Editorial Reviews
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If science seeks to demystify life, literature can restore a needed measure of wonder to it. Or, as one of the characters in Barry Lopez's collection of short stories Winter Count puts it, "If you are careful, I think there is probably nothing that cannot be retrieved."
Much indeed is retrieved in Lopez's pages, first published in 1981: lost species, lost memories, lost emotions. In one especially Borgesian story, a university professor seeks to puzzle out the facts behind 19th-century reports of a herd of white buffalo that, singing, pointed a way into heaven. In another, a young man catches a glimpse into the workings of the stars and planets in an unlikely corner of the Arizona desert. In still another, a traveler recapitulates the pain of lost love while contemplating the graceful flight of herons.
Lopez's marvelous stories are about many things. Underlying them is a shared precision of language and vision, a precision that characterizes the author's works of nonfiction (Of Wolves and Men, Arctic Dreams). Behind Lopez's stories as well is a quiet insistence on the centrality of nature--an awareness of which, he suggests, can make the busiest city livable, and the deepest wounds of the heart bearable. --Gregory McNamee
Review
"Perfectly crafted--The stories--linger in the mind the way      intense light lingers in the retina." --Los Angeles Times
"An artist in language -- a first-rate American writer. Lopez goes straight to the heart of the peculiar sensations, both physical and mental, known to all who have allowed themselves open communion with the land."  - Edward Abbey
"Flawless--. As painstakingly crafted and as         resonant as a good classical guitar."  - The New York Times Book Review
"Richly allusive, moving, compassionate."                 - The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Lopez succeeds in awakening our fleeting      yearnings and hidden feelings. This book should be savored for the force of its imagery and the magic of its prose."  - Houston Chronicle
Winter Count (Vintage)
Winter Count (Vintage),Barry Lopez,Vintage,0679781412,20th century,Essays,Fiction,General,Natural history,Nature,Nature/Ecology,Popular American Fiction,Short Stories (single author),Social life and customs,United States,Fiction / Short Stories (single author)
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