Many dream of the camping trip that never ends. Surely our best selves are found in nature, right? In Diane Cook’s novel The New Wilderness, a mother saves her daughter from pollution-induced asthma by moving to the Wilderness State, an experimental preserve where a small group of volunteers live nomadically as hunter-gatherers. The air is clean, the water runs clear, and the night sky sparkles. There’s also a Manual, capital M, a sort of Leave No Trace set of rules to keep the Wilderness State pristine, and Rangers for reinforcement. All effort is toward survival; when a person dies—from a cougar mauling, river crossing, or simply being left behind due to injury—there are no funerals. As years go by, the utopian vision oozes into disturbing desperation. Fans of Ursula K. Le Guin and Margaret Atwood will love this dark, all-too-real story of our relationship with nature and each other. I’ve read it three times just for immersion in her world building.