In her most recent book, The Hour of Land: A Personal Typography of America’s National Parks (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux), Terry Tempest Williams masterfully weaves the personal with the political—in her recollections of times spent with family amidst the Bakken Oil Boom in North Dakota and the threat it poses to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park—as well as the historical as she chronicles the Roosevelts’ battle to donate their land to help expand Grand Teton National Park. 

Williams, a Utah native, traverses the vast landscape of America’s national parks, beginning in her “mother park,” Grand Teton National Park, and traveling as far as the Gates of the Arctic National Park in Alaska and Acadia National Park in Maine. The book that emerges is part travelogue, mixed with poetry and stories, conversations and letters. It is a unique choice for the BABEL series which has not featured a nonfiction book of this format before. In addition to all of the factual information, Williams is best known for her poetic phrasing; she casually churns out sentences like, “Our national parks make fetishes of their founders and run the risk of turning history in kitsch” or “Wilderness is a knife that cuts through pretense and exposes fear.”

Tickets may be purchased online at justbuffalo.org, by calling (716) 832-5400, or at the door on the night of the event. Season subscriptions are currently available with General Admission priced at $110 or $190 for a pair--VIP patron subscriptions have sold out. Individual event tickets go on sale on September 15th, with pricing as follows: General Admission is $35; $30 with a Buffalo & Erie County Public Library Card. Student tickets are $10 with ID.