Now, award-winning nature writer David Gessner follows the ghosts of these two remarkable writer-environmentalists from Stegner's birthplace in Saskatchewan to the site of Abbey's pilgrimages to Arches National Park in Utah, braiding their stories and asking how they speak to the lives of all those who care about the West.These two great westerners had very different ideas about what it meant to love the land and try to care for it, and they did so in distinctly different styles. Boozy, lustful, and irascible, Abbey was best known as the author of the novel The Monkey Wrench Gang (and also of the classic nature memoir Desert Solitaire), famous for spawning the idea of guerrilla actions—known to admirers as "monkeywrenching" and to law enforcement as domestic terrorism—to disrupt commercial exploitation of western lands. By contrast, Stegner, a buttoned-down, disciplined, faithful family man and devoted professor of creative writing, dedicated himself to working through the system to protect western sites such as Dinosaur National Monument in Colorado.In a region beset by droughts and fires, by fracking and drilling, and by an ever-growing population that seems to be in the process of loving the West to death, Gessner asks: how might these two farseeing environmental thinkers have responded to the crisis?Gessner takes us on an inspiring, entertaining journey as he renews his own commitment to cultivating a meaningful relationship with the wild, confronting American overconsumption, and fighting environmental injustice—all while reawakening the thrill of the words of his two great heroes.

    She finds this and much more in a town with the unlikely name of Chicken, located deep in the Alaskan interior. It is 1927 and Chicken is a wild mining community flaming with gold fever. Anne quickly makes friends with many of the townspeople, but is soon ostracized when she not only befriends the local Indians but also falls in love with one. A heartwarming story in the tradition of Benedict Freedman's classic, Mrs. Mike, Tisha is one of those rare books that stays with the reader for years, beckoning to be read again and again. --Maudeen Wachsmith

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    When this book was first published in 1898, it was an international plea for justice. Just as Admiral Thomas had restored Hawaiian sovereignty in 1843 following an illegal action by Lord Paulet, Queen Lili'uokalani prayed that the American nation would similarly reestablish the Hawaiian throne. Queen Lili'uokalani died on November 11, 1917, her poignant plea for justice unanswered. "If a big wave comes in large fishes will come from the dark ocean which you never saw before, and when they see the small fishes they will eat them up; such also is the case with large animals, they will prey on the smaller ones; the ships of the whitemen have come, and smart people have arrived from the Great Countries which you have never seen before, they know our people are few in number and living in a small country; they will eat us up, such has always been the case with large countries, the small ones have been gobbled up." - David Malo

    In Baseball's Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy, Tygiel penned a classic work, a landmark book that towers above most writing about the sport. Now he ranges across the last century and a half in anintriguing look at baseball as history, and history as reflected in baseball.In Past Time, Tygiel gives us a seat behind home plate, where we catch the ongoing interplay of baseball and American society. We begin in New York in the 1850s, where pre-Civil War nationalism shaped the emergence of a national pastime. We witness the true birth of modern baseball with thedevelopment of its elaborate statistics--the brainchild of English-born reformer, Henry Chadwick. Chadwick, Tygiel writes, created the sport's historical essence and even imparted a moral dimension to the game with his concepts of errors and unearned runs. Tygiel offers equally insightfullooks at the role of rags-to-riches player-owners in the formation of the upstart American League and he describes the complex struggle to establish African-American baseball in a segregated world. He also examines baseball during the Great Depression (when Branch Rickey and Larry MacPhail savedthe game by perfecting the farm system, night baseball, and radio broadcasts), the ironies of Bobby Thomson's immortal shot heard 'round the world, the rapid relocation of franchises in the 1950s and 1960s, and the emergence of rotisserie leagues and fantasy camps in the 1980s.In Past Time, Jules Tygiel provides baseball history with a difference. Instead of a pitch-by-pitch account of great games, in this groundbreaking book, the field is American history and baseball itself is the star.

    "-Washington Post Book WorldIn 1909 maps still identified eastern Montana as the Great American Desert.  But in that year Congress, lobbied heavily by railroad companies, offered 320-acre tracts of land to anyone bold or foolish enough to stake a claim to them. Drawn by shamelessly inventive brochures, countless homesteaders--many of them immigrants--went west to make their fortunes. Most failed. In Bad Land, Jonathan Raban travels through the unforgiving country that was the scene of their dreams and undoing, and makes their story come miraculously alive.     In towns named Terry, Calypso, and Ismay (which changed its name to Joe, Montana, in an effort to attract football fans), and in the landscape in between, Raban unearths a vanished episode of American history, with its own ruins, its own heroes and heroines, its own hopeful myths and bitter memories. Startlingly observed, beautifully written, this book is a contemporary classic of the American West. "Exceptional. . . .  A beautifully told historical meditation. "--Time"Championship prose. . . .  In fifty years don't be surprised if Bad Land is a landmark."--Los Angeles Times

    In 1889, Bly went around the world as a journalism "stunt" to beat the fictional record of Jules Verne's Phileas Fogg -- and even made a stop in France to meet Verne. Since no cover image has shown up for this edition, shown is an 1890s advertising card with Nellie Bly belting up the world.

    Along the way he reflects on the American character, racial hostility, the particular form of American loneliness he finds almost everywhere, and the unexpected kindness of strangers.

    Months later, when the snow finally melted, only one of them emerged. His name was Alfred G. Packer, though he would soon become infamous throughout the country under a different name: “the Man-Eater.”After the butchered remains of his five traveling companions were discovered in a secluded valley by the Gunnison River, Packer vanished for nine years, becoming the West’s most wanted man. What followed was a saga of evasion and retribution as the trial of the century worked to extricate fact from myth and Polly Pry, a once-famed pioneering journalist, took on the cause of Packer. Man-Eater is the definitive story of a legendary crime—a gripping tale of unspeakable suffering, the desperate struggle for survival, and the fight to uncover the truth.

    A memoir in the form of tales told by Rinpoche toward the end of his life, the book spans his lifetime — a lifetime rich in adventures of both spirit and body. His reminiscences weave a rich tapestry of family history and also describe the lives of some of the most realized and genuine practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism.

    For centuries, it has lured explorers, including Spanish conquistador Herman Cortes. Some intrepid souls got lost within its dense canopy; some disappeared. Others never made it out alive. Then, in 1939, an American explorer and spy named Theodore Morde claimed that he had located this El Dorado-like city. Yet before he revealed its location, Morde died under strange circumstances, giving credence to those who believe that the spirits of the Ciudad Blanca killed him.Is this lost city real or only a tantalyzing myth? What secrets does the jungle hold? What continues to draw explorers into the unknown jungleland at such terrific risk? In this absorbing true-life thriller, journalist Christopher S. Stewart sets out to find answers—a white-knuckle adventure that combines Morde’s wild, enigmatic tale with Stewart’s own epic journey to find the truth about the White City.

     First published in 1968, In a Narrow Grave is the classic statement of what it means to come from Texas. In these essays, McMurtry opens a window into the past and present of America's largest state. In his own words: "Before I was out of high school, I realized I was witnessing the dying of a way of life -- the rural, pastoral way of life. In the Southwest the best energies were no longer to be found on the homeplace, or in the small towns; the cities required these energies and the cities bought them...." "I recognized, too, that the no-longer-open but still spacious range on which my ranching family had made its livelihood...would not produce a livelihood for me or for my siblings and their kind....The myth of the cowboy grew purer every year because there were so few actual cowboys left to contradict it...." "I had actually been living in cities for fourteen years when I pulled together these essays; intellectually I had been a city boy, but imaginatively, I was still trudging up the dusty path that led out of the country...."An introduction: the God abandons Texas --Here's HUD in your eye --Cowboys, movies, myths, & Cadillacs: an excursus on ritual forms in the western movie --Southwestern literature? --Eros in Archer County --A look at the lost frontier --The old soldier's joy --Love, death, and the Astrodome --A handful of roses --Take my saddle from the wall: a valediction

    Fans of the hilarious essays that made up the author's first book, Zen Confidential, will find even more hilarity here--along with Zen insight applied to the things that happen in this thing called daily life. Whereas Shozan Jack Haubner's first book presented the Zen teaching in terms of outhouse-building, oyroki-bowl-stacking, and anatomy adjustment as one takes one seat on the zafu, this one goes deeper into experiences of love, death, and sex. And though the writing is still funny, it bears the mark of a guy who's been through the mill and who's come back to save all beings. The wide-ranging experiences of this funny and insightful monk--both inside and outside the monastery--include his memories of the dysfunctional Midwestern family life that led him ultimately to Zen practice (with a father resembling Mel Gibson on a bad day) and his confrontation with the everyday insanity that seems to arise whenever anyone declares, -I think I should be a monk!- Among the less-funny stuff is his harrowing brush with death from pancreatitis and his moving experience of the death of a dear friend. There's also a graphic account of the night he got stoned and went -over the wall- from the monastery to have some real fun. That he pulls it all off and it's still hilarious, moving, and profoundly expressive of Zen wisdom is a tribute to Haubner's gifts as a writer and humorist, but also to the sincerity of his practice. The insight makes the humor even funnier somehow, and the humor makes the insight hit home with much power.

    They would establish a British colony, find gold, and discover a water route to Asia. But what awaited them was far different - fire, hunger, sickness, death, even cannibalism. Here, from the noted historian Marshall W. Fishwick, is the dramatic story of Jamestown and the struggle of its leader, Captain John Smith, who, with the help of Pocahontas, daughter of the Algonquian chief Powhatan, succeeded against all odds.

    Both have democratic polities, mixed-enterprise economies, individuated societies, pluralist cultures, and a deep concern for human rights and the rule of law. But all ofthese elements take different forms, because constellations of value are far apart. The dream of living free is America's Polaris; fairness and natural justice are New Zealand's Southern Cross.Fischer asks why these similar countries went different ways. Both were founded by English-speaking colonists, but at different times and with disparate purposes. They lived in the first and second British Empires, which operated in very different ways. Indians and Maori were important agents ofchange, but to different ends. On the American frontier and in New Zealand's Bush, material possibilities and moral choices were not the same. Fischer takes the same comparative approach to parallel processes of nation-building and immigration, women's rights and racial wrongs, reform causes andconservative responses, war-fighting and peace-making, and global engagement in our own time--with similar results.On another level, this book expands Fischer's past work on liberty and freedom. It is the first book to be published on the history of fairness. And it also poses new questions in the old tradition of history and moral philosophy. Is it possible to be both fair and free? In a vast array ofevidence, Fischer finds that the strengths of these great values are needed to correct their weaknesses. As many societies seek to become more open--never twice in the same way, an understanding of our differences is the only path to peace.