Arctic Dreams - by Barry Lopez (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Winner of the National Book Award

"Lopez is...the most important living writer about wilderness...[Arctic Dreams is] his masterpiece." --The Guardian

This iconic, groundbreaking exploration of the Far North is a classic of natural history, anthropology, and travel writing.

The Arctic, with its theaters of floating crystal and frozen seas, is an emblem of the world's disappearing landscapes. It is a perilous place of dayless winters and nightless summers, of icy tundra stretching to the horizon, and blood-soaked snow after a walrus hunt. But the Far North also teems with life, beauty, and joy--and its indelible imprint on our minds remains thanks, in part, to Arctic Dreams.

In this masterpiece, winner of the National Book Award, Lopez writes with devotion and humility about this formidable, austere land. Arctic Dreams is as much an epic hymn as a travelogue, and this modern classic teaches us about this world of musk oxen and narwhals; strangely stunted forests and mesmerizing aurora borealis; and the Indigenous peoples who have lived there for millennia--all while documenting Lopez's profound awe at its glittering and strange landscape.

Written in prose as pristine as the world it describes, Arctic Dreams is a meditation on the ability of the landscape to shape our dreams and haunt our imaginations. As we travel alongside Lopez, we come to share his "allegiance with the mystery of life."

Review Quotes

"Extraordinary. . . . A master nature writer." --The New York Times Book Review

"One of those landmark works of travel writing." --The New Yorker

"Dazzling. . . . Treats the distant, snowy world of the Arctic as a place that exists not only in the mathematics of geography but also in the terra incognita of our imaginations." --Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"Lopez is...the most important living writer about wilderness...[Arctic Dreams is] his masterpiece" --The Guardian

"Wonderfully informed and evocative...Keen observation given shape with language that is deft and vivid." --Chicago Tribune

"Rich, abundant, vigorously composed...A meditation on the land and the art of existence." --Boston Globe

About the Author

Barry Lopez (1945-2020) was the author of three collections of essays, including Horizon; several story collections; Arctic Dreams, for which he received the National Book Award; Of Wolves and Men, a National Book Award finalist; and Crow and Weasel, a novella-length fable. He contributed regularly to both American and foreign journals and traveled to more than seventy countries to conduct research. He was the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim, Lannan, and National Science Foundations and was honored by a number of institutions for his literary, humanitarian, and environmental work.