Caroline Tracey, an acclaimed American journalist and critic, has spent years visiting salt lakes around the world, documenting how human activity and a warming climate are reshaping these fragile ecosystems. In Salt Lakes: An Unnatural History (WW Norton), out this week in the US, she offers what her publisher calls “a dazzling love letter to strange and delicate waters and a moving odyssey into her own identity”. The book has featured recently in publications including Nature, High Country News and The New York Times.