Unsolaced: Along the Way to All That Is

Gretel Ehrlich’s glorious new book Unsolaced: Along the Way to All That Is brings a questioning, somber tone to her explorations of nature and sentience. It is a wondrous meditation on how water, light, wind, mountain, bird, and horse have shaped her life and her understanding of a world besieged by a climate crisis. It is a coda, a lifetime later, to Ms. Ehrlich’s enduring classic The Solace of Open Spaces, now in its sixty-ninth printing.

Amid species extinctions and disintegrating ice sheets, this stunning collection of memories, observations, and narratives is acute and lyrical, Whitmanesque in breadth, and as elegant as a Japanese teahouse. “Sentience and sunderance,” Ms. Ehrlich writes. “How we know what we know, who teaches us, how easy it is to lose it all.” As if to stave off impending loss, she embarks on strenuous adventures to Greenland, Africa, Kosovo, Japan, and an uninhabited Alaskan island, always returning to her simple Wyoming cabin at the foot of the mountains and the trail that leads into the heart of them.

Born on a horse ranch in California and educated at Bennington College and UCLA film school, Ms. Ehrlich is the author of 13 books, including three books of narrative essays, a novel, a memoir, three books of poetry, a biography, a book of ethnology/travel, and a children’s book, among others. She has published in Harper’s, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, Time, Life, National Geographic, National Geographic Adventure, Aperture, National Geographic Traveler, Architectural Digest, Orion, Shambhala Sun, Tricycle, Antaeus, and Outside, among many others.

Ms. Ehrlich will be interviewed by Howard Norman, an award-winning author of eight novels, three memoirs, children’s books, and screen scenarios.  Mr. Norman has twice been a finalist for the National Book Award in fiction, in 1987 for his novel The Northern Lights and again in 1994 for his novel The Bird Artist.

This event suitable for youth 12+.

BONUS AFTER-HOURS EVENT: Attendees who purchase a copy of Unsolaced from FAN’s partner bookseller The Book Stall are invited to attend an AFTER-HOURS event hosted by Ms. Ehrlich that will start immediately after the webinar. Details on the webinar registration page.

REGISTRATION REQUIRED for all FAN events. This event will be recorded and available later on our website and YouTube channel.