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miles. In a typical passage. he writes: "One might imagine that little as though they've shared in the voyage. That's what author Barry Lopez has spent three decades trying to do-and most of the time he has succeeded. distilling epiphanies and transcending easy categorization. Winner of the 1986 National Book Award for Arctic Dreams. his tome on life in the Arctic. Lopez has traveled the globe seeking experiences on the margins of everyday existence. No mere adventure writer. the author's work is colored by an attempt to under­ stand the deep implications landscape has for human consciousness. "Crossing cultural boundaries makes you acutely aware of how little you know." says Lopez. "That pressure serves as a constant reminder that everything is such a mys­ tery. and when I return home to my Oregon valley. the wondrous edges emerge." For Lopez. those edges provide "a sidelong glance at the natural world. show­ ing that there is more going on here than we'll ever understand: Lopez's latest book. About This Life: Journeys on the Threshold of Memory (Alfred A. Knopf. 1998). continues his exploration of the world but also marks a first-never before has he included his personal take on the experiences he writes about. "I never acted on the idea that somebody might be interested in me: says Lopez. "But at some point. I realized that I had seen a lot. and that was a valid part of what I write. After 30 years of being a writer. I've developed a voice. and this gives me a chance to say where I think some of the anchors are: About This Life begins with Lopez. born in 1945. explaining how he views the development of his own voice. In the introduction. called simply "A Voice." he discusses the impact the natural world had on his young mind. From his birthplace in New York to his childhood in California to visiting the Mojave Desert to his midwestern college years spent at Notre Dame. Lopez remarks on the patterns which prompted him to write. Ever since he dropped out of the University of Oregon's creative writing mas" ters program in 1966. Lopez has lived a reclusive daily life in Oregon's Cascade Range. He admits to being fortunate enough to sponsor his own travels. and calls himself "the guy always tagging along: This latest compendium of essays includes seven never-before"published works. and is broken up into sections-"Out of Country: "Indwelling: "Remembrance: and "An Opening Quarter-which cover tremendous physical and psychological ground. One of the most captivating pieces. "Flight." recounts a trip around the world by airfreight is to be seen from a plane at night. but above the clouds the Milky Way is a dense blazing arch. A full moon often lights the planet freshly. and patterns of human culture. artificially lit. are striking in ways not visible in daylight: Lopez's eye for detail and nearly obsessive tendency towards gathering minute information on any given subject. can make for slow going at times. Many readers have attempted to conquer Arctic Dreams and failed. but in these essays. the format provides the reader with a steady stream of relevancies as opposed to what could be considered digressions. To wit. tracts devoted to everything from the engineering feat that is a Boeing 747 jet to the shifting character of traditional villages on Japan's remote Hokkaido island quite literally hit home. Still. as the author notes. the thing that makes this book stand out is the fact that Lopez has finally turned his highly attuned sense of the world inward. and come up with some remarkable realizations. In "A Passage of the Hands:' the author discovers a legacy that binds religion. work and family. It's a meditation on appendages often taken for granted. and it is Lopez's gift that in this examination of his flesh he offers us a chance to appreciate our own. For Lopez. exploring foreign lands-and the recesses of memory-are more than ways to fulfill an arcane sense of curiosity. Rather. by way of these journeys. it's the writer's duty to try to discover the patterns of the world and bring back experiences of naivete. so that a fuller understanding of the world can emerge. Why is he always going away? "I have no answer other than the salmon that live here in the stream in front of my house. Like the protein they return to the stream when they come to spawn. I try to come back with something useful I've gained."-Dan Oko

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