National Geographic Complete National Parks of the United States: 400+ Parks, Monuments, Battlefields, Historic Sites, Scenic Trails, Recreation Areas, and Seashores


Mel White - 2010
    And the National Geographic Society has been involved with this forward-looking, environmentally-minded department from the very beginning.This extensive travel planner covers not just the 58 official National Parks but also the nearly 350 additional properties in the Park Service's domain. The premier Parks are described in detail, but equal attention is given to the National Monuments, Memorials, Preserves, Historic Sites, Battlefields, Cemeteries, and Seashores, not to mention a network of "National Trails" and even the intriguingly referred to "Affiliated Areas." From Yellowstone to the Statue of Liberty, from the hallowed ground of Gettysburg National Military Park to the Pacific waters shrouding Hawaii's USS Arizona Memorial, this catalog spans American history and territory both, with practical advice on how to reach each park, when to go, and what to do there.

The Years of the Forest


Helen Hoover - 1973
    It is a book of wilderness adventure, it is an education in the ingenuities of wilderness housekeeping, filled with practical details about making do, building and rebuilding, gardening for fun and for food, even advice about getting away from getting-away-from-it-all.

Big Twitch: One Man, One Continent, a Race Against Time: A True Story about Birdwatching


Sean Dooley - 2005
    In this amusing memoir, he recounts his quest, including how he spent all of his inheritance from the untimely death of his parents to make his dream a reality. Populated by unusual characters and interesting species of birds, this part confessional–part travelogue for both bird nerds and the general population follows the author as he works out what it means to be normal despite his unusually avid compulsion toward twitching.

American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau


Bill McKibben - 2008
    Classics of the environmental imagination—the essays of Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and John Burroughs; Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac; Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring—are set against the inspiring story of an emerging activist movement, as revealed by newly uncovered reports of pioneering campaigns for conservation, passages from landmark legal opinions and legislation, and searing protest speeches. Here are some of America’s greatest and most impassioned writers, taking a turn toward nature and recognizing the fragility of our situation on earth and the urgency of the search for a sustainable way of life. Thought-provoking essays on overpopulation, consumerism, energy policy, and the nature of “nature” join ecologists’ memoirs and intimate sketches of the habitats of endangered species. The anthology includes a detailed chronology of the environmental movement and American environmental history, as well as an 80-page color portfolio of illustrations.

Spiral Jetta: A Road Trip through the Land Art of the American West


Erin Hogan - 2008
    Her journey took her through the states of Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. It also took her through the states of anxiety, drunkenness, disorientation, and heat exhaustion. Spiral Jetta is a chronicle of this journey.A lapsed art historian and devoted urbanite, Hogan initially sought firsthand experience of the monumental earthworks of the 1970s and the 1980s—Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty, Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels, Walter De Maria’s Lightning Field, James Turrell’s Roden Crater, Michael Heizer’s Double Negative, and the contemporary art mecca of Marfa, Texas. Armed with spotty directions, no compass, and less-than-desert-appropriate clothing, she found most of what she was looking for and then some.

Earth to Table: Seasonal Recipes from an Organic Farm


Jeff Crump - 2009
    Subtitled “Seasonal Recipes from an Organic Farm,” Earth to Table sumptuously illuminates how good food is grown and how it comes to us—following over the course of one year, the journey from farm to restaurant of delicious organic produce. Featuring thoughts and recipes from some of the world’s most renowned and innovative “slow food” chefs—including Dan Barber (Blue Hill), Thomas Keller (The French Laundry), Matthew Dillon (Sitka and Spruce), and Heston Blumenthal (The Fat Duck)—here is a glorious celebration of the best things on earth, from Earth to Table.

Window Seat: Reading the Landscape from the Air


Gregory Dicum - 2004
    Broken down by region, this unusual guide features 70 aerial photographs; a fold-out map of North America showing major flight paths; profiles of each region covering its landforms, waterways, and cities; tips on spotting major sights, such as the Northern Lights, the Grand Canyon, and Disney World; tips on spotting not-so-major sights such as prisons, mines, and Interstates; and straightforward, friendly text on cloud shapes, weather patterns, the continent's history, and more. A terrific book for kids, frequent flyers, and armchair travelers alike, Window Seat is packed with curious facts and colorful illustration, proving that flying doesn't have to be a snooze. When it's possible to "read" the landscape from above, a whole world unfolds at your feet.

My Polar Dream


Jade Hameister - 2018
    An adventurer who endured extremes of cold and blizzards; tackled treacherous terrain where one wrong step could be fatal; struggled through sastrugi, ice rubble and emotional lows to achieve an extraordinary goal.Along the way, she made a sandwich for online trolls, inspired young people, and made international headlines.At sixteen, Jade Hameister became the youngest person in history to complete the Polar Hat Trick.Jade is:*The youngest person to ski from the coast of Antarctica to South Pole unsupported and unassisted* The first Australian woman in history to ski coast to Pole unsupported and unassisted* The first woman to set a new route to the South Pole* The youngest to ski to both Poles* The youngest to complete the Polar Hat Trick.

No. 204 is Going Home: A True Story of Love, Survival, and Motherhood


Marie Lindstrom - 2021
    She’d never hear him again if she didn’t survive the tragedy…Marie Lindstrom was ready to take on the world. After months of research poured into planning a birthday trip to remember, the mother of two beamed with happiness as they touched down in Thailand. And she was positive they were bound for a trek full of lasting memories… until the tsunami wave hit.Terrified by the prospect of losing all she held dear, Marie struggled to keep her head above water after being swept underground and enshrouded in darkness. But even after the catastrophe passed and she embraced what remained, the guilt accompanying her survival proved staggering.Would the soul-wrenching pain tear her apart or be miraculously transformative?No. 204 is Going Home is a heart-shaking memoir about the unbreakable strength of motherhood. If you like honest depictions of disaster, raw emotional transformations, and moving accounts of healing, then you’ll love Marie Lindstrom’s sail through calamity.Buy No. 204 is Going Home to stare into the maw of real-life terror today!

Walking Home: A Woman's Pilgrimage on the Appalachian Trail


Kelly Winters - 2001
    She recounts the travails of attempting to thru-hike the entire trail and recalls the many characters she met who were also thru- hiking the 2,000 mile trai

Civilizations: Culture, Ambition, and the Transformation of Nature


Felipe Fernández-Armesto - 2000
     To the author, Oxford historian Felipe Fernández-Armesto, a society's relationship to climate, geography, and ecology are paramount in determining its degree of success. "Unlike previous attempts to write the comparative history of civilizations," he writes, "it is arranged environment by environment, rather than period by period or society by society." Thus, for example, tundra civilizations of Ice Age Europe are linked with those of the Inuit of the Pacific Northwest, the Mississippi Mound Builders with the deforesters of eleventh-century Europe. Civilizations brilliantly connects the world of ecologist, geologist, and geographer with the panorama of cultural history.

Hunger Mountain: A Field Guide to Mind and Landscape


David Hinton - 2012
    His broad-ranging discussion offers insight on everything from the mountain landscape to the origins of consciousness and the Cosmos, from geology to Chinese landscape painting, from parenting to pictographic oracle-bone script, to a family chutney recipe. It’s a spiritual ecology that is profoundly ancient and at the same time resoundingly contemporary. Your view of the landscape—and of your place in it—may never be the same.

Henry James' Midnight Song


Carol de Chellis Hill - 1993
    Yet Vienna is a society on the edge of chaos. Beneath the glittering surface it seethes with conflict and ethnic tension. Divided by anti-Semitism, racism, feminism, sex, and the denial of sex, it is a society remarkably similar to our own. The Plot: The women of Vienna are dying - some by murder, some by suicide. During Dr. Freud's absence in Paris, a body is found in his study but disappears as quickly as it was discovered. Was there really a murder or was it merely hysteria on the part of Freud's wife and sister-in-law? How does this body fit into the recent epidemic of women's mysterious deaths in Vienna? Into the web of deceit, murder, and social upheaval step a variety of "real" characters, each with something to hide, who become suspects in the case: the distinguished novelist Edith Wharton, who comes to Vienna to engage in a passionate illicit affair; her friend and traveling companion Henry James, who has consulted Freud about his own secret trespasses; Freud's colleagues Dr. Jung and Dr. Fliess; and Jung's patient-lover, Sabina Spielrein. Drawn into the plot as well are the Mains, the family of an American businessman, along with Police Inspector LeBlanc, who arrives from Paris to pursue the strange case amid mounting anti-Semitic desire to lay blame for the murders at the door of Jews. Will the inspector solve the murders before a riot ensues? The Novel: Is fiction, as Henry James says, just the other side of history? Is Vienna in 1900 merely a stage on which the same tensions that haunt American society today are being given a dress rehearsal? Are we, like the Viennese of 1900, suffering from fin de siècle syndrome? Is there such a thing? Combining the historical imagination of Ragtime with the intellectual audacity of Flaubert's Parrot, Henry James' Midnight Song brilliantly blends history and fiction in a fast-moving, breathtakingly original novel of ideas.

Desert Sojourn: A Woman's Forty Days and Nights Alone


Debi Holmes-Binney - 2000
    Armed with only basic supplies and her writing journals, she spent an extended sojourn in a place by turns physically terrifying, psychologically invigorating, and gloriously beautiful. Her moving account will appeal to both physical and spiritual adventurers.

High Tide On Main Street: Rising Sea Level and the Coming Coastal Crisis


John Englander - 2012
    Sea level will rise for at least 1,000 years. Shorelines will shift significantly by 2050 Property values may start to decline this decade. Rising sea level is the most profound long-term aspect of climate change. Yet, the public is almost completely unaware of the magnitude of the problem. For three million years sea level regularly moved up and down almost 400 feet with the ice age cycles. Now, after 6,000 years of minimal change, we are entering a new era of rapid sea level rise. In clear, easy-to-understand language, this book explains: * The science behind sea level rise, plus the myths and partial truths used to confuse the issue. * The surprising forces that will cause sea level to rise for 1,000 years, as well as the possibility of catastrophic rise this century. * Why the devastating economic effects will not be limited to the coasts. * Why coastal property values will go “underwater” long before the land does, perhaps as early as this decade. * Five points of “intelligent adaptation” that can help individuals, businesses, and communities protect investments now and in the future.