In biography, a life finds its shape

Santa was quite generous with the book-giving this year at my home, and the big guy really nailed it at the start with historian Donald Worster’s biography, A Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir. For lovers of Western scenery, like myself, it was hard to watch Ken Burns’ wonderful documentary series about our national parks and not be fascinated by John Muir, and want to learn more about him. Muir was America’s best-known preservationist and naturalist, an early advocate of the national park idea, and founder of the Sierra Club.

 What a truly great genre biography is, at least in hands as talented as Worster’s. The opportunity to observe the shaping of a personality and a passion for wilderness like Muir’s from his earliest years is utterly absorbing. How will this unusual young man find his place in the world? How will he reconcile his contradictions and intellectual tensions? Come to terms with the dreadful legacy of his cheerless, religious-fanatic father? Find the freedom to find himself, to be himself? The questions abound. If I didn’t have to get up for work this week, I could literally read this thing all night.

 So, on that book-loving note, happy new year to all of our magazine’s readers and online visitors.

 -- Ron Kovach, senior editor, The Writer

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