cover image Health for Life: Secrets of Tibetan Ayurveda

Health for Life: Secrets of Tibetan Ayurveda

Robert Sachs. Clear Light Books, $24.95 (240pp) ISBN 978-0-940666-43-6

The winner of a Spur Award from the Western Writers of America, two Wrangler awards from the Cowboy Hall of Fame and other honors, Sinclair has written a memoir filled with honesty, humor and verve. Though born in New York, the author spent his formative years with a well-to-do family in Scotland and England, and nearly a third of his memoirs recalls the strict caste system and regime of aristocractic dos and don'ts. Nor was he comfortable living in a castle. It's no wonder he defected to the United States when sent to Canada to establish a cattle empire. From his lofty beginning to his current life (he's now 91) as a respected writer of the Southwest, one can admire Sinclair's courage in exchanging wealth and social position for the kind of total freedom Thoreau might admire. Sinclair's years as a cowboy, museum curator, husband and storyteller are deftly interwoven with his genuine love and reverence for both Native American and more recent settlers. His books, In Time of Harvest and others, deserve another look now that Sinclair has shared his story of what inspired it all. He himself is an inspiration. Photos. (Sept.)