© Columbia University Press
Thin Places: A Pilgrimage Home
December, 2008
Cloth, 296 pages,
ISBN: 978-0-231-14652-4
$27.50
/ £19.00
"This is a book you’ll want to spend time with." — Andrew Nemethy, Rutland Herald
"[A] poignant, fragile memoir." — Kirkus Reviews
"Armbrecht's vulnerability, wisdom and unflinching honesty at a time of great crisis for the West make this story one of the most important books of the last year." — Rob Williams, The Valley Reporter
"Stirring on many levels - emotional, religious, physical, sensual . . . Armbrecht's is a lovely and humble journey." — David G. Campbell, Orion
"Thin Places's double-stranded discourse very subtly advances, in the same breath, reflections on our ties to others and to the environment. It becomes clear to the reader that both sets of relations imply similar efforts, challenges, and forms of communication, with a great deal at stake all around." — Robert Desjarlais, author of Sensory Biographies: Lives and Deaths Among Nepal's Yolmo Buddhists
"Recounting her search for 'thin places' of sacred connection, Ann Armbrecht's unflinching honesty and eye for luminous detail leads readers between locales and across received genres. Simultaneously a spiritual autobiography, a fieldwork memoir of village Nepal, a meditation on relations with land, the story of a complicated marriage, and more, this courageous book vividly shows how anthropologists' professional journeys are entwined with personal quests." — Kirin Narayan, professor of anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"Ann Armbrecht has written an intricate, smart, soulful story about the shape-shifting boundaries between culture and landscape; people and place. But Thin Places is much more than travel writing rooted in Nepal. It is a brave rendering of what happens when we allow our intellect to bow to our instincts and recognize love for what it is: a transformative pilgrimage requiring great courage and generosity of spirit, including forgiveness. We learn that integrity and intimacy with the land is in direct proportion to maintainng intimacy with each other. As an anthropologist, Armbrecht is trustworthy and revelatory in her patterned thinking. As a writer, she is an elegant and tempered voice exposing the truth of our relations." — Terry Tempest Williams, author of Finding Beauty in a Broken World