NORTHERN LIGHTS: A Selection of New Writing...

NORTHERN LIGHTS: A Selection of New Writing from the American West edited by Deborah Clow & Donald Snow (Vintage: $13; 395 pp., paperback original). These essays and poems focus on the remaining open land in Western North America. Richard Nelson muses on the names Native Americans applied to various landmarks and the heritage their words embody. John Roush contemplates the meaning of the wilderness, concluding, “A fully civilized life includes more than law and order. It includes mystery, energy, diversity, surprise, and beauty--the qualities that make natural space nourishing and occasionally dangerous.”