The Book We're Talking About This Week

Monday, April 30, 2012 The Book We're Talking About This Week "When Women Were Birds" by Terry Tempest Williams Sarah Crichton Books, $23 Published April 10th, 2012 What is it about? After her mother's death, Terry Tempest Williams opens her mother's journals - and finds that they are all blank. This book is a meditation on what information they could have contained, as well as a fragmented memoir of Williams' own life, mixed in with reflections on womanhood, her Mormon upbringing, and environmentalism. It contains 54 short pieces, labeled as "variations on voice" - her mother was 54 when she died, and Williams is 54 years old now. Why are we talking about it? It's a lyrical, timeless book that rewards quiet, attentive reading - a rare thing in today's publishing marketplace. It also contains a simple flickbook of a bird flying, next to the text. We like that. Who wrote it? Terry Tempest Williams is an author and conservationist who has been highly decorated for her work in wilderness preservation, in particular in Utah, where she was raised. She is a member of the Ecology Hall of Fame. She has previously written books about the essays, and children's books. Who will read it? Fans of Williams' work; people who enjoy lyricism and strong feminine themes; teenage girls and older women, possibily together. What do the reviewers say? Click here to read what reviewers said, and to read a short excerpt from the book Also in HuffPost Books: Robert Caro On Lyndon Johnson And JFK PHOTOS: Most Beautiful Handmade Houses How an eReader Saved One Woman's Marriage PHOTOS: 9 Pivotal Moments In Occupy Movement History Diane Keaton: How My Mom Helped Me Write My Memoirs BLOG POSTS Bill Maher: Celebrating 20 Years of Free the Animals Free the Animals tells the riveting, real-life story of the people who put on disguises, use fake IDs, or jimmy their way into laboratories in order to carry out the daring rescues of animals used in experiments and of the insiders, the whistleblowers, who risk their jobs to help them. Greg Ruggiero: Occupying With Noam Chomsky "Occupy," says Noam Chomsky in his new book, "is the first major public response to thirty years of class war." One of the movement's greatest successes has been simply to put the inequalities of everyday life on the national agenda, influencing reporting, public perception and language itself. Hoyt Hilsman: Price-Fixing Is Bad for Both Readers and Authors The truth is that this dispute is not about saving literature or the sanctity of the literary world, it is about the publishers' business model. Glenn C. Altschuler: (S)Mother Love Apter's willingness to take on a difficult subject -- difficult mothers -- is commendable. Her decision to restrict her attention to their adult children is, we believe, a lost opportunity. C. M. Rubin: Alice, Is This Cool? Their big picture concept? A visual spectacle such as has never been seen before in any other attraction in the UK. So what might Alice Liddell have said about these creative upgrades to her favorite story in her summer vacation town?

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