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The Solace of Open Spaces
- Narrated by: Gretel Ehrlich
- Length: 4 hrs and 44 mins
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The Solace of Open Spaces
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Publisher's summary
A collection of transcendent, lyrical essays on life in the American West, the classic companion to Gretel Ehrlich’s new book, Unsolaced
“Wyoming has found its Whitman.” (Annie Dillard)
Poet and filmmaker Gretel Ehrlich went to Wyoming in 1975 to make the first in a series of documentaries when her partner died. Ehrlich stayed on and found she couldn’t leave. The Solace of Open Spaces is a chronicle of her first years on “the planet of Wyoming”, a personal journey into a place, a feeling, and a way of life.
Ehrlich captures both the otherworldly beauty and cruelty of the natural forces - the harsh wind, bitter cold, and swiftly changing seasons - in the remote reaches of the American West. She brings depth, tenderness, and humor to her portraits of the peculiar souls who also call it home: hermits and ranchers, rodeo cowboys and schoolteachers, dreamers and realists. Together, these essays form an evocative and vibrant tribute to the life Ehrlich chose and the geography she loves.
Originally written as journal entries addressed to a friend, The Solace of Open Spaces is raw, meditative, electrifying, and uncommonly wise. In prose “as expansive as a Wyoming vista, as charged as a bolt of prairie lightning” (Newsday), Ehrlich explores the magical interplay between our interior lives and the world around us.
Critic reviews
"Any one of [its 12 chapters] stands beautifully on its own.... She brings the long vistas into focus with the poise of an Ansel Adams." (The New York Times Book Review)
"A stunning rumination on life on Wyoming's High Plains.... Ehrlich's gorgeous prose is as expansive as a Wyoming vista, as charged as a bolt of prairie lightning." (Newsday)
"Ehrlich's best prose belongs in a league with Annie Dillard and even Thoreau. The Solace of Open Spaces releases the bracing air of the wilderness into the stuffy, heated confines of winter in civilization." (San Francisco Chronicle)
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-
Story5 out of 5 stars 40
To the wild and fabulous country where the Rio Grande makes its big bend, J. O. Langford came in 1909 with his wife and daughter in search of health and a home. High on a bluff overlooking the spot where Tornillo Creek pours its waters into the turbulent Rio Grande, the Langfords built their home, a rude structure of adobe blocks in a land reputed to be inhabited only by bandits and rattlesnakes. Big Bend is the story of the Langfords' life in the rugged and spectacularly beautiful country which they came to call their own.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great historical read!!
- By chaoticangel38 on 06-03-19
By: J.O. Langford
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Dalva
- A Novel
- By: Jim Harrison
- Narrated by: Chris Henry Coffey, Stacey Glemboski
- Length: 13 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 63
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 57
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 55
From her home on the California coast, Dalva hears the broad silence of the Nebraska prairie where she was born, and longs for the son she gave up for adoption years before. Beautiful, fearless, tormented, at 45 she has lived a life of lovers and adventures. Now, Dalva begins a journey that will take her back to the bosom of her family, to the half-Sioux lover of her youth, and to a pioneering great-grandfather whose journals recount the bloody annihilation of the Plains Indians.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Male fantasy of women
- By swiss miss on 10-09-23
By: Jim Harrison
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This House of Sky
- Landscapes of a Western Mind
- By: Ivan Doig
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 376
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 316
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Story5 out of 5 stars 311
A nominee for the National Book Award, Ivan Doig's brilliant memoir shares the experiences and culture that shaped his early years and made him fall in love with the West. From his childhood in a family of homesteaders through the death of his mother and his move to Montana to herd sheep, Doig shows his intimate connection with the American West.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Early work by a favorite author
- By Doggy Bird on 09-06-14
By: Ivan Doig
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A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains
- By: Isabella L. Bird
- Narrated by: Flo Gibson
- Length: 6 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 61
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 54
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Story4 out of 5 stars 54
These are the valiant and lyrically descriptive letters, written in 1873, by Isabella Bird, a courageous and spirited Englishwoman, telling her sister of her adventures on horseback over 800 miles of American wilderness.
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2 out of 5 stars
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The Solution to the Indian Problem
- By Samar on 09-26-16
By: Isabella L. Bird
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Goodbye to a River
- By: John Graves
- Narrated by: Henry Strozier
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 209
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 182
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 180
In this classic from the Lone Star State, John Graves learns that the river he knew and loved as a youth, the Brazos in north-central Texas, is slated to be dammed at multiple points - and he understands that things will never be the same. Goodbye to a River is a poignant narrative of one man's journey by canoe down the river of his memories. Along the way, he describes the colorful Texas landscape and recounts its rich history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Undoubtedly a great piece of American literature
- By Chris on 04-04-13
By: John Graves
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Ghost Warrior
- By: Lucia St. Clair Robson
- Narrated by: Kris Faulkner
- Length: 21 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 43
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4 out of 5 stars 37
For more than a century, Apaches have kept alive the memory of their hero Lozen. This beautiful, valiant warrior and revered shaman fought alongside Geronimo, Cochise, and her own brother, Victorio, holding out against the armies of both the United States and Mexico. Lozen has known since childhood that the spirits have chosen her to defend Apache freedom. As the U.S. Army prepares to move her people to an Arizona reservation, Lozen forsakes marriage and motherhood to fight among the men.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Breathtaking and heartbreaking.
- By I. Zuno on 02-20-16
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Deep Creek
- Finding Hope in the High Country
- By: Pam Houston
- Narrated by: Pam Houston
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 630
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 544
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 542
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.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The most beautiful book I’ve ever read
- By KFratt on 04-26-19
By: Pam Houston
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The Hearts of Horses
- A Novel
- By: Molly Gloss
- Narrated by: Renée Raudman
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 246
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 191
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Story4 out of 5 stars 190
The irresistible tale of 19-year-old Martha Lessen, a female horse whisperer trying to make a go of it in a man's world. It was thought that the only way to break a horse was to buck the wild out of it, and broken ribs and tough falls just went with the job. But over several long, hard winter months, many of the townsfolk in this remote county of eastern Oregon witness Martha's way of talking in low, sweet tones to horses believed beyond repair---and getting miraculous, almost immediate results.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Simple, Honest, Wonderful
- By Julie W. Capell on 11-08-09
By: Molly Gloss
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Close Range
- Wyoming Stories (Selected Unabridged Stories)
- By: Annie Proulx
- Narrated by: Frances Fisher, Bruce Greenwood, Campbell Scott
- Length: 5 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 203
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 115
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 117
Annie Proulx's masterful language and fierce love of Wyoming are evident in this collection of stories about loneliness, quick violence, and wrong kinds of love. In "The Mud Below", a rodeo rider's obsession marks the deepening fissures between his family life and self-imposed isolation. In "The Half-Skinned Steer", an elderly fool drives west to the ranch he grew up on for his brother's funeral, and dies a mile from home.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Wonderfully Ironic and Surprising Read
- By Susan L. Stewart on 04-21-12
By: Annie Proulx
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The Oregon Trail
- A New American Journey
- By: Rinker Buck
- Narrated by: Rinker Buck
- Length: 16 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,113
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 1,012
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,018
In the best-selling tradition of Bill Bryson and Tony Horwitz, Rinker Buck's The Oregon Trail is a major work of participatory history: an epic account of traveling the entire 2,000-mile length of the Oregon Trail the old-fashioned way, in a covered wagon with a team of mules - which hasn't been done in a century - that also tells the rich history of the trail, the people who made the migration, and its significance to the country.
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1 out of 5 stars
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An author does not a good narrator make
- By C. Davis on 07-03-15
By: Rinker Buck
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Falling from Horses
- By: Molly Gloss
- Narrated by: David Aaron Baker
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 43
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Story4 out of 5 stars 39
>In 1938, 19-year-old cowboy Bud Frazer sets his sights on becoming a stunt rider in the movies. Fantasizing about rubbing shoulders with the great screen cowboys of his youth, he leaves his home in Echol Creek, Oregon, and heads for Hollywood. On the long bus ride south, Bud meets a young woman who also harbors dreams of making it in the movies, though not as a starlet but as a writer, a real writer.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Good
- By MJ Strub on 10-26-23
By: Molly Gloss
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Theodore Roosevelt in the Badlands
- A Young Politician's Quest for Recovery in the American West
- By: Roger L. Di Silvestro
- Narrated by: Tristan Morris
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 66
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 56
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 57
Theodore Roosevelt in the Badlands chronicles the turbulent years Roosevelt spent as a rancher in the Badlands of Dakota Territory, following the sudden deaths on February 14, 1884, of his wife, two days after giving birth, and of his mother. Grief-stricken - and driven by doubts about his career after failed attempts as a reformer fighting political corruption -the young, Harvard-educated New York politician left his infant daughter in his sister's care and went to live on a Badlands ranch he had bought a year earlier.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding
- By Buyce Consulting on 04-26-15
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Horse Crazy
- By: Sarah Maslin Nir
- Narrated by: Sarah Maslin Nir
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 125
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 103
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 99
It may surprise you to learn that there are over seven million horses in America - even more than when they were the only means of transportation - and nearly two million horse owners. Acclaimed journalist and avid equestrian Sarah Maslin Nir is one of them; she began riding horses when she was just two years old and hasn’t stopped since. Horse Crazy is a fascinating, funny, and moving love letter to these graceful animals and the people who - like her - are obsessed with them.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Return to riding at 71 years old!
- By Barbara on 09-24-20
By: Sarah Maslin Nir
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Secrets of the Savanna
- Twenty-Three Years in the African Wilderness Unraveling the Mysteries of Elephants and People
- By: Mark Owens, Delia Owens
- Narrated by: Donna Postel, Sean Runnette
- Length: 7 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 266
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 224
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 223
In this riveting real-life adventure, Mark and Delia Owens tell the dramatic story of their last years in Africa, fighting to save elephants, villagers, and - in the end - themselves. The award-winning zoologists and pioneering conservationists describe their work in the remote and ruggedly beautiful Luangwa Valley, in northeastern Zambia. There they studied the mysteries of the elephant population’s recovery after poaching, discovering remarkable similarities between humans and elephants.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A vivid view of the savanna in Africa, culture and wildlife!
- By Kd on 09-12-20
By: Mark Owens, and others
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Miracle Country
- A Memoir
- By: Kendra Atleework
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 48
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 48
Kendra Atleework grew up in Swall Meadows, in the Owens Valley of the Eastern Sierra Nevada, where annual rainfall averages five inches and in drought years measures closer to zero. Kendra's family raised their children to thrive in this harsh landscape, forever at the mercy of wildfires, blizzards, and gale-force winds. Most of all, the Atleework children were raised on unconditional love and delight in the natural world. But it came at a price.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The best memoir I've read
- By Patricia on 08-15-20
By: Kendra Atleework
What listeners say about The Solace of Open Spaces
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Jamie L.
- 05-13-22
Hoping to see a movie.
I loved this book. So descriptive as if you became a living page or sentence with the words..
Onto a next book from the author. She literally brings my western heart home 🏡 💓
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Carla
- 04-06-22
I loved this book
the story is great. the narrator has a very pleasant voice and you can picture the scenes in your mind as the story unfold.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- James Boyd
- 05-20-23
An ode to solace.
Less of a story about open spaces and more of a love song about solace.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- E Samson
- 07-24-23
Loved it!
A fantastic poetically written depiction of the modern west, ranch life, and the western states.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 08-18-23
Unique
A very comforting voice and a very unique story of a life different from most. It describes the beauty that is the west and nature and the motivation people have to continue traditions 100 to 1000 of years later
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 06-02-22
Narrative poetry!
Gretel Ehrlich is not only a wonderful story teller, creating drama out of ordinary observances (landscape, animals, weather), she also elevates embedded metaphors most effectively. Her images enrich the reader’s understanding of the experiences she had. It is SO RARE to find authors who do this well. Her voice gives you no choice but to stargaze, get frostbite, feel lonely and embrace wild beauty right alongside Ehrlich. Transported to Wyoming and transcending an ordinary, dull way of seeing things, I will recommend this book to everyone who asks.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Judith U
- 07-17-22
makes one think
Enjoyed listening to the book, the visual made it a moving experience. Really enjoyed it.
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