In ‘Unsolaced,’ a writer returns with alarm about the present and future By Gretel Ehrlich. Pantheon Books, 2021. 237 pages. $26.95. ’Unsolaced: Along the Way to All That Is, ’ by Gretel Ehrlich It’s been 37 years since “The Solace of Open Spaces,” Gretel Ehrlich’s well-known and loved classic book about her life in Wyoming, was published. After a dozen more books of lyrical writing about her life, travel, and inquiry into the fate of the world, she’s returned with what she calls a “bookend” to that early book. The essays in “Unsolaced,” some incorporating material from previous books and essays, form a sober recollection and reflection, not just of the author’s Wyoming years, but in response to her travels in Greenland, Africa, Kosovo, Japan, California and Alaska and the fragility of life on our planet. Throughout, Ehrlich, now in her 70s, struggles with the idea of finding solace in wide-open nature or anywhere at all, and redefines for herself the meanings of loss, love and uncertainty.