Salt Lakes: An Unnatural History

An acclaimed nature writer’s dazzling love letter to a strange ecosystem and a moving odyssey into her own identity.

More than a hundred salt lakes dot Earth’s surface, most of them hidden away in remote desert valleys. But today nearly all of them are at risk of drying up. Their death is a harbinger of rising sea levels, life-threatening dust storms, and environmental collapse.

Writer and geographer Caroline Tracey didn’t know this when she began crossing paths with salt lakes during her ear...