The Hour of Land
A Personal Topography of America's National Parks
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Narrated by:
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Terry Williams
About this listen
For years, America's national parks have provided public breathing spaces in a world in which such spaces are steadily disappearing, which is why close to 300 million people visit the parks each year. Now, to honor the centennial of the National Park Service, Terry Tempest Williams, the author of the beloved memoir When Women Were Birds, returns with The Hour of Land, a literary celebration of our national parks, what they mean to us, and what we mean to them.
Through 12 carefully chosen parks, from Yellowstone in Wyoming to Acadia in Maine to Big Bend in Texas, Tempest Williams creates a series of lyrical portraits that illuminate the unique grandeur of each place while delving into what it means to shape a landscape with its own evolutionary history into something of our own making. Part memoir, part natural history, and part social critique, The Hour of Land is a meditation and manifesto on why wild lands matter to the soul of America. Our national parks stand at the intersection of humanity and wildness, and there's no one better than Tempest Williams to guide us there.
©2016 Terry Tempest Williams (P)2016 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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great narrator, lackluster story, wonderful themes
- By MT on 08-21-18
By: Mark Woods
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We Stood upon Stars
- Finding God in Lost Places
- By: Roger W. Thompson
- Narrated by: John McLain
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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You are made for freedom and adventure, friendship and romance. Yet too much of your life is spent unfulfilled at work, restless at home, and bored at church. All the while, you know there is something more. You'll find some of life's best moments waiting for you over a campfire, on a river - even in that coffee shop or brewery you didn't know you'd discover along the way. It's time to begin the search.
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Such a good book
- By The Great Bambino on 06-16-21
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King and Queen of Malibu
- The True Story of the Battle for Paradise
- By: David K. Randall
- Narrated by: Eric Summerer
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Over a half century, Malibu went from an untamed ranch in the middle of nowhere to a paradise seeded with movie stars. Behind its transformation is the love story of Frederick and May Rindge. He was a Harvard-trained confidant of presidents; she grew up on a hardscrabble Midwestern farm; yet their unlikely bond would shape history.
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Detailed and interesting
- By SuperLuckyCat on 08-04-24
By: David K. Randall
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Thunder in the Mountains
- Chief Joseph, Oliver Otis Howard, and the Nez Perce War
- By: Daniel Sharfstein
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 18 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Oliver Otis Howard thought he was a man of destiny. Chosen to lead the Freedmen's Bureau after the Civil War, the Union Army general was entrusted with the era's most crucial task: helping millions of former slaves claim the rights of citizens. He was energized by the belief that abolition and Reconstruction, the country's great struggles for liberty and equality, were God's plan for himself and the nation.
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Interesting but lenghty.
- By Tristan on 05-10-18
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Almost Anywhere
- Road-Trip Ruminations on Love, Nature, Recovery, and Nonsense
- By: Krista Schlyer
- Narrated by: Marisa Vitali
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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What do you do when your world ends? At 28 years old, Krista Schlyer sold almost everything she owned and packed the rest of it in a station wagon bound for the American wild. Her two best friends joined her - one a grumpy, grieving introvert, the other a feisty dog - and together they sought out every national park, historic site, forest, and wilderness they could get to before their money ran out or their minds gave in.
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No a travelogue - its a diary
- By Jonathan on 12-29-20
By: Krista Schlyer
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Deep Creek
- Finding Hope in the High Country
- By: Pam Houston
- Narrated by: Pam Houston
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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On her 120-acre homestead high in the Colorado Rockies, beloved writer Pam Houston learns what it means to care for a piece of land and the creatures on it. Elk calves and bluebirds mark the changing seasons, winter temperatures drop to 35 below, and lightning sparks a 110,000-acre wildfire, threatening her century-old barn and all its inhabitants. Through her travels from the Gulf of Mexico to Alaska, she explores what ties her to the Earth, the ranch most of all.
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The most beautiful book I’ve ever read
- By KFratt on 04-26-19
By: Pam Houston
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The Marches
- A Borderland Journey Between England and Scotland
- By: Rory Stewart
- Narrated by: Rory Stewart
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Ten years after the walk across Central Asia and Afghanistan that he memorialized in The Places in Between, Rory Stewart set out on a new journey, traversing a thousand miles between England and Scotland. Stewart was raised along the border of the two countries, the frontier taking on poignant significance in his understanding of what it means to be both Scottish and English, of his relationship with his father, who's lived on this land his whole life, and of his ties to the rich history and culture of the region.
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Uneven and unexpected, still worth it.
- By Nassir on 04-29-17
By: Rory Stewart
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The Turquoise Ledge
- By: Leslie Marmon Silko
- Narrated by: Alma Cuervo
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Leslie Marmon Silko established herself as “the finest prose writer of her generation” (Larry McMurtry) with her debut novel Ceremony, one of the most acclaimed works of the 20th century. Of mixed Laguna Pueblo, Cherokee, Mexican, and white heritage, Silko brings a unique perspective to her powerful works. In this deeply personal and spiritual book, she combines memoirs, traditional storytelling, and ruminations on the natural world.
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Crazy lady talks about aliens, snakes and rocks
- By Justice Campbell on 10-21-17
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Pure Land
- A True Story of Three Lives, Three Cultures and the Search for Heaven on Earth
- By: Annette McGivney
- Narrated by: Christine Marshall
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Pure Land is the story of the most brutal murder in the history of the Grand Canyon and how McGivney's quest to investigate the victim's life and death wound up guiding the author through her own life-threatening crisis. On this journey stretching from the southern tip of Japan to the bottom of Grand Canyon, and into the ugliest aspects of human behavior, Pure Land offers proof of the healing power of nature and of the resiliency of the human spirit.
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Compelling story about Tomomi, too much personal
- By Chester Chellman on 02-02-18
By: Annette McGivney
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The Great Wall of China and the Salton Sea
- Monuments, Missteps, and the Audacity of Ambition
- By: Russell Rathbun
- Narrated by: Larry Herron
- Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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We've been building and making things ever since we stumbled out of paradise. Some of those things are incredible continuations of God's creation, while others are nothing but ambitious catastrophes. We continue making, says Russell Rathbun, but we've lost ourselves in the process.
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Excellent narrator
- By Tammy on 03-17-18
By: Russell Rathbun
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What listeners say about The Hour of Land
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Caleb Hansen
- 07-14-16
Cultural Cross Sections
This book needs to be adopted as required reading up among the ranks with Abbey, Carson, Leopold, Powell, and too many other great American authors who advocate for the necessary preservation of our cultures last stand for wholesome connectivity. A simply fantastic read.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Kate Perkins
- 12-20-22
A lullaby for the soul
The author brings the listener along on a journey through the history and (nearly) current day of the National Park Service and twelve of our national parks. Written while Barack Obama was still President of the US, some bits of the book speak to earlier times. The language is narrative but feels like poetry, captivating. The authors voice is gentle, evoking the sense of lullaby for the soul, a passage to peacefulness that many of us find when out in nature.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Amberonthefly
- 10-22-16
Powerful, critical, beautifully written.
This will quickly become one of the most important books about how we, as a human race must Chang how we live on this planet.
Twrry
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- Cindy O.
- 04-05-17
Best audio book I've ever experienced.
What did you love best about The Hour of Land?
The writing - Terry's words ring true in an incredibly poetic way
What did you like best about this story?
The emotional journey through so many places with different formats in each chapter.
Which character – as performed by Terry Williams – was your favorite?
Her father - at Big Bend and the superintendent that led them through the park.
If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?
Awe is the moment when ego surrenders to wonder.
Any additional comments?
This book is especially important to anyone who loves and wants to protect our environment.
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- G. A. Hewlett
- 02-01-23
Impactful thought
Williams’ poetic soul sees with rare clarity the value of wilderness and refuses defeatist or pessimistic thought in the face of the craven American government actions for the past two plus centuries. Her words are passionate and inspirational and descriptions of the American wilderness scape invite one to experience and be revitalized by it.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Battman
- 10-27-21
Lovingly Depressing
Beautifully written and read by the author, who takes us coast to coast, border to border on a national park odyssey that is both uplifting and sickly depressing. While I wished there might be a happy ending, I know that is pure fantasy. We are not leaving this world a better place than we found it. It’s all very sad.
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- Anne
- 05-06-18
Powerful
TTW knows how to speak softly and carry three big sticks of research, passion, and empathy. Beware, though; her soft voice and compelling narrative could activate the most latent activists for our national parks. Thank you, Ms. Tempest.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Joy Kuebler
- 06-12-24
A landscape architect finds a new home in this book
A gentle and most profound introspection on the relationship between self and place. A seemingly wandering across landscapes, timescapes and emotional escapes, always neatly concluded such that you are left complete and ripped open at the same time. My work, my world, now from the gentleness and urgency, inspired by TTW. Share widely such that this advocacy multiplies.
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- Sean S. Collins
- 08-10-17
For lovers of national parks, this book is for you
If you are passionate about national parks and protection of our natural assets in the US, you should love this book. I enjoyed some chapters more than others. The ones in which Terry gave some history, some personal stories, etc were great but some of the others were too preachy. She is a beautiful writer though.
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1 person found this helpful
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- SBurt
- 04-14-18
Moving
I love hearing Terry Tempest Williams tell of her experiences in the national parks. Each has motivated me to get out and create my own experiences and share them with those around me. The book left me wanting more.
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1 person found this helpful