Rating: 
Summary: Essential
Review: I loved The Meadow. The tone is gentle and captivating. The observations are indeed those of a poet. Lyle comes alive and will be remembered by anyone reading this book. The meadow itself is a beautiful character. Thanks Jim. Do another with this grace. Sentiment without sentimentality. Read it along with Pam Houston, Rick Bass, Terry Tempest Williams.
Rating:
Summary: Intriguing look at life in the west
Review: I loved this book.
Since I'm from southern Wyoming, the characters in the book reminded me of the independent nature of people in this part of teh country, and also reminded me of the lsot art of "doing for ones self".
Although I normally have a hard time with books that jump around in tiome, I enjoyed teh eway the author wrote about ideas as tehy came to him instead of in time sequesnce. Great book.
Rating:
Summary: Wore this book out.
Review: I read The Meadow. Read it again. Skipped to some of my favorite sections. Read them. Read the whole thing over again. Loaned it to my mother. She read it. Handed it to my father. He read it. My mother took it to her book club. Four members of the book club read it. I took it to work. Three coworkers read it. The book finally fell apart. So I bought a new copy. The images of life on the Meadow will undoubtedly stay with me for ages.
Rating:
Summary: Gorgeous, gorgeous writing
Review: I read this book slowly, going back, rereading a page two or three times, just to try to make it last longer. As a writer I was amazed at Galvin's control of his potentially unwieldy subject, the life of a certain remote piece of America. Let me put it this way - I am about to buy ten copies, just in case it ever goes out of print. I'll give them to the many people I know who would love this book as much as I do.
Rating:
Summary: Gorgeous, gorgeous writing
Review: I read this book slowly, going back, rereading a page two or three times, just to try to make it last longer. As a writer I was amazed at Galvin's control of his potentially unwieldy subject, the life of a certain remote piece of America. Let me put it this way - I am about to buy ten copies, just in case it ever goes out of print. I'll give them to the many people I know who would love this book as much as I do.
Rating: 
Summary: summary of my work going into the book
Review: I spent my whole life on the meadow. Lyle was a very close friend of mine and the book tells the story of some good friends of mine.
Rating:
Summary: Superb
Review: I was absolutely stunned by the superb story telling and the poetic quality of the well-crafted prose in James Galvin's _The Meadow_. This is *literature.* So if you have literary tastes and an interest in the American west, there is absolutely no doubt that you will enjoy this wonderful book. The realism of rural life in the mountains is combined with haunting personal stories that keep you reading. The author has a genuine empathy for nature and for the individual people who have the stamina to survive in a harsh environment. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Stunning--a gorgeously told story
Review: I would give this book 6 stars, maybe even ten, if it were possible. I read this book through the first time, closed the back cover, flipped the book over and started reading it again. I have never done that with another book, before or since. When poets turn to prose the reader is often in for a treat. Galvin is foremost a poet, and each word in this book was chosen with a poet's parsimony, a concern for space, a search for just the right word for the situation. The result is a beautiful book written in a spare style. Something else about this book--this is what nature writing should be. I am a life long student of and published writer in the genre, but recognize the truth in Joyce Carol Oates' criticism that nature writers display a limited range of emotions (and don't have a sense of humor!). What Galvin has done in The Meadow is make the landscape a character in the story, a challenge that few have risen to and even fewer have succeeded in affecting. Galvin's approach has added a welcome level of complexity to the tale. This is a real story about several generations of families struggling to survive in a beautiful but harsh landscape in northern Colorado. You can drive through the setting if you take the back-road between Estes Park and Laramie. The book is Western only its setting, otherwise it is innovative in its genre. If you're idea of Western Literature is cowboy and indian stories, look somewhere else.
Rating:
Summary: Stunning--a gorgeously told story
Review: I would give this book 6 stars, maybe even ten, if it were possible. I read this book through the first time, closed the back cover, flipped the book over and started reading it again. I have never done that with another book, before or since. When poets turn to prose the reader is often in for a treat. Galvin is foremost a poet, and each word in this book was chosen with a poet's parsimony, a concern for space, a search for just the right word for the situation. The result is a beautiful book written in a spare style. Something else about this book--this is what nature writing should be. I am a life long student of and published writer in the genre, but recognize the truth in Joyce Carol Oates' criticism that nature writers display a limited range of emotions (and don't have a sense of humor!). What Galvin has done in The Meadow is make the landscape a character in the story, a challenge that few have risen to and even fewer have succeeded in affecting. Galvin's approach has added a welcome level of complexity to the tale. This is a real story about several generations of families struggling to survive in a beautiful but harsh landscape in northern Colorado. You can drive through the setting if you take the back-road between Estes Park and Laramie. The book is Western only its setting, otherwise it is innovative in its genre. If you're idea of Western Literature is cowboy and indian stories, look somewhere else.
Rating:
Summary: Lyrical loving existential praise of the land and its people
Review: James Galvin is a poet from the CO-WY border. This is his first novel. It gives the 100-year history of a half-section meadow, about 8500 feet up, in terms of the people who owned and lived on it. One man, Lyle, lived on it for 50 years. It is a book about the relationship between people and the land, how a person (Lyle) can become so present with the land that he transcends his circumstances. It is lyrical, loving, existential writing. It sends you into reverie, while describing the process of living for a person you probably wouldn't look at twice. Galvin embues the characters with worth, while describing a hard-scrabble existence I wouldn't be able to survive. It is holographic. In some hard to define sense, each vignette defines the entire set of themes. This makes it structurally difficult, with several threads of narrative presented piecemeal and out of order. This merely adds to the charm of the whole. The book is absolutely incredible.
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