The author has been many things in life, and now, age 72, decides he must reinvent his life where a great Oregon forest meets tidal marshes along a deep water slough. Surrounded by more than 1,000 acres of timberland and marsh, he builds a road and a house, raises oysters, forages for berries, mushrooms, and greens, and begins a photographic record of lives around him—deer, elk, coyotes, bobcats, bears, cougars, seals, sea lions, and a great variety of water birds. Like Thoreau, he writes about his own life because there is nobody else he knows so well. What he discovers about life, however, transcends the individual. The author’s first memoir, Coming Out of the Woods (Perseus/Hatchette 2001) is a traditional memoir, but A Guest of Time continues the story in a much different format, one more appealing to contemporary readers. While the essays develop the narrative thread of reinventing a life in its last season, each can be read by itself. The easy reading short narratives illustrated with the author's fine photographs make this a book that can be opened and read almost anywhere. Kaufman applies recent revelations from neuroscience, ecology, wildlife biology, and evolutionary psychology to challenge and revise how we think even about ourselves. Humans have made horrendous mistakes, yet the author reminds us that as far as we know, we are the only species that cares about other species. We are the only species that plans for the future. In many ways these stories are a single love story. And we will ultimately save only what we love.