Nature Writing

Among the most beautiful and deadly mountains in the world, Mount Washington has challenged adventurers for centuries with its severe weather. From the days when gentlefolk ascended the heights in hoop skirts and wool suits to today’s high-tech assaults on wintry summits, this audiobook offers extensive and intimate profiles of people who found trouble on New Hampshire’s Presidential Range, from the 19th century through the present day.

In this collection of his finest work from such magazines as Outside and Smithsonian, Krakauer explores the subject from the unique and memorable perspective of one who has himself battled peaks like K2, Denali, Everest, and, of course, Eiger.

Wilderness guide and lifelong Alaskan Bjorn Dihle weaves personal experience with historical and contemporary accounts to explore the world of brown bears - from encounters with the Lewis and Clark Expedition to frightening attacks including the famed death of Timothy Treadwell, the controversies related to bear hunting, the animal's place in native cultures, and the impacts on the species from habitat degradation and climate change.

In this compelling narrative, O'Connor seeks out neuroscientists, anthropologists and master navigators to understand how navigation ultimately gave us our humanity. Biologists have been trying to solve the mystery of how organisms have the ability to migrate and orient with such precision - especially since our own adventurous ancestors spread across the world without maps or instruments. O'Connor goes to the Arctic, the Australian bush and the South Pacific to talk to masters of their environment who seek to preserve their traditions at a time when anyone can use a GPS to navigate.

Jeff Alt takes you along every step of his 2,160-mile Appalachian Trail adventure. This entertaining journey includes bears, bugs, blisters, captivating characters, skunk bedmates, and hilarious food cravings. Alt walked more than five million steps in tribute to his brother, who has cerebral palsy and lives in a home called Sunshine. This trail adventure has inspired an annual event that has raised more than $200,000 for Sunshine. It includes hiking tips for the whole family.

Off Grid and Free: My Path to the Wilderness is the story of the journey Ron Melchiore undertook as a young man from the city, first to homesteading in northern Maine and then to living in the bush of northern Saskatchewan. He has lived off grid since approximately 1980 and speaks candidly about the joys and the tribulations of his chosen lifestyle.

Though Christians affirm that the Old Testament bears witness to Christ, how the Old Testament writers did this is a matter of extensive debate. Furthermore, Christian biblical scholars also debate the degree to which contemporary interpreters of the Bible can follow the hermeneutics of the New Testament authors in using the Old Testament to point to the person and work of Jesus Christ. Five Views on Christ in the Old Testament is the first book to bring together in conversation the major views on how the Old Testament points to Christ.

The Neversink River in New York’s Catskill Mountains, with its plunges and gorges, is one of the world’s great trout streams. This treasury from the finest fly-fishing writers takes a revelatory look at the river from its earliest days right up to the present, and from its origins high on Slide Mountain to the wild and deep ledge pools where the biggest fish live.

Deserts are environments that can be inhospitable even to seasoned explorers. Craig Childs has spent years in the deserts of the American West, and his treks through arid lands in search of water reveal the natural world at its most extreme.

In No Shortage of Good Days John Gierach takes listeners from the Smokies in Tennessee to his home waters in Colorado, from the Canadian Maritimes to Mexico - saltwater or fresh, it's all fishing and all irresistible. As always he writes perceptively about a wide range of subjects: the charm of familiar waters, the etiquette of working with new fishing guides, night fishing when the trout and the mosquitoes are both biting, and fishing snobbery, a pitfall he seems to have largely avoided.

Whether your idea of camping is in a tiny tent, a luxury RV, or somewhere in between, nothing beats having fun with family and friends in the fresh air. Relive favorite memories of childhood vacations and get excited for future outdoor adventures with these humorous and heartwarming recollections from best-selling author and camping enthusiast Melody Carlson. Pack your gear and hit the road with Melody.

Polly Letofsky left her Colorado home and headed west across four continents and over 14,000 miles - by foot - to become the first woman to walk around the world. In a spirit of adventure, along with the goal of raising global awareness for breast cancer, strangers welcomed her into their homes. The world had embraced her. But in the middle of Polly's journey, 9/11 flung us all into a crossroads in world history, and she found herself navigating a vastly changing world.

From a rough childhood to a distinguished United States Air Force career, Jason France’s life has been a whirlwind of sacrifice, service, and personal struggle. But it has also been filled with amazing opportunities and incredible experiences. After retiring from serving over three decades in uniform—and holding one of the highest enlisted leadership positions in the military—Jason embarks on a solo trek to hike the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail. His five-month journey to rediscover himself and fulfill a childhood dream turns out to be far more than he imagined.

Award-winning author Jim Murphy whisks you back in time to witness the disastrous 1871 Chicago fire. He depicts the tragedy so vividly, you can almost feel the scorching heat and hear the roar of the blaze as it reduces the bustling city to a smoldering wasteland.

Join author Tim Hauserman on his solo journeys through the Sierra Nevada and the forests of Minnesota. Hauserman shares his experiences hiking by himself through some of the most spectacular landscapes in the United States. Along the way, he confronts his conflicting desires to be alone in the wilderness, then facing profound loneliness and fear once he is there. In a single instant, he goes from enjoying a shimmering mountain lake to being petrified by the sound of a bear crunching through sticks right next to his tent.

Adelaide loves writing. Bear loves writing. But Theo does NOT love writing. Thankfully, Adelaide and Bear are ready to team up and persuade the entire class, including Mrs. Fitz-Pea, that Bears make the best writing buddies. After all, who better to teach you how to fish and forage for new ideas than a bear? This third book in Carmen Oliver's Bears Make the Best...series is sure to encourage even the most reluctant writer to write a story.

Outdoor writer Mike Arnold takes us on an impressionistic journey through Coutada 11, a once again magnificent natural area in Mozambique's Zambeze Delta. Mike leads us from its poached-out days as a source of bush meat for starving villagers and civil war military troops to the arrival in the early '90s of hunting outfitter Mark Haldane and his partners, on their often perilous, sometimes hilarious, travails to take the defiled and uninhabitable place and make it whole again.

At 23, Andrew Forsthoefel headed out the back door of his home in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, with a backpack, an audio recorder, his copies of Whitman and Rilke, and a sign that read "Walking to Listen". He had just graduated from Middlebury College and was ready to begin his adult life, but he didn't know how. So he decided to take a cross-country quest for guidance, one where everyone he met would be his guide. In the year that followed, he faced an Appalachian winter and a Mojave summer. He met beasts inside: fear, loneliness, doubt.

For years, America's national parks have provided public breathing spaces in a world in which such spaces are steadily disappearing, which is why close to 300 million people visit the parks each year. Now, to honor the centennial of the National Park Service, Terry Tempest Williams, the author of the beloved memoir When Women Were Birds, returns with The Hour of Land, a literary celebration of our national parks, what they mean to us, and what we mean to them.

Back again with even more "mostly true" tales from the trail, Lawton Grinter's new book I Hike Again is sure to find a place in every adventurer's library! I Hike Again imparts hard-earned wisdom from trails both in the United States (Arizona Trail, Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, Continental Divide Trail, Grand Enchantment Trail, Wind River High Route) and abroad (Spain's GR11 and New Zealand's Te Araroa).