A clerk in a Moab, Utah, bookstore suggested that I read something by Terry Tempest Williams after I exhausted its supply of Edward Abbey titles, and I’m glad she did. Born in 1955, Williams is a worthy successor to Abbey, who lived in the desert Southwest and died in 1989. A naturalist by education and vocation, Williams has the gift of seeing universality in the specific, whether she’s at the Great Salt Lake or in a Rwandan village. She is also a spiritual seeker—raised a fifth-generation Mormon, but a dissenter from some Latter Day Saints teachings. Where Abbey’s quest led to civil disobedience, Williams’s might lead to a hair-raising vision or a profound insight.