If the purpose is implicit, tell what you think the purpose of the book is and why.

Terry Tempest Williams' purpose is to share her intimate relationship with nature with her audience and perhaps remind them of their possible relationship with nature. I think that she wants her audience to glimpse something of what they could feel towards nature. The back of the book reads: "Through the grace of her stories we come to see how a lack of intimacy with the natural world has initiated a lack of intimacy with each other." I think that that hints at her purpose as well. Through her essays, Williams wants her readers to understand that being close with nature opens the door to be close with human beings on a deeper level. I also think she's sort of trying to guilt trip her readers, or maybe just make them jealous of her profound link to all things wild. She wants them to recognize all that they take for granted in the world. She wants them to want to have the same connection she does with the earth. She writes about not just appreciation and respect for nature, but about deep and profound love and intimacy for it. Her purpose is to convey the importance of that type of intimate relationship to her readers, and if possible convince them to have a connection like it with nature. She wants to start of flood of naturalists who care as deeply as she does.