Overview

"A 2019 Foreword INDIES Awards Finalist ""A powerful call for smarter water policy."" --THE OREGONIAN Water, the most critical fluid on the planet, is seen as savior, benefactor, and Holy Grail in these fifteen essays on natural and faux oases. Fluvial geologist and former Colorado River guide Rebecca Lawton follows species both human and wild to their watery roots--in warming deserts, near rising Pacific tides, on endangered, tapped-out rivers, and in growing urban ecosystems. Lawton thoroughly and eloquently explores human attitudes toward water in the West, from Twentynine Palms, California, to Sitka, Alaska. A lifelong immersion in all things water forms Lawton's deep thinking about living with this critical compound and sometimes dying in it, on it, with too much of it, or for lack of it. The Oasis This Time, the inaugural Waterston Desert Writing Prize winner, is a call for us to evolve toward a sustainable and even spiritual connection to water."

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9781937226930

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Reviews

BLURBS: In a parched and burning land, humanity's crimes against fresh water stand out with increasing starkness as crimes against ourselves. Through deft, spirited storytelling, Rebecca Lawton faces with compassionate courage the painful truths of our defiled and dwindling waterways; The Oasis This Time bids us to nurture the vital wellsprings we have too long taken for granted. &emdash;SARAH JUNIPER RABKIN, author and illustrator of What I Learned at Bug Camp: Essays on Finding a Home in the World Rebecca Lawton brings a poet's eye to the landscapes she loves, but she is, at heart, a warrior. With every sentence she fiercely defends what remains, totals her losses, and moves on to the next critical confrontation. In the end The Oasis This Time offers us a surprising amount of hope. Hope that we can survive even the worst of mankind's depredations. Hope that this planet is more resilient than we ever imagined. &emdash;ANDY WEINBERGER, independent bookseller at Readers' Books, and author of The Ugly Man Sits in the Garden: Pieces of a Life The essays in The Oasis This Time flow like tributaries in a desert river. They meander and eddy and braid. They offer respite and challenge. Rebecca Lawton, as both intimate friend and knowledgeable guide, takes the reader on a dynamic journey from Las Vegas to Alaska, from the Grand Canyon to Ottawa. Her musings on this beloved arid land and its water shimmer with wonder at the life around us&emdash;bird, birds, and more birds!&emdash;and within us, and burn with urgency. &emdash;ANA MARIA SPAGNA, author of Uplake: Restless Essays of Coming and Going and The Luckiest Scar on Earth Praise for Reading Water The lyricism of Lawton's prose mirrors the natural elegance of what she describes, and the excitement she conveys makes readers long for a run through the rapids. --BOOKLIST The thoughts and feelings that [Lawton] expresses are affirmative, introspective, and unpretentious. --LIBRARY JOURNAL Praise for Junction, Utah Junction, Utah flows on so many levels: a compelling love story, an adventure saga, a meditation on earth and water, a novel of pain and injury and the search for healing. A true pleasure to read. --LILLIAN HOWAN, editor of Rosebud and Other Stories Rebecca Lawton's debut novel is a story of wild rivers, even wilder hearts, threatened territory, and the courage to defend what you love...this book is full of adventure, river lore, and heart. --SUSAN BONO, author of What Have We Here

The problem of dominion that has always complicated humanity's relationship with wild places is at the center of Rebecca Lawton's essay collection...her expertise is apparent, as is her enthusiasm. --THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Rebecca Lawton's powerful and poetic The Oasis This Time celebrates water as a precious natural resource. The collection is as diverse as it is illuminating. Each essay addresses a unique topic, but all are anchored by keen observations of the environment and musings on alternative solutions to pressing environmental problems. --FOREWORD REVIEWS Geologist Lawton offers fifteen essays about wildness and water, and how together they form a life-giving oasis needed by all humankind...these essays conjure up a heartfelt missive for all of us to come to terms with the power of water. --LIBRARY JOURNAL Part memoir, part conservation treatise, and part history lesson...Lawton's focus is on how human lives are urgently shaped by their connection to water. --PUBLISHERS WEEKLY A collection of strong, smart, wise, and deeply knowledgeable essays on water in the West, what it means and has meant to the author throughout her life, and what it means to all of us who depend on nature--the biggest oasis of all--for our lives. I came away from this book better informed, deeply touched, and quietly recommitted to the work of living more gently in our fragile world. --JULIA WHITTY, author of A Tortoise For The Queen Of Tonga and The Fragile Edge I opened The Oasis This Time assuming I was going to read about water. But what I read about instead was thirst. In straightforward, sometimes rascally, prose, Lawton digs into all the ways we want to be satiated. Our thirst for adventure, for love, for power and control, for ambitious development with an often warped sense of progress.' Hers is a wake-up call, shaped by Lawton's deep knowledge and love of place, and mostly her commitment to waterways, streams and creeks and rivers and oceans. We need this book. --DEBRA GWARTNEY, author of Live Through This and I'm A Stranger Here Myself In a parched and burning land, humanity's crimes against fresh water stand out with increasing starkness as crimes against ourselves. Through deft, spirited storytelling, Rebecca Lawton faces with compassionate courage the painful truths of our defiled and dwindling waterways; The Oasis This Time bids us to nurture the vital wellsprings we have too long taken for granted. --SARAH JUNIPER RABKIN, author and illustrator of What I Learned at Bug Camp: Essays on Finding a Home in the World Rebecca Lawton brings a poet's eye to the landscapes she loves, but she is, at heart, a warrior. With every sentence she fiercely defends what remains, totals her losses, and moves on to the next critical confrontation. In the end The Oasis This Time offers us a surprising amount of hope. Hope that we can survive even the worst of mankind's depredations. Hope that this planet is more resilient than we ever imagined. --ANDY WEINBERGER, author of The Ugly Man Sits in the Garden: Pieces of a Life The essays in The Oasis This Time flow like tributaries in a desert river. They meander and eddy and braid. They offer respite and challenge. Rebecca Lawton, as both intimate friend and knowledgeable guide, takes the reader on a dynamic journey from Las Vegas to Alaska, from the Grand Canyon to Ottawa. Her musings on this beloved arid land and its water shimmer with wonder at the life around us&emdash;birds, birds, and more birds!--and within us, and burn with urgency. --ANA MARIA SPAGNA, author of Uplake: Restless Essays of Coming and Going and The Luckiest Scar on Earth A collection of strong, smart, wise, and deeply knowledgeable essays on water in the West, what it means and has meant to the author throughout her life, and what it means to all of us who depend on nature--the biggest oasis of all--for our lives. I came away from this book better informed, deeply touched, and quietly recommitted to the work of living more gently in our fragile world. --JULIA WHITTY, author of A Tortoise For The Queen Of Tonga and The Fragile Edge I opened The Oasis This Time assuming I was going to read about water. But what I read about instead was thirst. In straightforward, sometimes rascally, prose, Lawton digs into all the ways we want to be satiated. Our thirst for adventure, for love, for power and control, for ambitious development with an often warped sense of progress.' Hers is a wake-up call, shaped by Lawton's deep knowledge and love of place, and mostly her commitment to waterways, streams and creeks and rivers and oceans. We need this book. --DEBRA GWARTNEY, author of Live Through This and I'm A Stranger Here Myself In a parched and burning land, humanity's crimes against fresh water stand out with increasing starkness as crimes against ourselves. Through deft, spirited storytelling, Rebecca Lawton faces with compassionate courage the painful truths of our defiled and dwindling waterways; The Oasis This Time bids us to nurture the vital wellsprings we have too long taken for granted. --SARAH JUNIPER RABKIN, author and illustrator of What I Learned at Bug Camp: Essays on Finding a Home in the World Rebecca Lawton brings a poet's eye to the landscapes she loves, but she is, at heart, a warrior. With every sentence she fiercely defends what remains, totals her losses, and moves on to the next critical confrontation. In the end The Oasis This Time offers us a surprising amount of hope. Hope that we can survive even the worst of mankind's depredations. Hope that this planet is more resilient than we ever imagined. --ANDY WEINBERGER, independent bookseller at Readers' Books, and author of The Ugly Man Sits in the Garden: Pieces of a Life The essays in The Oasis This Time flow like tributaries in a desert river. They meander and eddy and braid. They offer respite and challenge. Rebecca Lawton, as both intimate friend and knowledgeable guide, takes the reader on a dynamic journey from Las Vegas to Alaska, from the Grand Canyon to Ottawa. Her musings on this beloved arid land and its water shimmer with wonder at the life around us&emdash;birds, birds, and more birds!--and within us, and burn with urgency. --ANA MARIA SPAGNA, author of Uplake: Restless Essays of Coming and Going and The Luckiest Scar on Earth

Author Information

REBECCA LAWTON grew up exploring rivers and deserts throughout the American West. Her writing on water, climate, and wild and human nature has been honored with a Fulbright Visiting Research Chair, the Ellen Meloy Award for Desert Writers, the Waterston Desert Writing Prize, a WILLA for original softcover fiction, Pushcart Prize nominations in prose and poetry, and residencies at Hedgebrook, PLAYA, and The Island Institute. She lives with guitarist Paul Christopulos in Summer Lake, Oregon, where she directs PLAYA's residency program for writers, artists, and scientists.

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