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“Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?” - Mary Oliver, “The Summer Day”

This book is full of vivid vignettes from a woman who is deeply present in nature, who knows “how to pay attention… how to be idle and blessed,” who writes “stories, more beautiful than answers.”

I enjoyed how Fleischman deftly navigated the tensions between fact and fiction in this account of Mark Twain’s life. Fleischman filled in the context but allowed Twain’s own words and perspectives to shine—even if that meant dedicating many paragraphs to fictional companions in Twain’s life!