Praise for Salt Lakes
―The New York Times
"A call to protect marginal places and ways of life [that] resonates deeply."
―Kirkus Reviews
"Caroline Tracey shows us the beauty, vitality, and necessity of landscapes both strange and familiar. This is nature writing as it should be."
―Michelle Nijhuis, author of Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction
"Precise, lyrical, and at once deeply personal and epic, Salt Lakes brims with brine shrimp and birds and charismatic bacteria―and an unexpected sense of life pushing through against the odds. I was gripped from the first page to the last."
―Bathsheba Demuth, author of Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait
"Salt Lakes is a perceptive, poetic ode to one of our planet’s most vital, and most overlooked, ecosystems. Caroline Tracey plumbs law, science, and literature in a debut as gorgeous and vibrant as the lakes she loves."
―Ben Goldfarb, author of Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet
"A stunning illumination of a peculiar landscape, from a writer fueled by devotion, curiosity, and rapture. Caroline Tracey deftly demonstrates the human impact on fragile ecosystems, and what these ecosystems can reveal to us about ourselves. Salt Lakes made me feel a deeper kinship with the world."
―Lauren Markham, author of A Map of Future Ruins: On Borders and Belonging
"Salt Lakes is not just a book of nature writing, not just a memoir, but like the salt lakes themselves, something much more wondrous and precious. Caroline Tracey leads readers through her growing understanding of herself and the strange beauty of the ecosystems around her, and along the way reminds us of the abundance and possibilities inherent in queer lives and landscapes."
―Alejandra Oliva, author of Rivermouth: A Chronicle of Language, Faith, and Migration
"Strange, overlooked, and unloved places find a voice in Salt Lakes, a brave and openhearted book. Caroline Tracey shows the world’s salt lakes as real places worthy of protection, but also as mirrors reflecting human history, identity, and desire."
―Melissa L. Sevigny, author of Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon