- Paperback: 432 pages
- Publisher: Vintage (Oct 6 2009)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0375725199
- ISBN-13: 978-0375725197
- Product Dimensions: 13.1 x 2.3 x 20.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 272 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #274,693 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
Review
"Terry Tempest Williams' tools are words, ideas, sentences, fragments. She uses them to dig into chosen corners of our world, and to illuminate some unknowns in flickering light." -- Washington Times
"With hypnotic prose--reminiscent of John Berger in its poetry--Terry Tempest Williams inhabits the post-9/11 world wide awake, utterly open, completely feeling. Taking notes in shattered worlds as her own family breaks and reshapes into something surprising and completely beautiful, Williams presets us with an incredible achievement, a beautiful, terrible, wonderful, hopeful witness. The farthest thing from insanity I've read."
--Alexandra Fuller, author of The Legend of Colton H. Bryant
"How a book could be this gentle and this heartbreaking simultaneously I do not know. But over a simple trajectory of mosaic-to-prarie-dog-to-comtemporary-genocide, Terry Tempest Williams leads us with methodical accuracy into the devastations and delights of now."
--John D'Agata, author of Halls of Fame --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
"With hypnotic prose--reminiscent of John Berger in its poetry--Terry Tempest Williams inhabits the post-9/11 world wide awake, utterly open, completely feeling. Taking notes in shattered worlds as her own family breaks and reshapes into something surprising and completely beautiful, Williams presets us with an incredible achievement, a beautiful, terrible, wonderful, hopeful witness. The farthest thing from insanity I've read."
--Alexandra Fuller, author of The Legend of Colton H. Bryant
"How a book could be this gentle and this heartbreaking simultaneously I do not know. But over a simple trajectory of mosaic-to-prarie-dog-to-comtemporary-genocide, Terry Tempest Williams leads us with methodical accuracy into the devastations and delights of now."
--John D'Agata, author of Halls of Fame --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Book Description
"Shards of glass can cut and wound or magnify a vision," Terry Tempest Williams tells us. "Mosaic celebrates brokenness and the beauty of being brought together." Ranging from Ravenna, Italy, where she learns the ancient art of mosaic, to the American Southwest, where she observes prairie dogs on the brink of extinction, to a small village in Rwanda where she joins genocide survivors to build a memorial from the rubble of war, Williams searches for meaning and community in an era of physical and spiritual fragmentation.
In her compassionate meditation on how nature and humans both collide and connect, Williams affirms a reverence for all life, and constructs a narrative of hopeful acts, taking that which is broken and creating something whole.
In her compassionate meditation on how nature and humans both collide and connect, Williams affirms a reverence for all life, and constructs a narrative of hopeful acts, taking that which is broken and creating something whole.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
From simplicity to complexity, of mosaics and prairie dogs,
By
This review is from: Finding Beauty in a Broken World (Hardcover)
Another marvelous book from one of my two favourite Mormon authors. Among the Saints, Terry Tempest Williams and Levi S. Peterson (Rascal by Nature/Christian by Yearning) are in a class a part. What could be more simple than a mosaic or a colony of prairie dogs. TTW takes a penetrating practical (participant observation) look at both and comes away with a complex and renewed vision of the world. The third part of Finding Beauty left me slightly uneasy as it doesn't seem to me that it is the role of women and men from the developed world to bring closure to the tragedy of Rwanda, especially via the edification of ossuaries.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
3.7 out of 5 stars (18 customer reviews) 22 of 22 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Deeply Moral,
By Yours Truly - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Finding Beauty in a Broken World (Hardcover)
Reading anything by Terry Tempest Williams, you know you're in the hands of a deeply moral writer. Her "Refuge" is one of my favorite books, linking the shrinking of the Great Salt Lake and its effects on its flora and fauna to the slow death of her mother from cancer induced by exposure to radiation.She attempts something similar here, using brutal and inhumane attempts to kill off the prairie dogs of the plains and high desert as a counterpoint to the heinous war between Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda, which she visits after the media have moved on. The image she uses to portray life in the global 21st century is of mosaics, which she studied in Italy and takes with her to Africa. This work is less successful than Refuge, I think, because the magnitude of suffering she conveys after speaking with survivors of the Rwandan genocide is so overpowering. Another writer might have limited a book to that single topic, but Williams, a trained naturalist, is more ambitious; she wants to draw us into the interdependent web of life that covers the planet. Cancer takes another of Williams' family members here, but the loss is balanced by a blessing that Williams and her husband, Brooke, thought they had foregone when they elected not to have children. (No, she didn't adopt a baby like some people with higher profiles.) Even if she goes on a bit too long about those cute prairie dogs (I skipped 20 pages), she makes the point eloquently that all life is fragile and that we must pay close attention to its value. You might get the impression from reviews that Williams is sentimental. Quite the opposite, her observations of science and of life's brutality lend her work the edge that must have frightened the superintendent of Bryce Canyon into saying she wasn't welcome there. She went anyway, and we should be glad she's about in the world. 15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Tale for our Time,
By A Reader - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Finding Beauty in a Broken World (Hardcover)
This is a wonderful book - a deeply personal yet soulful, a poet's journey into the world. Only a writer like TTW could have written something so intuitively timed for this day and age because she is utterly tuned into the planet's pace (see her very important OPEN SPACE OF DEMOCRACY). It is the gift of this writer to force us to slow down, to absorb peace and the consequences of violence in equal measure and to take stock of our own values. It is impossible not to read her work without a soul's level. Read this and be transformed.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
What a journey I've been on....,
By Westword - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Finding Beauty in a Broken World (Hardcover)
This is a magical book....from Italy to Bryce Canyon to Rwanda...all along the path Terry took following her own muse, the same that took her to Spain (LEAP) and to Great Salt Lake (Refuge). This time her path led her to Louis Gakumba, a young Rwandan man, now living in Utah thanks to this book and Terry's inquiry. This book is the real thing. I couldn't get enough of it.
|
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Literature & Fiction > Essays
- Books > Nonfiction > Philosophy > Aesthetics
- Books > Outdoors & Nature > Ecology > Animals
- Books > Outdoors & Nature > Fauna
- Books > Outdoors & Nature > Nature Writing
- Books > Outdoors & Nature > Reference
- Books > Science > Nature & Ecology > Animals
- Books > Science > Nature & Ecology > Essays
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
