The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America's National Parks [Paperback]

An ode to our national parks, timed for the centennial, by the beloved author ofWhen Women Were Birds

Longlisted for an Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence
AWashington PostNotable Book of the Year

Americas national parks are breathing spaces in a world in which such spaces are steadily disappearing, which is why more than 300 million people visit the parks each year. Now Terry Tempest Williams, theNew York Timesbestselling author of the environmental classicRefugeand the beloved memoirWhen Women Were Birds, returns withThe Hour of Land, a literary celebration of our national parks and an exploration of what they mean to us and what we mean to them.

From the Grand Tetons in Wyoming to Acadia in Maine to Big Bend in Texas, Williams creates a series of lyrical portraits that illuminate the unique grandeur of each place while delving into what it means to shape a landscape with its own evolutionary history into something of our own making. Part memoir, part natural history, and part social critique,The Hour of Landis a meditation and a manifesto on why wild lands matter to the soul of America.

Terry Tempest Williamsis the award-winning author ofTheHour of Land: A Personal Topography of Americas National Parks;Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place;Finding Beauty in a Broken World; andWhen Women Were Birds,among other books. Her work is widely taught and anthologized around the world. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she is currently the Writer-in-Residence at the Harvard Divinity School and divides her time between Cambridge, Massachusetts and Castle Valley, Utah.

Williams's language has its own visceral beauty. . . .The Hour of Landis one of the best nature books I've read in years. Andrea Wulf,The New York Times Book Review

If you have never set foot in a national park, love tlóƒ