“Unraveling” by Peggy Orenstein “Fire Weather” by John Vaillant

“This witty, irreverent memoir is, at heart, extremely serious,” wrote Laurie Hertzel of a book that might not sound like it is. Subtitled “What I Learned About Life While Shearing Sheep, Dyeing Wool and Making the World's Ugliest Sweater,” it finds Orenstein facing multiple personal crises in the midst of the pandemic. Like many people, she responds by doing something with her hands. Unlike most of those people, she doesn't just knit a sweater but gathers her own wool and then cards and dyes it. The heavy

(and not-as-ugly-as-sheclaims) result is a sweater suitable only for when the Californian visits her father in Minnesota. But the point of the book is to talk about the environment, family and the work women do: “Making something from nothing is the quintessential magic of women, whether turning fiber to thread or flour to bread or engaging in the ultimate creative act: conjuring new humans from nowhere at all.”

A roundup of books about famous fires led several readers to write to ask, “Have you read `Fire Weather'? It's fantastic.” Thanks, guys! Vaillant's National Book Award finalist comes in three parts. The first establishes the context for what he calls the most intense fire on Earth, ever. It was in 2016 in Alberta, and it was brought about by a perfect storm: a dry spring, high winds, leafless trees, short-sighted officials and denial. A forest fire quickly torched nearly the entire city of Fort McMurray, which becomes the book equivalent of a disaster movie in Vaillant's gripping second section. His reporting gifts are complemented by an imaginative ability to help us understand, for instance, how 19th-century beaver pelt traders were like Netflix and how a fiberglass bus shelter could melt like a milk bottle. Vaillant's spectacular book is also, unfortunately, an urgent one.