I picked John Muir's "My first summer in the Sierra" because I have heard of him before but I was not sure what he wrote about. I read the first and the fourth chapter of the book and I liked the language Muir used because it was easy to read and did not make me want to skip through the lines. The way Muir described certain things amazed me because I felt like his description reflected the subject he was talking about in a very special, unusual way. For example, the sentence "...by the end of May it is dead and dry and crisp, as if every plant had been roasted in an oven" makes me, and i think, other readers, picture plants that are actually being roasted. I believe that the language he uses is absolutely incredible because it is very different from other books about nature. Even though Muir's ideas were not new to me because the modern society brings them up more and more often, they are new in that context. Surrounded by description of John Muir's trip to the mountains, such idea as "it seems extravagant to spend hours so precious in sleep... instead of gazing forever, like the stars" reminds of my own experiences of trying to get work done, get enough sleep and live a normal life, and attempting to enjoy simplicity at the same time. It makes me realize that a normal life is not very "normal" if it lacks such things as being able to enjoy nature. I believe that the feeling of not having enough time for everything appeals to many people and therefore unites us. Thus, Muir does a very good job making us reflect on our own feelings and problems as we are reading "My first summer in the Sierra".