false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178896485m/850206.jpg 850206 8 Growing up in rural Wyoming, Mark Spragg learned early to read the stars. At 11 he was instructed to quit dreaming, and he went to work for his father on the land. "I was paid thirty dollars a month, had my own bed in the bunkhouse, and three large, plain meals each day." The ranch is a sprawling place where winter brings months of solitude and summer brings tourists from the real world--city types who want a taste of the outdoors and stare at the author and his family as if they were members of some exotic tribe: "Our guests were New Jersey gas station owners, New York congressmen, Iowa farmers, judges, actors, plumbers, Europeans who had read of Buffalo Bill and Sitting Bull and came to experience the American West, the retired, the just beginning." By the age of 14, he and his younger brother are leading them on camping trips into deep woods. "No one ever asked why we had no televisions, no daily paper. They came for what my brother and I took for granted. They came to live the anachronism that we considered our normal lives."<p> As Spragg comes to realize the strangeness of his life, he also detects flaws in his own character--a fear of suffering and mortality that first shows itself when he rides a sick horse too hard, until the animal hovers at the brink of death. He knows that if he had faced the possibility of sickness, if he had been brave, this animal would not have declined so quickly. Throughout his life, this inability to face death, this terror of losing the beauty of the world he so passionately witnesses, drives Spragg to distraction.<p> <I>Where Rivers Change Direction</I> combines a soaring spirituality with a visceral, often stomach-churning attention to detail. It's a book that continually dares the reader to turn away from its pages in an effort to digest the power of its confused emotions and hauntingly spare images (a "moon-fried plain," a stillborn child "baked alive in my mother's body"). Like Peter Matthiessen's <I>The Snow Leopard</I>, Mark Spragg's memoir makes you feel you've been somewhere, you've been out in the depths, and you've come back changed. <I>--Emily White</I> 835718 1999 Where Rivers Change Direction total:152|5:71|4:56|3:17|2:7|1:1| 152 645 238 44 4 4 false false Sat Oct 13 05:15:30 -0700 2007 Thu Mar 19 08:06:59 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 25 05:31:54 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 25 07:42:31 -0700 2009 1
...more...]]> 5 0 true false Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Mar 03 21:21:48 -0800 2009 Tue Mar 03 21:28:20 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Aug 26 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Aug 09 00:10:29 -0700 2009 Wed Aug 26 19:47:04 -0700 2009 TTBOOK and knew I had to pick it up soon. Spragg spent most of his childhood growing up on the oldest dude ranch in Wyoming, and he chronicles the formative experiences of this unique opportunity in such loving and heartbreaking v...more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Sep 22 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 13 10:57:39 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 08 15:45:41 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Mar 09 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 09 16:35:57 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 09 16:45:23 -0700 2009 He has a truly beautiful way of wr...more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Sep 15 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 16 06:20:41 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 16 07:18:17 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Dec 03 17:37:12 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 07 06:37:10 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Jul 10 13:18:46 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 10 13:20:48 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 09 06:16:22 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 09 06:32:19 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Nov 30 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 30 22:33:09 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 30 22:37:08 -0800 2008 4 0 false false Tue Oct 27 17:33:24 -0700 2009 Mon Nov 09 16:35:45 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Fri Jan 09 06:22:58 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 09 06:24:40 -0800 2009 5 0 false false Sun May 10 12:03:40 -0700 2009 Sun May 10 12:05:15 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Jun 16 11:06:57 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 16 11:08:57 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon May 04 20:08:18 -0700 2009 Mon May 04 20:09:40 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Fri Jun 19 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 07 15:02:05 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 07 15:14:31 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Fri Nov 28 13:11:03 -0800 2008 Fri Nov 28 13:11:31 -0800 2008 3 0 false false Sat Mar 21 18:54:56 -0700 2009 Fri Apr 03 05:35:16 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Tue May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Aug 31 18:21:51 -0700 2007 Fri Aug 31 18:24:42 -0700 2007 that I know nothing about horses yet felt as if I was amongst their hulking shapes in the days of mark spragg's youth....

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that mark s...more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=850206