Publicity
Author of Mountains of the Great Blue Dream, Arctic Circle- Birth and Rebirth in the Land of the Caribou, and America, New Mexico, Robert Leonard Reid has received grants from the Sierra Arts Foundation and the Nevada Arts Council. He has worked as a songwriter, a cabaret pianist, and a mathematics textbook writer. He lives in Carson City, Nevada, with his wife, Carol Dimmick Reid. They have a son, Jake.
Praise for Because It Is So Beautiful: Unraveling the Mystique of
the American West
A Finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein–Spielvogel Award for the Art of
the Essay
"If Robert Leonard Reid isn’t on your reading list of Western
writers of nonfiction, you should place him on it . . . Reid writes
about nature in ways that are clear–eyed, incandescent, and
provocative." —Albuquerque Journal
"There are many books about the American West. This one, Robert
Leonard Reid's lustrous, selected essays from the last four
decades, is indispensable. The pages embody the beauty they
describe. We find here lightning bolts and bears, the balletic
caribou, atomic weapons, legendary wolves, mountaintops where light
is a territory of spirit, adventures daft and courageous. We find
both the grit and sorrow of history and meditations on redemption
and the sacred. But best of all, and most of all, we have the
company of the writer: his clear, loving, respectful prose, his
bemusement and honesty and learning, the finery of his reflections,
and the integrity of his journey.” Steven Nightingale, author of
Granada and The Hot Climate of Promises and Grace
"Calling Robert Reid an outdoor writer is like calling Thoreau a
writer about pond camping. There is so much more. He writes
authoritatively and passionately about the West, especially the
wild parts. Wilderness is not better when empty of man, in Reid’s
descriptions of it; in fact, you might almost say it fails to
exist, without some questing consciousness standing under a
nighttime mountain sky, hanging thoughts on the shivering stars.
Reid has been writing classic American essays full of Twain–like
humor and Emersonian moral force for forty years now. In this
collection we find him in his calmly formidable prime." — Robert
Roper, author of Nabokov in America
"I promise you, this is a man who can enhance, change, and vitalize
your life. I also promise you he brings all that together in these
pages: you’re going to love this book." —David Lee, Pulitzer Prize
nominee for News from Down to the Cafe
"Forty years in the making, this astonishing collection could not
come at a more urgent time. Its title, Because It Is So Beautiful,
alludes to Robert Reid’s unrelenting quest to celebrate our
vulnerable, historic wilderness, but it also speaks to his prose,
and to himself. With lyricism, charm, and trenchant observations,
he inspires readers to meditate on the importance of being alive,
of being responsible for the landscapes we inhabit. He remains not
merely a first–class writer but an invaluable moral guide."—Sascha
Feinstein, author of Wreckage: My Father’s Legacy of Art & Junk and
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