Read: The Anthropology of Turquoise

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Good grief, how did I miss Ellen Meloy? If you have ever read anything by Terry Tempest Williams or Gretal Ehrlich then run, don’t walk, to your local book hawker and BUY a copy of this book. You will want to keep it and you will want to read it again.

Nature writing with a personal, humorous and insightful glare is something to behold, at least to me, and this book had me with the cover art. For some reason I am a complete and total sucker for tubes of oil paint. Always have been. Don’t know how to use oil paint but it does not seem to matter. It’s not often I think about the origins of color but this book surely made me do so.

Ellen Meloy, who is sadly no longer with us, delivers a finely rendered take on her love of color, land, water, and much, much more. From her native California to the Southwest, Latin America, and wild rivers, “The Anthropology of Turquoise” gives us a glimpse into what it means to pay attention.

This book haunted me and forced me, several times, to leave my house to go sit on the patio and just look, smell, hear and feel. THIS is the point of books like this. This book was a finalist for the Pulitzer which makes me wonder what book actually won on this particular year.

Get it, read it.

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  1. Dan, this book is on my “desert island” shelf along with her “Ravens Exile”. Both read multiple times. So sorry when I heard of her demise.
    Same shelf normally has Peter Mathiessen’s “The Snow Leopard” on it except I am currently reading it for about the 5th time…
    David

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