With her usual astonishing candour, acclaimed author Rona Murray searches for meaning in the aftermath of a near-fatal car accident she survived five years ago. Her account of her own and others' near-death experiences addresses the various types of knowledge gained through such a trauma, and the ways one's life changes from that point forward.

Murray incorporates perspectives ranging from personal to spiritual, scientific to metaphysical, in this wide-ranging, thought-provoking reflection.

Much has been written, and continues to be written, about "the environment," humanity's place in nature, and all those deeply troubling questions that face all of us on this planet at the advent of the 21st century. With this book, Rona Murray makes a contribution to that literature that is utterly exceptional. This is a book that belongs on the same shelf with the work of Henry David Thoreau. It is written in an intimate, lively and intelligent voice. It is part belles lettres, part theology, part poetry, and part new science. It is a rare book, because it's about the things that actually matter.—TERRY GLAVIN

Memoir/Philosophy, 158 pp, 6 x 9
ISBN 1-55039-100-3, paper, $14.95