When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice [Paperback]

NATIONAL BESTSELLER
AKansas City StarBest Book of the Year

Brilliant, meditative, and full of surprises, wisdom, and wonder. Ann Lamott, author ofImperfect Birds
I am leaving you all my journals, but you must promise me you won't look at them until after I'm gone. This is what Terry Tempest Williams's mother, the matriarch of a large Mormon clan in northern Utah, told her a week before she died. It was a shock to Williams to discover that her mother had kept journals. But not as much of a shock as it was to discover that the three shelves of journals were all blank. In fifty-four short chapters, Williams recounts memories of her mother, ponders her own faith, and contemplates the notion of absence and presence art and in our world.When Women Were Birdsis a carefully crafted kaleidoscope that keeps turning around the question: What does it mean to have a voice?

Terry Tempest Williams's unconventional, beloved memoirRefuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Placepaid homage to Williams's mother, who developed cancer as a result of nuclear testing in nearby Nevada. Her mother told her, I am leaving you all my journals. But you must promise me that you will not look at them until after I am gone. Williams easily found the three shelves of beautiful cloth-bound diaries, but she soon discovered that all the books were blank. A stirring meditation on the messages conveyed in those seemingly empty pages,When Women Were Birdsexplores the shaping of a life through fifty-four precisely honed chapters, each with its own unique wisdom. Through evocative scenes, captured in lyrical words, Williams has created a work that startles and illuminates.

The discussion topics that follow are designed to enhance your reading group's experience ofWhen Women Were Birds. We hope they will enrich your journey.

1. Terry Tempest Williams describes the gifts of her relationshl{