Return to Spirit Lake: Journey Through a Lost Landscape

My husband bought this book and I just picked it up on a whim. The book spins a lovely web of the aesthetics of nature, the factual information about Mount St Helens and a personal reflection on one individual's place in the enormous cycle of nature. I enjoyed Colasurdo simple but elegant prose, her meticulous research, which I was glad to see gave credit to scientists and historians with every fact, and her personal insights and revelations. I read this books during an absolutely insane Christmas season (I own a retail store so Christmas is always particularly draining) and it really helped me put everything in perspective.

This book was written by someone who grew up with her summers in the shadow of Mt. St. Helens who revisits the area years later, after the eruption. It was a very reflective, somewhat moody book, that I enjoyed reading. Good descriptions of the area as it struggled to recover from the incredible devastation.