Although Dr. Susan Swetnnam is an award winning professor, public servant, researcher, humanitarian, athlete, baker and knitter, along with being a well published author, it is clear, after reading Home Mountains, she is most importantly a real woman. The collection of charming personal essays, recounts life experiences which can be read for simple entertainment, as a good read, or can be interpreted for a deeper, more individual meaning. It's easy to visulalize the characters in Swetnam's stories, fron the "heavy-set, tightly-permanented woman" taking entries at the County Fair, to the Beauty horse with "her short cocoa legs and stocky golden brown body extended in an exaggerated waking cat pull, black mane tossed out of her eyes." Her appreciation of her home mountains, located in the Caribou National Forest, will entice the reader to look again at their own home "mountains" and find deeper awareness of their physical surroundings. The lessons learned from Swetnam's life parallel meanings readers can identify with. Such as facing the fears that came from her childhood, including the fear of fire, and worse, the fear of living the mundane life of her parents. Along with using the fear of losing the love of her life, in order to keep her eyes open and alert to the life she has with him. In addition, the reader will rejoice with Swetnam as she transforms her humble, vulnerable, and often humorous experiences into insightful examples, learning, among other things, the importance of ordinary time and casual relationships, and letting go, and the pleasures of being alone and how it feels to be loved. The essays can be read individually in small doses to be thought about, or straight through with out being overwhelming. The articles stand alone, but blend together nicely. Take an afternoon and get lost in Swetnam's life, laugh at her characters, envision her mountains, and try not to fall in love with her husband.