This book presents selected writings by acclaimed filmmaker Robert Gardner. There are journals written during filmmaking expeditions, observing and reacting to diverse ways of life. There are accounts of film projects envisioned and planned but not completed. There are essays on ways of life in premodern cultures that Gardner has observed firsthand. Also included are his voiceover narrations from the films "Dead Birds" "Rivers of Sand," which come to life in a new way on the page. In an interview, letters, and articles, Gardner addresses the subject of filmmaking and reflects on film's relation to anthropology and, more broadly, to the human project to understand reality. "A book of marvelous adventures with a camera and a series of meditations on diverse ways of life and making art by a wise and compassionate man." -Charles Simic