Stories of disappearance, of losing oneself, of wandering, and of rediscovery. Comfort and guidance for a freer life. Rebecca Solnit tells the tale of the Spanish conquistador Cabeza de Vaca, who gets lost on the American continent only to find himself as a different person in a new skin. She writes about the life of her great-grandmother, who first gets lost among Russian, Polish, and Yiddish, and then on her journey from Eastern Europe to the American West Coast. She shares her own story and her world. It is always about abandonment and devotion, about stories as paths, about taking unknown routes. She gently lures us into wandering. As in "Wanderlust," her cultural history of walking, the author also demonstrates her crystal-clear observational skills in "The Art of Losing Oneself," awakening our willingness to pursue random and surprising discoveries. No one understands how to tell life stories as they are—an accumulation of personal, lived, dreamed, found, and invented tales—like Rebecca Solnit, who, like a gold digger, uncovers and shares them with us.