Advanced
Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Title details for The Last Fire Season by Manjula Martin - Available

The Last Fire Season

A Personal and Pyronatural History

by Manjula Martin
Manjula Martin
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 1 copy available
H Is for Hawk meets Joan Didion in the Pyrocene in this arresting combination of memoir, natural history, and literary inquiry that chronicles one woman’s experience of life in Northern California during the worst fire season on record.
FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
Told in luminous, perceptive prose, The Last Fire Season is a deeply incisive inquiry into what it really means—now—to live in relationship to the elements of the natural world. When Manjula Martin moved from the city to the woods of Northern California, she wanted to be closer to the wilderness that she had loved as a child. She was also seeking refuge from a health crisis that left her with chronic pain, and found a sense of healing through tending her garden beneath the redwoods of Sonoma County. But the landscape that Martin treasured was an ecosystem already in crisis. Wildfires fueled by climate change were growing bigger and more frequent: each autumn, her garden filled with smoke and ash, and the local firehouse siren wailed deep into the night.
In 2020, when a dry lightning storm ignited hundreds of simultaneous wildfires across the West and kicked off the worst fire season on record, Martin, along with thousands of other Californians, evacuated her home in the midst of a pandemic. Both a love letter to the forests of the West and an interrogation of the colonialist practices that led to their current dilemma, The Last Fire Season, follows her from the oaky hills of Sonoma County to the redwood forests of coastal Santa Cruz, to the pines and peaks of the Sierra Nevada, as she seeks shelter, bears witness to the devastation, and tries to better understand fire’s role in the ecology of the West. As Martin seeks a way to navigate the daily experience of living in a damaged body on a damaged planet, she comes to question her own assumptions about nature and the complicated connections between people and the land on which we live.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 16, 2024

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780593786161
      • File size: 379203 KB
      • Duration: 13:10:00

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Manjula Martin delivers this audiobook as if reading to a friend. While she's not blessed with a sonorous voice, her delivery is both passionate and authentic. She captures the complications of living in proximity to wildfires in Sonoma County, California, which was devastated by conflagrations in 2020. The audiobook presents three interlocking stories: The first is about a series of failed operations to remove a broken IUD and the continual pain that Martin lives with. Next is an account of life in the orbit of wildfires, including preparations for evacuations and the effects of fire season on the residents' daily lives. Finally, there's the story of fire itself: how it works and how those who deal with it study it, combat it, and learn from it. A.D.M. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine
    • Library Journal

      April 1, 2024

      Writer and editor Martin (coauthor of Fruit Trees for Every Garden) offers an insightful memoir describing her experiences living in Northern California during 2020's devastating wildfire season. Partly motivated by Martin's health crisis, she and her partner moved from the city to a house on a hill in the Sonoma woods in 2017, a few years before the fire season intensified. Martin chronicles the devastation wrought by the fires, capturing the fear and uncertainty of living during this time while working through her own healing and recovery. Martin interweaves a history of the land, reflections on climate change, and discussions of Indigenous fire control practices into her memoir, arguing that people must now live with fire throughout the year, not just during fire season. Narrating her own account, Martin's tone is pleasant and well-paced. Listeners will sense her urgency and concern as she recounts details of her life during the fires. VERDICT Martin's memoir about living through and emerging from devastation, together with her reflections on history and climate change make for a rich and timely listen.--Carol Sternenberg

      Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Loading