What do you think?
Rate this book
Air Mail: Letters of Politics, Pandemics and Place
Letters penned during pandemic by writers Pam Houston and Amy Irvine as they shelter in place in Colorado's high country, one on either side of the Continental Divide.
When the state of Colorado ordered its residents to shelter in place in response to the spread of coronavirus, writers Pam Houston and Amy Irvine—who had never met—began a correspondence based on their shared devotion to the rugged, windswept mountains that surround their homes, one on either side of the Continental Divide. As the numbers of infected and dead rose and the nation split dangerously over the crisis, Houston and Irvine found their letters to one another as necessary as breath. Part tribute to wilderness, part indictment against tyranny and greed, Air Mail: Letters of Politics, Pandemics, and Place reveals the evolution of a friendship that galvanizes as it chronicles a strange new world.
When the state of Colorado ordered its residents to shelter in place in response to the spread of coronavirus, writers Pam Houston and Amy Irvine—who had never met—began a correspondence based on their shared devotion to the rugged, windswept mountains that surround their homes, one on either side of the Continental Divide. As the numbers of infected and dead rose and the nation split dangerously over the crisis, Houston and Irvine found their letters to one another as necessary as breath. Part tribute to wilderness, part indictment against tyranny and greed, Air Mail: Letters of Politics, Pandemics, and Place reveals the evolution of a friendship that galvanizes as it chronicles a strange new world.
176 pages, Paperback
Published October 13, 2020
16 people are currently reading
307 people want to read
About the author
Pam Houston
45 books926 followersHouston is the Director of Creative Writing at U.C. Davis. Her stories have been selected for the Best American Short Stories, the O. Henry Awards, the Pushcart Prize, and the Best American Short Stories of the Century. She lives in Colorado at 9,000 feet above sea level near the headwaters of the Rio Grande.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews
September 29, 2020
Two writers who have never met, experts in the wilderness, feminists, passionate about our planet, traumatized by COVID-19 and the president, begin to write letters to each other during the first few months of the pandemic. Their letters reveal what a horrifying time this is personally for both women.
I had the privilege to hear the two authors present their book, practicing all safety protocols, in the beautiful outdoor setting of Hell's Backbone Grill in Boulder, Utah. It was a truly memorable afternoon and an honor to hear them read and speak about their work. As they powerfully reveal through their correspondence: the political is personal, and the personal is political. Their book is a reminder that we can never forget that.
I had the privilege to hear the two authors present their book, practicing all safety protocols, in the beautiful outdoor setting of Hell's Backbone Grill in Boulder, Utah. It was a truly memorable afternoon and an honor to hear them read and speak about their work. As they powerfully reveal through their correspondence: the political is personal, and the personal is political. Their book is a reminder that we can never forget that.
November 14, 2020
I love everything Pam Houston writes, and came to love Amy Irvine, too, over the course of reading Air Mail. Vulnerability, anger, and fear fill the pages of these letters, but what makes this so very readable and touching is that the hard truths are balanced out by love that almost seems to rise up off the page - love for Earth, for humanity, for the animals, for hope, for other women, and for each other.
I am a better reader for having read it, and - I hope - a better creature, too.
Oh, and what a terrific title. I’m not sure they come much better.
In closing, allow me to say, once again: I LOVE EVERYTHING PAM HOUSTON WRITES.
I am a better reader for having read it, and - I hope - a better creature, too.
Oh, and what a terrific title. I’m not sure they come much better.
In closing, allow me to say, once again: I LOVE EVERYTHING PAM HOUSTON WRITES.
December 25, 2020
This is a sweet little book that could be read in one sitting, but the letters these two women exchanged back and forth during the first 2 months of the pandemic were so full of pith and meat that I wanted to slowly savor each and every one of them. I learned of this book a few months ago when a local Denver indy bookstore interviewed the two writers about their processes and thoughts on writing this book, and immediately got ahold of a copy. I’m a fan of both writers, especially their non-fiction writings on life in the American west. Both are from my own beloved state of Colorado, and even though they’ve never met you would think them the closest of friends with the deep sharing they do in every letter.
Not only are their letters beautifully and poetically written, they are very timely, covering their fears of what covid does and might continue to mean for them individually and the planet collectively; the realm of politics under the Orange Menace – in particular the many horrible ecological, environmental, and land use policies that were being rolled back every week. There are plenty of feminist/me-too passages woven throughout, as these two women are fierce feminists and talk at length about the place and responsibility we women must take to help to save the planet. In between politics, environmentalism and feminism are beautiful poetic passages of their love of and for the land they both live on.
I found their exchanges enlightening, refreshing and deeply passionate, and only wish there were more letters.
Not only are their letters beautifully and poetically written, they are very timely, covering their fears of what covid does and might continue to mean for them individually and the planet collectively; the realm of politics under the Orange Menace – in particular the many horrible ecological, environmental, and land use policies that were being rolled back every week. There are plenty of feminist/me-too passages woven throughout, as these two women are fierce feminists and talk at length about the place and responsibility we women must take to help to save the planet. In between politics, environmentalism and feminism are beautiful poetic passages of their love of and for the land they both live on.
I found their exchanges enlightening, refreshing and deeply passionate, and only wish there were more letters.
July 8, 2021
"Air Mail" (by Amy Irvine and Pam Houston) arrived in the mail yesterday and I haven't been able to put it down. I am in love with the honest, warm exchanges between these two women warriors.
This soul-touching collection of observations, thoughts, musings, anxieties, trepidations, and hopes shared between two women who are determined to find beauty and hope in an upside down world, in spite of (or maybe in retaliation for) the raging COVID pandemic, is the star of my summer reading list.
I simply don't have the words to explain how much I am enjoying this book other than to highly recommend it if you're looking for a solid summer read that has the ability to reach in and touch your heart.
Incredibly powerful, unashamed, brave, blood and bone and spirit writing.
This soul-touching collection of observations, thoughts, musings, anxieties, trepidations, and hopes shared between two women who are determined to find beauty and hope in an upside down world, in spite of (or maybe in retaliation for) the raging COVID pandemic, is the star of my summer reading list.
I simply don't have the words to explain how much I am enjoying this book other than to highly recommend it if you're looking for a solid summer read that has the ability to reach in and touch your heart.
Incredibly powerful, unashamed, brave, blood and bone and spirit writing.
Read
November 29, 2020This is an extremely powerful read.
December 1, 2020
If you are feeling lonely and unmoored and afraid, these letters will ground you. The interactions between Houston and Irvine (who live across the continental divide from each other in Colorado and have never met in person) tackle everything from the pandemic and current politics to motherhood, misogyny, the meaning of community, ancient cave paintings, the ugly history of the United States, horseback riding, humanity's place in nature, and the fine line between realism and hope. While there are certainly moments of privilege and tone-deafness, they are often acknowledged and challenged in ways you don't always see with white, western nature writing. Overall, this book gave me hope, made me feel better about the world around me, and reminded me of the purpose and power we all have, even when the world and our lives spin out of our control.
February 19, 2022
I heard about this book at a virtual event where the authors talked about this book and read excerpts.
I have read several of Houston's books. She is such a great writer. This book is a series of emails that Houston and Irving write to each other during the start of the pandemic. The two had never met but you would not know that. They definitely are on a similar wavelength. So much of what they experienced resonated with me. Definitely worth reading
I have read several of Houston's books. She is such a great writer. This book is a series of emails that Houston and Irving write to each other during the start of the pandemic. The two had never met but you would not know that. They definitely are on a similar wavelength. So much of what they experienced resonated with me. Definitely worth reading
February 2, 2021
Pretty intense letters (emails) between two smart, brave women who have overcome so much and how the pandemic (among other things, but especially the pandemic) threatened them and strengthened them as well.
December 30, 2020
Just excellent! A glimpse into these 2 women’s writerly minds with a fair amount of personal history thrown in to emphasize the severity of current affairs upon our natural world. I highly recommend this quick & pertinent read.
November 14, 2020
I can't rate this book highly enough. I absolutely devoured this collection of beautifully written, heartfelt, intimate, and timely letters. Ms. Houston and Ms. Irvine courageously write about everything — COVID, Trump, the wilderness, misogyny, pervasive fear, their lives. They both give such an articulate voice to what I’ve been feeling that the book was a catharsis for me. My only disappointment is that the last letter is from early May. I’ll be waiting for the post-George Floyd, post-election sequel…please.
December 26, 2020
The letters we all need as we stay at home with our fears, our rage, our love for our communities and our families and our friends. Our time to know ourselves. To be. And to fight for what matters most - our earth and it’s animals and tree beings.
June 15, 2021
It began as a nifty idea for Orion Magazine in late March of 2020 as the nation entered the first wave of stay-at-home orders in response to the growing pandemic. “Every week under lockdown, we eavesdrop on curious pairs of authors, scientists, and artists, listening in on their emails, texts, and phone calls as they redefine their relationships from afar,” described the introduction for the series, dubbed “Together Apart.”
First up were Amy Irvine (Trespass, Desert Cabal) and Pam Houston (Deep Creek, Cowboys Are My Weakness). The pair of stellar, earth-conscious writers had never met. Their letters, which started on March 28 and ended on May 7, are now available in Air Mail—Letters of Politics, Pandemics, and Place from Torrey House Press. The 163 pages—11 letters each way—offer brisk, tantalizing exchanges that bristle with energy, ideas, and insights that range from personal to regional to global.
“In a culture defined by Twitter and the twenty-four hour news cycle, writing letters felt like ritual—intimate, ancient—two barn owls calling to each other across a starry sky,” they write in the joint introduction. “Our letters became a life raft of clarity in days filled with increasing numbers of the dead and the incessant dismantling of our government from within. In them, we could rage and cry, hold each other up, and talk ourselves back into agency, back into hope, back into action.”
The exchanges—which do read like old-fashioned, stamped-envelope letters—capture the surreal time. Air Mail is far more than an epistolary time capsule, however. It’s two writers connecting, digging deep, and generating sparks. The letters are at times whimsical, funny, biting, angry, colorful, and touching.
In the opening missive, Houston acknowledges that their “sheltering in place” situations are hardly typical, with wilderness right out the front doors for each of them. “I’ve been thinking about the wildlands that get more use than ours, that grapple with a constant onslaught of people, and are suddenly emptied out,” she writes. “I picture the animals whispering to one another, Do you think they are all dead down there? Then I picture them all linking arms and dancing around the campfire.”
They share stories and thoughts about no-mask encounters with strangers, encounters with bears and elk, the ongoing flood of weird messaging out of Washington, D.C., the looming election, personal health details, abusive parents, previous boyfriends, current partners, each other’s books, other writers, dreams, medicines, gun safety, and the future of the planet.
“COVID is but a coming attraction for what the climactic catastrophe has in store for us,” writes Houston. “And now we know how utterly unprepared we are to meet whatever Mother Earth might serve up once she decides once and for all to shake her most determined parasite off her back. The decision to master the Earth instead of love her was made long ago by the same sort of men who are using COVID as an excuse to steal even more from her. And yet it is hard not to notice how happy she is without us out there, how blue the sky, how shimmery the trees.”
Irvine, in one powerful entry, writes about fear. Both Amy and her daughter Ruby deal with medical issues that require inhalers, so she’s keenly concerned about the airborne virus and the potential damage to their lungs.
There is rage. There is love. There is bitterness. There is hope.
We eavesdroppers do what we do best. We listen. And marvel at the ability of Pam Houston to Amy Irvine to express themselves—in the moment—with such visceral, engaging ideas and words.
First up were Amy Irvine (Trespass, Desert Cabal) and Pam Houston (Deep Creek, Cowboys Are My Weakness). The pair of stellar, earth-conscious writers had never met. Their letters, which started on March 28 and ended on May 7, are now available in Air Mail—Letters of Politics, Pandemics, and Place from Torrey House Press. The 163 pages—11 letters each way—offer brisk, tantalizing exchanges that bristle with energy, ideas, and insights that range from personal to regional to global.
“In a culture defined by Twitter and the twenty-four hour news cycle, writing letters felt like ritual—intimate, ancient—two barn owls calling to each other across a starry sky,” they write in the joint introduction. “Our letters became a life raft of clarity in days filled with increasing numbers of the dead and the incessant dismantling of our government from within. In them, we could rage and cry, hold each other up, and talk ourselves back into agency, back into hope, back into action.”
The exchanges—which do read like old-fashioned, stamped-envelope letters—capture the surreal time. Air Mail is far more than an epistolary time capsule, however. It’s two writers connecting, digging deep, and generating sparks. The letters are at times whimsical, funny, biting, angry, colorful, and touching.
In the opening missive, Houston acknowledges that their “sheltering in place” situations are hardly typical, with wilderness right out the front doors for each of them. “I’ve been thinking about the wildlands that get more use than ours, that grapple with a constant onslaught of people, and are suddenly emptied out,” she writes. “I picture the animals whispering to one another, Do you think they are all dead down there? Then I picture them all linking arms and dancing around the campfire.”
They share stories and thoughts about no-mask encounters with strangers, encounters with bears and elk, the ongoing flood of weird messaging out of Washington, D.C., the looming election, personal health details, abusive parents, previous boyfriends, current partners, each other’s books, other writers, dreams, medicines, gun safety, and the future of the planet.
“COVID is but a coming attraction for what the climactic catastrophe has in store for us,” writes Houston. “And now we know how utterly unprepared we are to meet whatever Mother Earth might serve up once she decides once and for all to shake her most determined parasite off her back. The decision to master the Earth instead of love her was made long ago by the same sort of men who are using COVID as an excuse to steal even more from her. And yet it is hard not to notice how happy she is without us out there, how blue the sky, how shimmery the trees.”
Irvine, in one powerful entry, writes about fear. Both Amy and her daughter Ruby deal with medical issues that require inhalers, so she’s keenly concerned about the airborne virus and the potential damage to their lungs.
There is rage. There is love. There is bitterness. There is hope.
We eavesdroppers do what we do best. We listen. And marvel at the ability of Pam Houston to Amy Irvine to express themselves—in the moment—with such visceral, engaging ideas and words.
November 27, 2020
An amazing exchange of ideas in a very insane time. Could not put it down.
September 18, 2023
Maybe I was just not the target audience for this book, but I found nothing redeemable at all about it. Admittedly, I am not familiar with either author and have never been to Colorado- this, perhaps, is my weakness. Having never been to Colorado, I would expect the two women laboriously waxing poetic about the beauty of nature to make me feel like I was really there, or at least wish I was there, but the empty, flaccid prose is nothing to write home about (pardon the pun on the title, there). I am easily impressed by florid, saccharine depictions of nature, but these authors are no Wordsworth or Mary Oliver; the descriptions of the setting (which I believe to be beautiful beyond description!) are as dry and flat as the playa.
The content being mired in the covid times did not help- I lived through it too, and at this point it has been talked to death. This collection suffers from two angles: it lacks the benefit of hindsight, but it also does not capture the quotidian daily realties or granular thoughts of those experiencing the event "in real time." Instead, it stylistically "cheats out" as if to an invisible audience for the entire duration, like melodramatic teenagers writing a diary they knew their parents would read, or statesmen crafting letters they suspected would be captured in the annals of history. YAWN!
Bizarrely, there is also a lot of questionable Sinophobic nonsense- the virus originated in China, so it makes sense China would be on one's mind during the onset of the pandemic, but there is a lot of comparison of how lucky the authors are compared to "the Chinese," sad little sweatshop children who are in a jail-esque plague-beleaguered nation, I guess. Never mind that they handled the pandemic better than we did.
Would not recommend.
The content being mired in the covid times did not help- I lived through it too, and at this point it has been talked to death. This collection suffers from two angles: it lacks the benefit of hindsight, but it also does not capture the quotidian daily realties or granular thoughts of those experiencing the event "in real time." Instead, it stylistically "cheats out" as if to an invisible audience for the entire duration, like melodramatic teenagers writing a diary they knew their parents would read, or statesmen crafting letters they suspected would be captured in the annals of history. YAWN!
Bizarrely, there is also a lot of questionable Sinophobic nonsense- the virus originated in China, so it makes sense China would be on one's mind during the onset of the pandemic, but there is a lot of comparison of how lucky the authors are compared to "the Chinese," sad little sweatshop children who are in a jail-esque plague-beleaguered nation, I guess. Never mind that they handled the pandemic better than we did.
Would not recommend.
October 18, 2020
Bold, beautiful, and brave--Air Mail unmasks the political situation of the pandemic and the need to protect the Earth in a time when we were starting to mask our faces. Confession time: I know and greatly admire one of the authors, but I firmly believe that's not a requirement to being touched by this book. This is a book written for everyone because we are all touched by politics, the pandemic, and the places we call home. I don't want to spoil the letters, but have some tissues handy, and be ready to not want to put this book down.
June 26, 2020
Houston and Irvine live across a mountain range from each other. They wrote letters to each other during the pandemic, about place, nature politics and trying to survive. Interesting. I previously read and loved "Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country" by Pam Houston.
Read
May 18, 2023A collection of letters written in the first three months of the pandemic, between Amy Irvine and Pam Houston, who knew of each other but had not met before the correspondence began.
Each recognizes her special privilege, tucked away as she was on one or the other side of the San Juan Mountains in SW Colorado. The connection they form, the sense of newness and wonder and appreciation and discouragement and frustration and concern and difficulty and privilege (again), all are presented and probed by two insightful women who have words at their command.
And so a friendship is formed.
(p.162) . . . The Earth is our ally. She always has been. She understands the truth of nonpossession. In fact, she wrote the book on it.
Thank you for these letters, Amy. I hope there will be athousand more. I will walk, now, to the back of my property, where the wetland is overflowing, breathe the clean air, and wait with a piece of string and this letter. Here I am now, my eyes trained on the ridgeline to the west.
In everlasting sisterhood,
And so the brief book concludes.
Each recognizes her special privilege, tucked away as she was on one or the other side of the San Juan Mountains in SW Colorado. The connection they form, the sense of newness and wonder and appreciation and discouragement and frustration and concern and difficulty and privilege (again), all are presented and probed by two insightful women who have words at their command.
And so a friendship is formed.
(p.162) . . . The Earth is our ally. She always has been. She understands the truth of nonpossession. In fact, she wrote the book on it.
Thank you for these letters, Amy. I hope there will be athousand more. I will walk, now, to the back of my property, where the wetland is overflowing, breathe the clean air, and wait with a piece of string and this letter. Here I am now, my eyes trained on the ridgeline to the west.
In everlasting sisterhood,
And so the brief book concludes.
January 17, 2026
Didn’t know this was a pandemic-era book when I got it. I started reading because I wanted more of Pam Houston’s warmth, and anger, and optimism, and love - for animals, for her friends, for writing, for the environment, for her ranch. I didn’t think I was ready to go back in to that horrible, scary time - or would ever be - but of all the pieces that could convince me to travel back to Spring 2020, this was it.
I fell in love with these beautiful writers, these deep-feeling women, at the same rate that they fell in friend-love with each other over the course of the book, writing to each other over the first two months of the pandemic and having never spoken previously.
The bone-deep fear they are expressing at the tense (to say the least) socio-political situation of the period feels - sadly - both very of the moment (2026), and almost like small potatoes when compared to the context of everything that has transpired since.
It’s a quick read, so I tried to take my time and savor each letter. I’ll probably return to this one at some point, to hang with these gals again.
I fell in love with these beautiful writers, these deep-feeling women, at the same rate that they fell in friend-love with each other over the course of the book, writing to each other over the first two months of the pandemic and having never spoken previously.
The bone-deep fear they are expressing at the tense (to say the least) socio-political situation of the period feels - sadly - both very of the moment (2026), and almost like small potatoes when compared to the context of everything that has transpired since.
It’s a quick read, so I tried to take my time and savor each letter. I’ll probably return to this one at some point, to hang with these gals again.
March 9, 2024
Picked this up as part of my Pam Houston reading.
Favorite sentences from Amy:
Desert Solitaire was a touchstone for me before I ever laid eyes on the canyon country. I wrote Ed my first fan letter ever, and he sent me a postcard, with a drawing of the vulture. He thanked me for my letter, said "may great good fortune befall you." (Probably what he said to all the outdoorsy girls.) I tried to put my hands on that postcard just now, but that task may require my morning brain. I give his books credit for getting me out here, out to this landscape I was meant for, though he's only part of the story. Still, it would be hard for me to name a single writer that had more influence, not so much on my writing as on my life.
Favorite sentences from Pam:
One more thing about me: when things are going relatively well in the world and in my life, I can fall down a disaster wormhole like nobody's business. But when the shit hits the fan for real, what I realize I cannot live without is hope.
Favorite sentences from Amy:
Desert Solitaire was a touchstone for me before I ever laid eyes on the canyon country. I wrote Ed my first fan letter ever, and he sent me a postcard, with a drawing of the vulture. He thanked me for my letter, said "may great good fortune befall you." (Probably what he said to all the outdoorsy girls.) I tried to put my hands on that postcard just now, but that task may require my morning brain. I give his books credit for getting me out here, out to this landscape I was meant for, though he's only part of the story. Still, it would be hard for me to name a single writer that had more influence, not so much on my writing as on my life.
Favorite sentences from Pam:
One more thing about me: when things are going relatively well in the world and in my life, I can fall down a disaster wormhole like nobody's business. But when the shit hits the fan for real, what I realize I cannot live without is hope.
January 9, 2021
I enjoyed the voice and content of Amy Irvine's letters much more than those of Pam Houston. Reading any collection of letters can be trying and feel antiquated--even letters as recent as these since they all occurred early in the present COVID pandemic.
A quote from one of Irvine's letter I find hauntingly prescient (after describing being a wilderness medic trying unsuccessfully to save a teenage boy's life after a fatal rock climbing accident): "What kept me working on him was that hope, that miracle, that we must always reach for when the stakes are high, because if we don't make every effort to help each other, then we've gone feral, which is not the same as wild--not here anyway. Then we're living in the bleak, on Cormac McCarthy's Road. And as bad as things seem, giving in to that story will doom us all." pp. 70-71
A quote from one of Irvine's letter I find hauntingly prescient (after describing being a wilderness medic trying unsuccessfully to save a teenage boy's life after a fatal rock climbing accident): "What kept me working on him was that hope, that miracle, that we must always reach for when the stakes are high, because if we don't make every effort to help each other, then we've gone feral, which is not the same as wild--not here anyway. Then we're living in the bleak, on Cormac McCarthy's Road. And as bad as things seem, giving in to that story will doom us all." pp. 70-71
January 18, 2026
The beginning is a bit slow-going, with some early pandemic mentality. But once they get into the juice stuff like the patriarchy, it's a firecracker of a conversation.
I read this because I love Pam Houston's writing. And in many ways it was hard to distinguish whose letter I was reading so I had to keep checking - their voices are very similar. Although I did find that all the passages I underlined were Pam's.
Favorite quote: "I would love living in a country that had my back, but since I don't, I feel under no obligation to please anybody. Not the government, nor the patriarchy, nor the publishing industry, nor the New York Times, not even Mike [Pam's husband], if it's at the expense of my own truth. I want to breathe. I want the next generation to be able to breathe. And to not be raped. And to not be shot."
I read this because I love Pam Houston's writing. And in many ways it was hard to distinguish whose letter I was reading so I had to keep checking - their voices are very similar. Although I did find that all the passages I underlined were Pam's.
Favorite quote: "I would love living in a country that had my back, but since I don't, I feel under no obligation to please anybody. Not the government, nor the patriarchy, nor the publishing industry, nor the New York Times, not even Mike [Pam's husband], if it's at the expense of my own truth. I want to breathe. I want the next generation to be able to breathe. And to not be raped. And to not be shot."
July 30, 2022
Densely meaningful exchange of thoughts that I wished kept going beyond the first few months of the pandemic, maybe one letter exchanged once a month? On a continuing basis, like in a blog? Because I would love to hear their take on how to stay sane while our country is going to hell in a handbasket (BLM, the 2020 election, the Jan 6 riot, the Supreme Court decision on Roe vs. Wade, the continuing failure of our government (and the world) to address climate change, etc etc...)
I would love to hear more that all will be well if we keep saying yes to the world. "Women have more power in our little fingers than Mitch McConnell has in his entire ball sack. If he even has a ball sack." - At least I would go down laughing!
I would love to hear more that all will be well if we keep saying yes to the world. "Women have more power in our little fingers than Mitch McConnell has in his entire ball sack. If he even has a ball sack." - At least I would go down laughing!
August 21, 2021
Pam Houston and Amy Irvine, writers who admired each other's work but had never met, embarked on an almost daily (email) correspondence during the Stay At Home period of Covid-19 in 2020 at the instigation of the editor of Orion magazine. Their fears, hopes, and relationship with the land and this country are distilled into a compelling philosophical documentation of a moment in time. Unabashedly liberal and feminist their conversation through letters have all the intimacy and immediacy of that format.
Book Pairings:
Rez Dogs by Joseph Bruchac takes a Native viewpoint to the same moment in time in a novel-in-verse for middle grade readers.
Book Pairings:
Rez Dogs by Joseph Bruchac takes a Native viewpoint to the same moment in time in a novel-in-verse for middle grade readers.
July 18, 2022
I very much enjoyed these letters, sent back and forth between writers Pam Houston and Amy Irvine during the early months of the pandemic. They live, literally, just over the Continental Divide from each other, separated by mountains but connected by the postal service. :-) However, the collection is VERY rooted in those political and personal feelings from mid-2020, and so the collection doesn't age as well as I would wish. The letters that deal more explicitly with being women and writers hold up the best, I think. A short read and worthwhile, but, again, very firmly planted in that time period. As a record of the moment, they are great.
February 7, 2021
I probably should have waited to read this small book, since I just finished Houston's Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country. I like her voice a lot, though, so I thought this would be a good follow up. While there were parts of this that touched me, some of it just seemed like "too much information." I think my state of mind, being worn down emotionally by the politics and pandemic in the news, curbed my ability to respond empathically to their situations, which they shared in their bare to the bone descriptions of their past and current existence.
July 9, 2023
Bad. Ass. Women. Inspiring the rest of us to be just as badass. Mad respect. 💪🏻❤️📚
Fave quotes from the book:
~ “Things are tough enough, thank you, without…the ghost of my father or anyone else who will feel better because of my silence.”
“Let us hope that we continue to live in a world where we can still die doing what we love - whether it’s walking in wilderness or chopping vegetables.”
“I know 50 women personally who could set themselves on fire & fly to the moon if that’s what they most wanted. It is the one thing I am most sure about, the largely untapped power of women.” ~
Fave quotes from the book:
~ “Things are tough enough, thank you, without…the ghost of my father or anyone else who will feel better because of my silence.”
“Let us hope that we continue to live in a world where we can still die doing what we love - whether it’s walking in wilderness or chopping vegetables.”
“I know 50 women personally who could set themselves on fire & fly to the moon if that’s what they most wanted. It is the one thing I am most sure about, the largely untapped power of women.” ~
August 4, 2024
I'm giving this 4 stars partly because I believe in the messages by authors Pam Houston and Amy Irvine. I was tempted to write that I was hoping for a little bit more, but really I know what Houston and Irvine wrote during the pandemic is more than enough. They share struggles, hopes, fears, their past, dreams, and more in a series of letters between the two Colorado authors who had never previously mete before writing these. I will say this having read Irvine's "Desert Cabal," you should check out these authors and I will be reading more from them!
January 13, 2021
This set of letters between two authors at the beginning of the pandemic is powerful, vulnerable, raw, and inspiring. It makes me want to fight against all of my upbringing to be polite, take turns speaking, and defer to my elders and the men in the room. These are essential voices in our current circumstances. I'm making my husband read it, I'm telling my friends to read it, and when my kids are in high school, I will make them read it.
September 19, 2021
Gorgeous writing from two open-hearted women. They both want to make meaning from something that's clearly meaningless, and I think they do a good job of it. I found myself feeling really sad about how hopeful they were that this pandemic would "come to an end." Here we are, more than a year later, and the world they hoped would return hasn't arrived quite yet. That sense of hope makes the book a tiny bit dated (already). I wish I had read it last year.
October 22, 2023
I’ve wondered how the fiction writers will deal with COVID and the lockdown. And while this isn’t fiction, and the letters were happening in real-time, dealing with all those unknowns, I hope other writers will take on the subject like this, with this kind of raw honesty. But it’s not just the pandemic - these letters are about so many things that matter. It felt validating to feel in good company.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews