Rating: 
Summary: Powerful, illuminating and so human.
Review: I had the privilege to be in a workshop with Ms. Williams several years ago and picked up "Refuge" because I had been so impressed with this woman. The book had so many levels, nature, human tragedy, ecology, survival, compassion, etc, etc. I recommended "Refuge" to my book club and they read it as well. I thought this was one book that should be shared and read by women everywhere.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Fabulous!!!
Review: I had to read this book for one of my literature classes this spring and I found that I could not put this book down. I was even reading it while I was vacationing! It neither is a "nature" book nor a "people" book, but some combination of both. I think it's a true book for the soul, a real refresher course packed in less than 400 pages! Can you tell I loved it?
Rating:
Summary: The following is Williams so called sacred rage Part II
Review: It is something that made me stop and think about woman not having a part in religion. Williams says, in context to her all-mighty nature in her publication National Parks Whenever I close my eyes, I see the desert's beauty. Images of Utah's red rock canyons rising upward like praying hands send me dreaming. And when I awake, eyes open, I know a world that is silent, pristine, and wild awaits me, holds my spirit, returns flesh to slickrock. I feel the bedrock of creation beneath my feet (Williams 36). Her faith has caused such an impact on her that she believes there is no alternative but to believe in the all-mighty nature. Sure, Williams refers to god in her text but that to me seems as if she is crying out to the supreme being and saying help me, but without a tone of assurance. She writes, "I was raised to believe in a spirit world...and if the natural world was assigned spiritual values, than those days spent in the wildness were sacred (14). Williams does not portray herself to be an atheist but she identifies herself as one who performs humility. She may not be the religious type but she certainly has given light to an old naturalistic religion but with a modern concept. This is not to say that Mormonism is not a magical religion and that Nature is. It is just to say that Williams is the makings of two faiths which together have produced a religion of peace. Reformers come and go to produce a perfect concept, and I guess Williams was a reformer for the Mormons to teach them new concepts for their old religion.
Rating:
Summary: Moving, beautiful, unforgettable
Review: It is such an honor to have been able to share the experiences of Ms. Tempest Williams life through the plight of the wildlife on the refuge and the honesty, integrity and perseverence of her family. Her mother was and is such an inspiration to all who read about her. I will never look at a Starling again without thinking of the human like qualities we place upon our dislike of them or of the hope of seeing a flamingo in the Great Salt Lake. I am not very good at conveying my feelings or giving this book the proper praises that it deserves, I can only say that it is one of the best I have yet to read!! Many thanks to it's author.
Rating:
Summary: One of the most beautiful books I've ever read
Review: It seems to me so many of the reviewers are stuck on one element of this book, and speak less of what the book truly is. This book is Terry Tempest Williams's personal world, it has such intimacy. It has so much grace. I hold this book in high esteem, it is truly wonderful and you must read it!
Rating: 
Summary: read Edward Abbey instead
Review: Last year, I had the pleasure of meeting and attending a reading by Terry Tempest Williams, author of Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place. At the time, I was unfamiliar with her work, but I was nevertheless astounded by her presentation. Immediately, I bought two of her novels-- one of which was Refuge. When I read it a few months after meeting her, I was amazed at the tone and emotion in the text. Williams' book can be a source of peace or healing to many whether you have experienced cancer, a loss, or just adore nature. The language is rich yet gentle. The structure of the narrative is such that, during reading and after, a reader feels she has experiences a unique marriage of nature and family issues. The way in which Williams weaves the Great Salt Lake and its inhabitants with her own family's suffering is not only amazing but especially touching as well. Just as the waterfowl and other creatures are evicted from their home during the great rise and flood of Salt Lake, so does William's mother fight for the domicile and dominance in her own cancerous body.
This is a must read. A wonderful story of love, hardships, and more love, REFUGE is a truly breathtaking piece of art.
Rating: 
Summary: The perfect marraige of nature and family life. . .
Review: Last year, I had the pleasure of meeting and attending a reading by Terry Tempest Williams, author of Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place. At the time, I was unfamiliar with her work, but I was nevertheless astounded by her presentation. Immediately, I bought two of her novels-- one of which was Refuge. When I read it a few months after meeting her, I was amazed at the tone and emotion in the text. Williams' book can be a source of peace or healing to many whether you have experienced cancer, a loss, or just adore nature. The language is rich yet gentle. The structure of the narrative is such that, during reading and after, a reader feels she has experiences a unique marriage of nature and family issues. The way in which Williams weaves the Great Salt Lake and its inhabitants with her own family's suffering is not only amazing but especially touching as well. Just as the waterfowl and other creatures are evicted from their home during the great rise and flood of Salt Lake, so does William's mother fight for the domicile and dominance in her own cancerous body.
This is a must read. A wonderful story of love, hardships, and more love, REFUGE is a truly breathtaking piece of art.
Rating:
Summary: admirable
Review: Living in Utah, having a Master's Degree in Aquatic Ecology from BYU, being a physician, and LDS, I get given a copy of this book every year or so from someone who admires this book. Having read this book several times (There are well-written and interesting parts), I usually then ask them what they think about some aspect of the book like the anti-male stance of the author. Most people look puzzled and then admit they have never really read the book, they just heard from someone else that it was really good.Since this book deals with Utah, aquatic ecology, medicine, and Mormonism and most of the reviewers of this book gloss over the nuts and bolts of this book, I thought I would share my impressions of this book since I have some expertise in all these areas. First of all, it really isn't that interesting. It took me several aborted attempts before I actually finished the thing and I love reading. Yes, portions of it are good prose, but I would usually finish 10 pages or so and be unable to say what exactly it was that I had just read. The writing reminds me of Annie Dillard - confusing and over-rated in general. There are other writers who have joined personal and family travails with nature much better. Read Norman Maclean's "A River Runs Through It" after reading "Refuge" and you will see that there is really no comparison; Maclean is so obviously superior that you wonder why anyone ever told you "Refuge" was that good. Williams attempts to tie together her mother's and grandmother's breast cancer possibly caused by radiation exposure to 1950's nuclear tests to the flooding of a bird refuge in the 1980's. She really doesn't do this that well and this lack of similarity makes the whole book choppy at best and disjointed and irrelevant at worst. Throwing in a little tiresome male-bashing, church-bashing, and anyone-that-doesn't-think-like-me-bashing really grates on the reader after a while and you finish the book feeling like you need to take a long shower to remove the grime from your mind. That said, the strength of this book is the account of how the female family members cope with breast cancer that runs through the generations. This is also the weakness of the book because the author has such a glaring lack of insight of the male members of the family and their feelings. Yes, Ms. Williams, men have feelings too! The last portions of this book are laughable with some mystical feminist eco-worshippers sneaking onto some government test range. Apparently because these women chant and sway and have uteri, there is some mystical significance to this act of pointless civil disobedience. Well anyway, I don't recommend reading this book for anything other than the accounts of breast cancer coping. The anti-Utah, anti-Male, anti-Mormon aspects, and the real lack of anything meaningful regarding ecology makes this book not worth the effort, in my opinion.
Rating: 
Summary: I tried to like this book, but just couldn't -and here's why
Review: Living in Utah, having a Master's Degree in Aquatic Ecology from BYU, being a physician, and LDS, I get given a copy of this book every year or so from someone who admires this book. Having read this book several times (There are well-written and interesting parts), I usually then ask them what they think about some aspect of the book like the anti-male stance of the author. Most people look puzzled and then admit they have never really read the book, they just heard from someone else that it was really good. Since this book deals with Utah, aquatic ecology, medicine, and Mormonism and most of the reviewers of this book gloss over the nuts and bolts of this book, I thought I would share my impressions of this book since I have some expertise in all these areas. First of all, it really isn't that interesting. It took me several aborted attempts before I actually finished the thing and I love reading. Yes, portions of it are good prose, but I would usually finish 10 pages or so and be unable to say what exactly it was that I had just read. The writing reminds me of Annie Dillard - confusing and over-rated in general. There are other writers who have joined personal and family travails with nature much better. Read Norman Maclean's "A River Runs Through It" after reading "Refuge" and you will see that there is really no comparison; Maclean is so obviously superior that you wonder why anyone ever told you "Refuge" was that good. Williams attempts to tie together her mother's and grandmother's breast cancer possibly caused by radiation exposure to 1950's nuclear tests to the flooding of a bird refuge in the 1980's. She really doesn't do this that well and this lack of similarity makes the whole book choppy at best and disjointed and irrelevant at worst. Throwing in a little tiresome male-bashing, church-bashing, and anyone-that-doesn't-think-like-me-bashing really grates on the reader after a while and you finish the book feeling like you need to take a long shower to remove the grime from your mind. That said, the strength of this book is the account of how the female family members cope with breast cancer that runs through the generations. This is also the weakness of the book because the author has such a glaring lack of insight of the male members of the family and their feelings. Yes, Ms. Williams, men have feelings too! The last portions of this book are laughable with some mystical feminist eco-worshippers sneaking onto some government test range. Apparently because these women chant and sway and have uteri, there is some mystical significance to this act of pointless civil disobedience. Well anyway, I don't recommend reading this book for anything other than the accounts of breast cancer coping. The anti-Utah, anti-Male, anti-Mormon aspects, and the real lack of anything meaningful regarding ecology makes this book not worth the effort, in my opinion.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent weaving together of place and heart
Review: Now that I have read Terry Tempest Williams' excellent book on finding refuge in the areas around the Great Salt Lake, I find I want to visit, to see for myself the stunning landscape and myriad of birdlife. I also find myself drawn to this courageous woman who lets us into this difficult part of her life, as her mother passes into the shadow of cancer. Not for the first time, we learn, and not such a rare occurrence in her family, we discover; a discovery that, for me, evoked anger at the unfairness of exposing human beings to atomic bomb test fallout. There is so much in this book: the detailed descriptions of the birds and their habits, the extraordinary unfolding of the progression of cancer and its effect on the family, the interplay of three women -- grandmother, mother, daughter -- and through it all, the gentle and exquisite writing carried me nearly effortlessly, yet with great strength. I can find no fault with the writing, the evocative images, the revelation of relationships, and the treatment of this undoubtedly amazing place. Thank you, Terry, for writing this book.
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