for decades. This book was written when the Great Salt Lake had been at its highest and millions of dollars were being allocated to drain it. Now, with the lengthy drought the lake is at it’s lowest. The relationship between lake level and wildlife , especially avian, is critical. We unwittingly have destroy our environment in the last 50 years. Terry’s mother was dying of cancer during the time period of this book in the early and mid 1980’s and the story of habitat lose and her mother dying are beautifully intertwined. . She is a beautiful writer. ( )

Beautiful, soulful meditation on death, natute and the natural cycles of life. It's not as tight or elegant as TTW's later books as she was growing into herself as a writer still but you can already see the sublime genius she became at work here. ( )

I'm torn about this. I do think Williams writes well, and I like her descriptions of Great Salt Lake and its history and, especially, bird life. I'm just a bit torn by the integration of the Great Salt Lake story with the story of her mother dying of cancer. It's a newish kind of memoir and I'm not altogether comfortable with it, although I think I get it. As I work my way through my thoughts I recognize that if you are a writer and you are going through a difficult time and you have a connection to something natural, you might find solace there and you might want to write about it. And that is what she did. As birds found refuge, so did she.

We are also treated to some aspects of her religion - she is a member of the LDS church. ( )