A Million Years with You: A Memoir of Life Observed

by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas

One of our greatest literary naturalists turns her famed observational eye on herself in this captivating memoir.

How is it that an untrained, self-taught observer and writer could see things that professional anthropologists often missed? How is that a pioneering woman, working in male-dominated fields, without sponsors or credentials, could accomplish more than so many more celebrated and professionally educated men could manage? How can we all unlock the wisdom of the world simply by paying close attention?

With their intelligence and acute insight into other cultures and species, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas's many books have won a wide and loving audience. In A Million Years with You , this legendary author shares stories from her life, showing how a formative experience in South West Africa (now Namibia) in the 1950s taught her how to pay attention to the ancient wisdom of animals and humankind.

As a young woman, Marshall Thomas joined her family on an anthropological expedition to the Kalahari Desert, where she conducted fieldwork among the Ju/wa Bushmen, later publishing her findings as The Harmless People . After college, a wedding, and the birth of two children, she returned to Uganda shortly before Idi Amin's bloody coup. Her skills as an observer and a writer would be put to the test on many other occasions working with dogs, cats, cougars, deer—and with more personal struggles. A Million Years with You is a powerful memoir from a pioneering woman, an icon of American letters.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography, Africa, History, Biography Memoir, Nature

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas is the author of The Harmless People, a non fiction work about the Kung Bushmen of southwestern Africa, and of Reindeer Moon, a novel about the paleolithic hunter gatherers of Siberia, both of which were tremendous international successes. She lives in New Hampshire.

Reviews

[Petra X · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the author's other books, especially The Tribe of Tiger: Cats and Their Culture and The Old Way: A Story of the First People a book about the hunter-gatherer Bushmen of the Kalahari she lived with at various times but despite it being two years, I cannot finish this book. I cannot bear to dnf it either, so I'm just going to say I've put it to one side for now.

The author, the daughter of two anthropologists who grew up on field trips with them, she is a feminist and brings a totally different perspective on animal behaviour, one never considered by David Attenborough whom I like and the other male anthropologists and documentary film makers. She also believes in the universe and its checks and balances rather than a very partisan grey beard in the sky who only likes and favours his own particular group (that varies according to which group you talk to).

Her wonderful The Tribe of Tiger: Cats and Their Culture opened my eyes. We are taught that lions are dominant and move in on a pride of females and take them over, as he pleases. We don't question why , say, three or four females who hunt on a daily basis would put up with being taken over by a male they didn't like. They could take him down just like that! So how is the lion allowed into the pride, what is it that makes him desirable to the females?

Two things. One he has to be a good stud. Lionesses are multi-orgasmic and when in heat like a lot of sex, he'd better be able to keep up or he might get a bite or two. Secondly, he has to be a good babysitter. He's a house husband. He stays home all day with the children while the girls go out to work! Think about it.

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mar 29, 830am ~~ Review asap.

Mar 30, 830pm ~~ This is my fourth book by Elzabeth Marshall Thomas and I am just as enchanted by her as I was after the first one. I have now read two memoirs and two novels, and still have three of her natural history titles in my Coming Up Soon Basket.

I think it is safe to say that I like this author not merely as a writer but as a person too. Fiercely independent, unafraid to speak her mind and live her own life, she shares her story here, even the warty parts.

From the Kalahari desert to Uganda and Nigeria, from single life to getting married and having a family, to the crises and amazing moments of her life, there are chapters that will capture anyone's attention. Thomas has lived an incredible life and it was an honor to spend time with her here. I am very much looking forward to those three other books!

[Peter Tillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me awhile to get in tune with EMT's memoir. When I did, I liked it a lot. She writes, "I grew up, did some interesting things, and grew old." She was 80 when she finished the memoir. Born in 1931, her Mom, who she admires a lot, lived to be 100. Her father founded Raytheon Electronics, making the family wealthy.

My notes are scattershot, as is the book (but interesting ). Her formative experience was her trip to the Kalahari in the early 1950s, when it was still a blank place on the map. On a later trip, to Nigeria in 1965, civil war broke out, and they didn't leave in time. Her advice to civilians in a war zone: don't go, don't stay.

She's a good observer, and the part of her life that resonated most with me was her animal experiences: with her dogs and cats, with captive elephants, with lions in the Kalahari.... As another reviewer here noted, her memoir is a good introduction to her life-work. I love her "Tribe of Tiger", and her story of observing wolves on Baffin Island is gripping. I'll be reading more of her animal books.

[Jaylia3 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seeing the world with all its varied peoples and animals through the observant eyes of literary naturalist Elizabeth Marshall Thomas is both mind-altering and deeply satisfying. This memoir includes many phases of Thomas’s life, from her fascination with wildlife as a young girl, through her child-rearing years in far flung and sometimes dangerous locations, to her writing career which continues today, but for me the book really took off in chapter four where she wrote about her experiences as a college-age woman in the Kalahari Desert living among the Bushmen, about whom very little was known at the time. Since Thomas’s life has been long and varied, I enjoyed some sections of her book more than others, but her wit, candor, embrace of experience, and open-minded explorations made all of it worth reading.

There is a whole chapter near the end of the book on her writing process--including her personal rules, one of which I just broke with these dashes--and it’s just as absorbing as her global adventures. I haven’t yet read anything else by Thomas, but based on the quality of writing and thought in this memoir I plan to. She’s authored books about animals, including The Social Life of Dogs and The Tribe of the Tiger, books about the Bushmen, including The Old Way and The Harmless People, and two novels set in stone age Siberia that some Amazon reviewers, disappointed with the Clan of the Cave Bear series, have loved. Not interested in retiring just yet, Thomas reports that a third stone age novel will be her next writing project.

[Jcorn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one is highly recommended for anyone who relishes lively memoirs written by gutsy, independent women. Unlike the author's previous book, The Hidden Life of Dogs, this book focuses on the details of the author's life which led to her career as a naturalist. The section which chronicles the time Thomas spent in the Kalahari with her parents (eagerly dropping out of school to join them) left me in awe.

I'm not sure I'd have had the same courage, although her descriptions of the Bushmen and their culture were totally riveting. I was reminded that there are many ways to live in this world. At the time she first met them, the Bushmen's lives depended on how accurately they assessed their surroundings, from plant varieties to poisonous snakes living nearby.

Not written in strict chronological order, this book skips randomly from one phase of the author's life to another. Her days in college. Winning Mademoiselle magazine's writing contest (one of two winners, the other being Sylvia Plath). Facing personal tragedies and witnessing war.

One of my favorite books ever.

[Greta Fisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

This small and very honest book describes a challenging,rich and fascinating life lived by a woman who has handled difficulties with guts and humor. Marshall Thomas also confirms to me that the very bravest people are those who are afraid,but act in spite of their fear- such as walking toward a predator (and therefor towards her camp and her children) ,when walking away from the animal- a leopard, would be prey behavior and therefor might have caused the animal to attack
Finally ,this book serves as a link with the author's previous works, making all of her books seem as one large life story.

[Skyqueen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this on Bookpage.com
Absolutely Fascinating!! What a unique and contributory life. Her family were among the first to visit and study the culture of the bush people of the Kalahari Desert in the early 1950s where water and food must be shared with the lions. A life so simple and untethered that she counted only 19 personal possessions each for both men and women, including clothing/adornments and weapons. Sadly they have lost their way of life, due to what else...greed, politics, and encroachment. Her studies give rise to questions regarding society and its 'progress', and even deeper ones to our relationship with each other, animals, and earth itself.
This is a deeply moving story of her life and astute observations of people and animals. Some funny, some eccentric, some heartbreaking, and some truly, heart-stopping terrifying!! But always filled with courage and curiosity, and overcoming the tough times. She would be one of the three people I would invite to dinner.
The source of her title, which she reveals in the book, was very emotional for me.

[Alison · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very interesting memoir to read, I learned a lot from her study of different cultures and animal species.
Fascinating travels to Africa, to the Kalahari, Uganda and Nigeria, where she observes the behavior of both people and Animals but rarely imposes her views, she just wants to be an observer of how things are and learn from what she experiences. She meets some interesting characters on her journeys, some surprising.

She also talks about her family, the parents who shaped her, her husband and children who all had fascinating lives of their own.
She went through some pitfalls, of depression and drinking, but eventually was able to conquer those as well.
She is just a very interesting person, who in my opinion had a lot of interesting things to relay.

She has great insights into a lot of things due to, as I mentioned before, her love of observation and her patience for it. This is a book to me was fun to read.

[Caren · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love to read memoirs. Through their pages you can live so many other lives, and this is a life you'll want to experience. My goodness, the writer is such a strong personality. I have to think she came naturally to her spirit of adventure. How astonishing that her father would retire early from his job as a CEO of Raytheon and take the whole family to Africa to study the Bushmen. The author was a freshman in college at the time, but threw herself into the family's anthropological studies. This is a real example of learning through experience rather than in a classroom. She already exhibited a propensity for close observation (as evidenced by her experiences with the family cats when she was quite young). Her accounts of living with the Bushmen in the Kalahari (in the 1950s) are engrossing. Later, as a young mother, she and her husband returned to Africa and experienced Idi Amin's coup in Uganda. To say she has lived an eventful life is an understatement.
My only quibble with the book is that she chose to write chapters on themed subjects rather than a chronological account. This mostly works, but there were a few confusing bits. For example, in a chapter about her husband, Steve, she mentions that he had been diagnosed with a terminal disease, yet he is apparently still alive as the book ends. I couldn't determine at what point the diagnosis was made and if, perhaps, it had been inaccurate. I suppose in such a long (she is now in her 80s), full life, there are many threads that intertwine, so it is difficult to wrap them up into a tidy whole.
The title comes from a conversation she had with her father toward the end of his life. (Both of her parents lived to be quite old: her father lived into his 90s and her mother to over 100.) They were watching the autumn leaves fall and musing about how the leaves had fallen millions of years before. Her father said, "I'd like to spend a million years with you." This brought tears to my eyes. It made me think of my own father and how much I miss him.
This is a beautiful book about a rich life. I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with this author.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this to be a sort of "greatest hits" collection of Thomas' other nonfiction works, which was a nice summary of much of her life and work. Having read The Old Way, I felt I could almost skip the chapters about the Bushmen, but there was a lot to enjoy besides, particularly her chapters on struggling with alcohol addiction and her daughter's disabled rights activism. I liked her forthright, non-fussy style of writing. She's one tough old bird--I can imagine few other people being able to talk down Idi Amin and living to tell the tale!

[Lynn Pribus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Memoirs are not my favorite, but I thoroughly enjoyed this one. The author is in her 80s and looking back at how things were when she was much younger.

Example: she had male colleagues who published books a year or two after college graduation while she didn't publish for five years. When asked why, she explained that they had wives while she had a husband.

Wonderful use of language, descriptions of family relationships, candid chapters on her alcoholism, her daughter ending up as a lifelong user of a wheelchair, her mountain-guide son's terrible fall, pointers on the actual craft of writing, her experiences in Africa. She wasn't college-trained as an anthropologist, so it took a long time to gain the respect of her peers.

She credits her parents with her determination to constantly explore and never to whine. The explanation for the book's title is explained at the end. Her father once told her he'd love to spend a million years with her.

She has written a number of books such as The Secret Life of Dogs (getting that at library today), now lives on her family farm in NH where she cares for her husband of many years. He has ALS.

[Sally · Rating 5 out of 5]

An appealing and unusual woman, with a dramatic life and a real gift for writing. I had a hard time putting this book down, read it at every opportunity. Some reviewers haven't liked the organization of the book, but I thought that was one of its strengths. She first hooked me in the introduction, with an episode from her freshman year in college: "My dad had given me a binocular microscope, through which I watched the little life forms in drops of water taken from a swamp. One day, as I was following what I took to be a paramecium moving carefully through the algae like a fox hunting mice in a field, an enormous creature suddenly loomed up and charged right at me, causing me to throw myself backward and tip over my chair. It took me a moment to realize that I was in my dormitory room and the terrifying creature was in the drop of water."

[Jeanette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas's story is not your average American girl's of her era. What parents she had and what an extraordinary training! They absolutely would have been Dauntless.

This would have been a 4 star except for the choppiness of the second half of the book. Somehow the years from her age 40 to 70? Told through her family (daughter's story, son's story, husband's history)- it just didn't seem chronological to her progression in her work. The work which cored this memoir.

The stint she had in Nigeria with two small children! That entire part of the book was hard to read. Anthropologists don't always put JUST their own lives on the line. I really wanted to give this a 4 or 5 for her guts (her life has been a 5)but the writing of it- well, I just could not.

[Bob Bossin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been a fan of EMT's for some 40 years. Now. in her mid-80s, she applies her ever-surprising observations and her simple but provocative prose to her own life. Downright inspiring.

[Cynthia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ms. Thomas's life is interesting because she is interested in just about everything. She has written over 10 books about the world, cultures and animal life, also essays and articles for magazines throughout her 82+ years. This memoir is a compilation of her most personal experiences that formed and continue to form her view of our world and our universe too. I appreciate the chance to read a life well lived, and well told.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me a long time to finish this book simply because it’s so beautiful I wanted to stretch it out. I’d read some, and then set it aside for a month. I finally finished it today and it brought tears to my eyes. Thomas is such a fantastic writer. I want to sit next drink tea with her and watch for cougars.

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never give five stars. This book rated five. Boy can she write, and she has a lot to say. I loved this.

[Sarah]

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas is one of my favorite authors of all time. I knew quite a bit about her life before reading this but was blown away by this memoir. Her life is far more interesting than any novel. The events she has lived through are mind blowing and her family is just as interesting.
She also includes a chapter on writing. I am not a writer but still found this very informative. Many new writers could learn a lot from her. Also, her passion for a powerful sentence is amazing both in its use and her description of creating it.
I would recommend this book to almost anyone. Whether you are interested in animals, anthropology, history, family dynamics or writing this book covers all that and more all while being written by a truly amazing author.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great read written by Elizabeth Thomas who is now in her 80's and is looking back on her life. A woman before her time, who found true love, a career, was able to travel the world, raised a family, & kept herself humbled.
After this read, I feel like I know the author on many levels. I felt certain experiences she explained and appreciate her writing style.

Only weeks after I read this book, I was lucky enough to meet Elizabeth Thomas and eat dinner at her kitchen table with her and her family. An amazing woman who is very humbled and grateful for her life and the journey she has taken thus far. I felt as if I had already known her for years after this read.

[Mina Wagner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this edition, as well as Dreaming of Lions: My Life in the Wild Places, which includes some later writing, because I love the cover image. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas is one of my most favorite authors. Always worth reading. I always enjoy her writing, learn lots of new things, and even better, learn new ways to think.

[Spence · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great story as far as memoirs go. The author has lived one very interesting life and seems to put literal meaning to the phrase "with old age comes wisdom"; I can't imagine the life lessons this lady could teach me if I had the chance to talk with her.
Although I enjoyed the book, it may be a little too drawn out and dry, as far as the story telling goes, for some people. It wouldn't be a book I could see myself wanting to read again or really recommending to someone.

[Sandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Almost unreadable. "I did this and then I did this. And then I did this. And that's why I'm special." Thomas must use up all her introspection when she observes nature; I couldn't find a trace of it in this book. After about 30 pages I flipped through for passages and they were all the same. I can handle lack of interesting content if it's written well, but A Million Years With You lacks either quality.

[Karen Cramer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an author I heard about while reading the Soul of an Octopus. This the author's life story. It is honest and heartfelt. What an opportunity she had to go to the Kalahari in her early twenties during the 1950's. What she learned there had a great influence on the rest of her life. She does a chapter on writing that is well done.

[Marc Cullison · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating look into the life of an extraordinary woman who traveled the world and observed life. Such powers escape most of us, and I found myself feeling a bit guilty for not having the foresight to actually watch how the world and life interact. I think I might have actually gained some wisdom from this book

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed her story. She wrote with surprise. Found the last chapters on rules for writing boring.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Of course I liked the parts on Namibia. Some of it seemed to wander and i found myself confused. Maybe needed to be more alert when reading. Never finished it all the way to the end.

[Elizabeth Macalaster · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a huge fan of Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, but didn't enjoy this memoir as much as her less personal, but very observant and important books about the lives of animals.

[Erin Matson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here's a memoir that can lead a person to think -- and not just the author.

[Abigail Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most interesting books I've read this year. I'm very glad I picked it up in the library.

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an interesting, courageous life she's led! It makes my life feel very small indeed.