A rough guide to the heart - Pam Houston

In these essays Pam Houston treats us to a celebration of real-life adventures which range over five years and five continents. But whatever Houston's destination - whether Bhutan or Bolivia or Traverse City - it is only the starting point from which she extracts her personal emotional journey. She is searching here for a place - not too safe but not too threatening - from which to negotiate mountain goats and river ice, camping trips and wine. Assessing her limitations, she takes 'A Long Look in the Mirror'. Through her we meet some good dogs, a few good men, and the occasional grizzly. There's a horse named Roany with the presence of a Zen master. And there's a Buddhist named Karma, proving what Houston has always suspected: fiction has nothing on real life.

As she searches for balance within herself and with the world around her, Houston speaks straight from the heart, revealing truths about who we are and what it means, right now, to be alive.