A Q&A With Cheryl Strayed, Author Of The Wildly Successful Wild

“Strayed has a special talent for glimmering, golden turns of phrase that seem to hold all the promise and hope in the world — they’re Bible verses for a secular audience — but these are not the sort of cheesy mottos that you’ll find on, say, motivational posters on Pinterest. … Take for example: ‘The best thing you can possibly do with your life is to tackle the motherfucking shit out of love.'”

Denver, Where DIY Means Build Your Own (Stunning) Guitar

“The instruments often are no-going-back kind of propositions: Make a good one, and you’ll never buy a guitar from the rack again. Denver tech worker Tracy Leveque, 46, has built several guitars, but he said the the last, which he built under Dick’s instruction, was especially fabulous. Still, he sometimes visits guitar shops, and goes straight to the lock-and-key rooms where guitars begin at $5,000, and gives them a whirl. ‘And nothing compares,’ he said. ‘I never found something I would buy.'”