AN UNSPOKEN HUNGER: Stories From the Field...

AN UNSPOKEN HUNGER: Stories From the Field by Terry Tempest Williams (Vintage: $10; 144 pp.). In these concise nature essays, Terry Tempest Williams fondly recalls the late Edward Abbey and describes her awe at seeing the wildlife of the African veld. She stresses the need for people to reestablish a connection with the natural world: “Our lack of intimacy with each other is in direct proportion to our lack of intimacy with the land. We have taken our love inside and abandoned the wild.” In a pointed and poignant criticism of U.S. land management policies, Williams damns the needless destruction of groves of Pacific yew, the source of a drug used to treat breast and ovarian cancer, which has killed seven women in her family.