I'm not really sure how I came across "Long Quiet Highway," but I found the book in one of my many book stashes. I'm sure that once upon a time I saw that Natalie Goldberg had written this and since I'd read "Wild Mind" and parts of "Writing Down the Bones", I knew I'd be in for a writing treat.
As an English teacher, I'm always looking for good books that teach about the writing process. While Wild Mind is more of a guide for topics to write about, "Long Quiet Highway" is part auto-biography and biography. The biography element tells about Goldberg's most influential teacher, her Buddhism teacher: Katagiri Roshi.
Goldberg describes her own restlessness in her quest for a purpose and in her marriage. Only through Buddhism and through her deepened interest in writing does she begin to gain a sense of quiet calm like her teacher. Goldberg's story is interesting in that it is multi-textured with her descriptions of childhood memories of classrooms, her parents and grandparents and the old-world ways, as well as her descriptions of New York, New Mexico and Minnesota.
This book is for anyone interested the writing process and the ways that writing teaches its students to dive inward for inspiration and for understanding.
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