Ten essays on nature, ritual, and philosophy “that are so point-blank vital you nearly need to put the book down to settle yourself” (San Francisco Chronicle). Gretel Ehrlich’s world is one of solitude and wonder, pain and beauty, and these elements give life to her stunning prose. Ever since her acclaimed debut, The Solace of Open Spaces, she has illuminated the particular qualities of nature and the self with graceful precision. In Islands, the Universe, Home, Ehrlich expands her explorations, traveling to the remote reaches of the earth and deep into her soul. She tells of a voyage of discovery in northern Japan, where she finds her “bridge to heaven.” She captures a “light moving down a mountain slope.” She sees a ruined city in the face of a fire-scarred mountain. Above all, she recalls what a painter once told her about art when she was twelve years old, as she sat for her portrait: “You have to mix death into everything. Then you have to mix life into that.” In this unforgettable collection, Ehrlich mixes life and death, real and sacred, to offer a stunning vision of our world that is both achingly familiar and miraculously strange. According to National Book Award–winning author Andrea Barrett, these essays are “as spare and beautiful as the landscape from which they’ve grown. . . . Each one is a pilgrimage into the secrets of the heart.”

Forests, fields, beaches and bluffs -- our islands provide plenty of options for just about any hiking ability. Take on a challenging climb or relax on a paved bike path. Explore your own backyard with this handy guide to over fifty hikes that are close to home.

The dream of summertime, waterfront living as embodied in the cottages of the Thousand Islands. The Summer Cottage captures the charm of island living and waterfront houses, featuring the cottages and summer estates of the Thousand Island region, an archipelago of nearly two thousand islands in the St. Lawrence River between the U.S. and Canadian borders of New York and Ontario. Stunning beauty and quiet majesty mark the landscape encompassing this mighty river and its forested islands, on which are set the summer retreats that are so richly photographed here. Boathouses, riverside porches open to fresh air and nature, gardens, and wonderful rooms that welcome the visitor are hallmarks of these homes. Featured are examples of the most charming and inspiring houses of the region, which range in style from Eastlake and Queen Anne to Arts and Crafts. These homes invite the viewer to share in the spirit of romance of a bygone age, which, fortunately for us--in these houses--has not yet slipped by.

Far off the coast of California looms a harsh rock known as the island of San Nicholas. Dolphins flash in the blue waters around it, sea otter play in the vast kep beds, and sea elephants loll on the stony beaches. Here, in the early 1800s, according to history, an Indian girl spent eighteen years alone, and this beautifully written novel is her story. It is a romantic adventure filled with drama and heartache, for not only was mere subsistence on so desolate a spot a near miracle, but Karana had to contend with the ferocious pack of wild dogs that had killed her younger brother, constantly guard against the Aleutian sea otter hunters, and maintain a precarious food supply. More than this, it is an adventure of the spirit that will haunt the reader long after the book has been put down. Karana's quiet courage, her Indian self-reliance and acceptance of fate, transform what to many would have been a devastating ordeal into an uplifting experience. From loneliness and terror come strength and serenity in this Newbery Medal-winning classic.

Susan Hawkins and Patrick O'Neill find that an arranged marriage is harder than they think, especially when they immigrate from Wolfe Island, Canada, to Cape Vincent, NY, just a week after they marry-with his nine-year-old daughter, Lizzy, in tow. Can 23-year-old Susan Hawkins learn to love her 49-year-old husband and treat her angry stepdaughter with charity? With Christmas coming, she hopes so.