[A] memoir in which a lack of chronology — more a collection of beautifully rendered memory fragments — disrupts any notion that 'background' experiences provide a progression in Ehrlich's life ... Global climate change means that landscapes we thought were forever are impermanent, while the pandemic makes clear that control over our human environment is equally illusory. And yet, out of this instability, the kinetoscope-like structure of Ehrlich's memoir offers views of a rich and full life ... Ehrlich brings a keen awareness of place, the uniqueness of each setting, while also understanding their interconnectedness as part of the larger planet ... while some of Ehrlich's observations of humans feel awkward, her language when describing the natural world is poetic ... Ehrlich reminds us of what is at stake as we confront the climate crisis.

The book follows some of that excitement, from exploring never-before-tread Arctic fjords, to observing regenerative agriculture projects in the bush of Mugabe’s troubled Zimbabwe. Ehrlich is drawn again and again to places of extreme weather, extreme natural beauty ... This is not an intimate psychological memoir; accounts of transformational events like divorce and falling in love are terse. Ehrlich prefers to give voice to the extraordinary people she meets ... The writing is elegant and direct, and the aim is true ... the reach for the spiritual dimension of human relationships to animals and nature is never empty philosophizing ... At the same time, her descriptions of the natural world are exacting ... Each chapter is self-contained and plunges into a different world. There’s a sense that Ehrlich’s adventures could fill volumes (and indeed, some are explored in depth in her earlier books), but the undertone is not the excitement of discovery but the melancholy of loss ... Despite the singularity of Ehrlich’s life and experience, it becomes a story that encompasses every reader as well, a sorrow we all must contend with ... Ehrlich doesn’t offer easy solutions or optimism, but neither does she sink into despair. The response she offers is complex, requiring uniquely human capacities.

... a lovingly observed account of the lives of people, animals and the landscapes that sustain them, spun together as deftly as a spider’s web, filled with purpose and urgency ... Unsolaced also challenges our contemporary preoccupation with looking to the future at the expense of living in the present. This constant rebalancing of contradictions defines Ehrlich’s narrative ... Ehrlich’s global nomadism and her linking of disparate ecologies conceal a carefully constructed thesis. The plains of Wyoming were formed when the glaciers melted at the end of the last Ice Age. Might Greenland one day resemble Wyoming? Is the destruction of humanity inevitable? ... As a species, our options are narrowing rapidly—yet for some of us they do still exist.

[Ehrlich's] courage is impressive, her experiences no less than extraordinary ... At their best, Ehrlich’s reminiscences carve a melancholy track, depicting the disastrous losses, human and otherwise, that accompany global warming. At its worst, though, Unsolaced can feel like climate crisis tourism ... Ehrlich hops around too much to truly register the emotional weight of the catastrophes she describes. The hand-wringing feels gratuitous ... More galling is Ehrlich’s silence on the actual forces propelling the crisis ... Ehrlich uses the phrase 'fossil fuel' only once and barely mentions oil that doesn’t come from narwhals ... All blame here gets laid on 'we humans,' a 'failed species,' although the actual humans Ehrlich meets in Zimbabwe and Greenland contributed next to nothing to this catastrophe. The fact that the wealthiest people in the wealthiest countries on the planet bear the overwhelming share of the responsibility for the climate crisis is perhaps a cause of discomfort for her. It certainly should be. The truest sentence in Unsolaced may be its last one: 'What I have written is an odd kind of memoir, notable — if at all — for what has been left out.'

While global warming looms large in it, Unsolaced differs from other books with a climate-change theme in its emphasis on the human costs thereof. For Ehrlich’s friends in Greenland, the disappearance of sea ice equals the disappearance of their way of life and threatens their survival. Ehrlich worries not only about the warming of the earth and the extinction of animals, but also the extinction of cultures ... Readers familiar with Ehrlich’s writing may feel a bit of déjà vu as she revisits many of the same places and people she wrote about in The Solace of Open Spaces and other books, but each essay in Unsolaced is its own story. Her journalistic style places the reader squarely in the middle of others’ lives. Chapters read like articles out of National Geographic but aren’t bogged down by abstruse scientific terms and explanations ... Her profound rapport with all that surrounds her is laced into poignant portrayals of her dogs and encounters with wildlife, as well as in illuminating descriptions of the pristine Arctic landscape ... unpredictably timely, a compelling adventure story and an inward and outward journey that may leave the reader with more questions than answers in these uncertain times, the most provoking being, 'Where do we go to find solace now?'

Erlich ruminates on loss both personally (her husband’s brain cancer) and climatologically, and has a knack for capturing the lives of those she’s met on the road ... Erlich’s memories, rendered in rich, lyrical language, make for a moving ode to a changing planet.

This gripping episodic memoir of ranch life and Arctic travels, visionaries and lovers, environmental destruction and loss is a callback, after a dozen titles, to her first book, The Solace of Open Spaces ... Ehrlich chronicles with enthralling precision the to-the-brink physicality of hard work and daring expeditions and the meditative states nature summons. She vividly recounts sojourns on a Channel Island off the California coast ... Writing with fire and ice of beauty, risk, and devastation, Ehrlich shares wonder, wisdom, candor, and concern to soul-ringing effect.

In lush, evocative prose, Ehrlich details some breathtakingly perilous journeys, including trekking across a span of polar desolation ... A vigorous plea for responsible environmental stewardship and a treat for all fans of nature writing.