When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice (2012) by Terry Tempest Williams is both moving and masterful in its craft. This just-over-two-hundred-page memoir is a small book that fits easily in a purse or a large pocket. It is one designed to be taken along when you leave the house. When Women Were Birds weaves Williams’s personal and family histories with that of the land on which she came of age. As any fan of Williams will expect, this slender volume includes many a powerful metaphor, startling anecdote, and compelling social-justice perspective.