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Rating: 
Summary: Rich in images and introspection
Review: Barry Lopez brings a unique voice to his work that is rich in observation of surroundings and living forms as well as a deeply sacred intellectual perspective. Each story in this book brings Lopez' voice to the ear of the reader as a deep intimation of experience. A writer who gives the reader a feeling of desire to listen to the storyteller as if he were speaking to you in the tradition of storytellers has transcended the special bridge from oral discourse or history to the written word. It makes me want to read all of Lopez books of which I now have four.
Rating:
Summary: Grace notes.
Review: Barry Lopez's short stories are challenging in their simplicity. They are also challenging to describe to anyone who has never read any Lopez. Deceptively sparse, they are at the same time heavy with meaning, and rich with imagery from the natural world. This twelve-story collection opens with "the burbling call" (p. 10) of a cactus wren resonating through "the stony, cactus-strewn land" (p. 4) of desert arroyos, and ends with a run down the "really old trails, the Anasazi trails" (p. 154) of the Grand Canyon. In "Teal Creek," Lopez's narrator curiously witnesses a hermit living beside a creek in "complete stillness, a silence such as I had never heard out of another living thing, an unbbroken grace" (p. 22). In another story, a paleontologist discovers "phantoms" (p. 41), a black bear, a herd of deer, and a "tawny panther hunkered in the tawny grass" (p. 47) in an empty, city lot. I was even surprised to find a reference to my small hometown, Bisbee, Arizona in this collection.Although some are stronger than others, each of these stories offers its protagonist a sacred encounter with the natural world we too often ignore. Each story has its own unique grace note that will leave you with a sense of wonder. G. Merritt
Rating:
Summary: Grace notes.
Review: Barry Lopez's short stories are challenging in their simplicity. They are also challenging to describe to anyone who has never read any Lopez. Deceptively sparse, they are at the same time heavy with meaning, and rich with imagery from the natural world. This twelve-story collection opens with "the burbling call" (p. 10) of a cactus wren resonating through "the stony, cactus-strewn land" (p. 4) of desert arroyos, and ends with a run down the "really old trails, the Anasazi trails" (p. 154) of the Grand Canyon. In "Teal Creek," Lopez's narrator curiously witnesses a hermit living beside a creek in "complete stillness, a silence such as I had never heard out of another living thing, an unbbroken grace" (p. 22). In another story, a paleontologist discovers "phantoms" (p. 41), a black bear, a herd of deer, and a "tawny panther hunkered in the tawny grass" (p. 47) in an empty, city lot. I was even surprised to find a reference to my small hometown, Bisbee, Arizona in this collection. Although some are stronger than others, each of these stories offers its protagonist a sacred encounter with the natural world we too often ignore. Each story has its own unique grace note that will leave you with a sense of wonder. G. Merritt
Rating: 
Summary: Environmentalism through story
Review: Having hiked canyons in Southern Utah and heard the canyon wren, like some magical voice floating
through the dry air, "Introduction; Within Birds Hearing" really struck a
note in me! I, too, have set vague hiking goals in
the desert and so could relate to this story. But reading about
the notes of the wren really brought back some
memories for me. Excellent piece, as were Homecoming
and Teal Creek. Barry Lopez seems to have an uncanny ability to write about physical things as though they were emotional things, or the juxtaposition between the two. It makes reading his stories a very personal experience!
Rating:
Summary: Ten stories; most sailed, some sank.
Review: Having hiked canyons in Southern Utah and heard the canyon wren, like some magical voice floating through the dry air, "Introduction; Within Birds Hearing" really struck a note in me! I, too, have set vague hiking goals in the desert and so could relate to this story. But reading about the notes of the wren really brought back some
memories for me. Excellent piece, as were Homecoming
and Teal Creek. Barry Lopez seems to have an uncanny ability to write about physical things as though they were emotional things, or the juxtaposition between the two. It makes reading his stories a very personal experience!
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful stories.. each with richness of mood
Review: I found this book in a second hand bookstore without knowing anything about Barry Lopez and passed it over twice before buying it on the hint of finding something of meaning. Each story is a wonderful capsule of situation and mood and mystery leaving the reader with their own deep reflections on existence and being. It is the kind of writing that makes writers want to write. Deeply personal, but intellectually universal.
Rating:
Summary: Environmentalism through story
Review: In this book Barry Lopez uses a novel approach to many of his stories: the short story written in the form if nature essays. Other nature writers--Edward Abbey, for example--have been known to take liberties with the exact details of the stories they tell, but Lopez actually creates new worlds in this collection of short fiction pieces. At his best, in stories such as "Teal Creek" and "Sonora," Lopez lets the story itself convey whatever larger purposes he might have. In his less successful pieces ("Conversation"), he beats the reader over the head with political psychobabble, almost to the point of sounding like propaganda. However, his ability to tell a story is undeniable, and it would be hard to argue with his place-based approach to environmentalism. And Lopez himself would be the first to say that it is the story itself, and not the moral of the story, that mattters.
Rating:
Summary: moving and spiritual
Review: We lack pieces like these in Australia. Lopez has a style that shows an intense fascination with the world around him. He's knowledgeable, courteous to nature and not overly preachy. He's sensational.
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