Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape

Fabulous book, brings alive the Arctic landscape and the life forms that call it home in a way that will leave you highly affected. I am about half way through it, every chapter is just so beautiful - a tour-de-force of literary non-fiction by a master who knows what he is writing about intimately. Extraordinarily granular and detailed at one level, deeply philosophical and existential at another. What's amazing is both are equally compelling. I would never have thought that I would enjoy reading about the physiology and habits of a musk ox, narwhals or polar bear written about it in such detail, but the way he weaves in these details with elements of history and ruminations on the broader ecosystem, and what the various interactions means to the people living there - the natives, the explorers, the modern migrants, makes you want to read it slowly, savouring each line and paragraph. Reading the book, you can literally feel the Arctic in your bones.

The deep love of the Arctic, the sensitive depiction of the plants, animals, terrain, the light, snow, ice and people who inhabit the Arctic comes through so vividly as no other writer on the subject has ever done. A beautiful, brilliant book. I wish I had bought the hardcopy instead of the Kindle edition.

"The cold view to take of our future is that we are therefore headed for extinction in a universe of impersonal chemical, physical, and biological laws. A more productive, certainly more engaging view, is that we have the intelligence to grasp what is happening, the composure not to be intimidated by its complexity, and the courage to take steps that may bear no fruit in our lifetimes"....Lopez I have been finger trotting the arctic with Lopez for the last three months and as I conclude the read of the last chapter ,it leaves me with a great void. Indeed a beautiful and soulful reading.