Amazon.com description: Product Description: The acclaimed National Book Award winner gives us his first major work of nonfiction in a decade: a collection of spellbinding new essays which, read together, form a jigsaw-puzzle portrait of an extraordinary man.

From the publication of his bestselling Of Wolves and Men and the astonishing originality of Arctic Dreams, Barry Lopez established himself as that rare writer whose every book is an event, both with critics and among his enormous readership. In About This Life he assembles essays of great wisdom and insight: far-flung travel (remote Hokkaido Island in Japan; the Galápagos) and naturalist provocations (why do we deprive people with intimate knowledge of the land -- small farmers, Indians, native Hawaiians, cowboys -- of political power?); pure adventure (a dizzying series of around-the-world journeys with air freight -- everything from penguins to pianos); as well as never-before-published Rilkesque memory pieces that represent his most personal work to date.

A book at once vastly erudite yet intimate, a magically written work by a major writer at the top of his form.