The Last Fire Season

A Personal and Pyronatural History

By: Manjula Martin

Narrated by: Manjula Martin

H Is for Hawk meets Joan Didion in the Pyrocene in this arresting combination of memoir, natural history, and literary inquiry that chronicles one woman’s experience of life in Northern California during the worst fire season on record.

FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD • WINNER OF THE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA BOOK AWARD FOR CREATIVE NONFICTION

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

Told in luminous, perceptive prose, The Last Fire Season is a deeply incisive inquiry into what it really means—now—to live in relationship to the elements of the natural world. When Manjula Martin moved from the city to the woods of Northern California, she wanted to be closer to the wilderness that she had loved as a child. She was also seeking refuge from a health crisis that left her with chronic pain, and found a sense of healing through tending her garden beneath the redwoods of Sonoma County. But the landscape that Martin treasured was an ecosystem already in crisis. Wildfires fueled by climate change were growing bigger and more frequent: each autumn, her garden filled with smoke and ash, and the local firehouse siren wailed deep into the night.

In 2020, when a dry lightning storm ignited hundreds of simultaneous wildfires across the West and kicked off the worst fire season on record, Martin, along with thousands of other Californians, evacuated her home in the midst of a pandemic. Both a love letter to the forests of the West and an interrogation of the colonialist practices that led to their current dilemma, The Last Fire Season, follows her from the oaky hills of Sonoma County to the redwood forests of coastal Santa Cruz, to the pines and peaks of the Sierra Nevada, as she seeks shelter, bears witness to the devastation, and tries to better understand fire’s role in the ecology of the West. As Martin seeks a way to navigate the daily experience of living in a damaged body on a damaged planet, she comes to question her own assumptions about nature and the complicated connections between people and the land on which we live.

Hard to get through

Interesting if you want to learn about California history and vegetation. I was moved by her personal story

Some odd analogies but incredible incite to living in a forest that could catch on fire at any time!

Some of the story seemed to stretch the analogies too far — too big of a leap in relating one item of the story to the feelings of the author. Also identifying internal extensive pain, but also almost NOT giving enough detailing of that pain if the story was also supposed to be about that. The title of the book should be the flowers that only bloom after the fire — instead of related to a fire season.

Utterly riveting. A must read.

Her use of words, the juxtaposition of nature and history and her relationships make it utterly riveting. The botanical expertise with her father added a level of insight that is unexpected and remarkable. I highly recommend this book. A must read.

That I know the areas somewhat my kids live near Santa Cruz

I initially thought this was going to be fabulous… but like I tend to do she went into way toooo much detail!!!
Actually I skipped thru several chapters toward the end! Sorry, just wanted to be finished!

Love this book!

Just one of those books that make you sad when they end. A lovely listen.