100 books like All the Wild That Remains

By David Gessner,

Here are 100 books that All the Wild That Remains fans have personally recommended if you like All the Wild That Remains. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of My Ántonia

Russell Rowland Author Of In Open Spaces

From my list on by women writers in the west.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have published seven books, all set in the West, including an anthology, West of 98: Living and Writing the New American West, that features writers from every state west of the Mississippi. For four years now, I have been doing a podcast called Breakfast in Montana, where my partner Aaron Parrett and I discuss Montana books. I also published a book in 2016 called 56 Counties, where I traveled to every county in Montana and interviewed people about what it means to live in this state. So I have a good feel for the people of this region and for the books they love. 

Russell's book list on by women writers in the west

Russell Rowland Why did Russell love this book?

Every discussion about the evolution of writing in ‘the West’ has to start with Willa Cather, who was the first writer from the west to be awarded a major literary award when she won the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours, which isn’t even one of her five best novels. Cather wrote openly about alcoholism, domestic violence, and other painful topics, transforming western writing from cardboard cutout characters to real people. My Ántonia has become an American classic, not just in western literature but in all literature. My Ántonia is told from the point of view of a young farm boy who falls in love with the enchanting Ántonia, and it’s beautifully written, taking us into the emotional heart of youth and idealism in the West.

By Willa Cather,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked My Ántonia as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Set in rural Nebraska, Willa Cather's My Antonia is both the intricate story of a powerful friendship and a brilliant portrayal of the lives of rural pioneers in the late-nineteenth century.

Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library, a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold-foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition has an afterword by Bridget Bennett and original illustrations by W. T. Benda.

Antonia and her family are from Bohemia and they must endure real hardship and loss to establish a new home in America.…


Book cover of A Life on the Road

M.M. Holaday Author Of The Open Road

From my list on following the open road to discover America.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up a fan of an evening news segment called “On the Road with Charles Kuralt.” Kuralt spotlighted upbeat, affirmative, sometimes nostalgic stories of people and places he discovered as he traveled across the American landscape. The charming stories he told were only part of the appeal; the freedom and adventure of being on the open road ignited a spark that continues to smolder. Some of my fondest memories from childhood are our annual family road trips, and I still jump at the chance to drive across the country.

M.M.'s book list on following the open road to discover America

M.M. Holaday Why did M.M. love this book?

When I read the opening sentences of A Life on the Road by Charles Kuralt, the character of Win Avery in my own book was born in my imagination. Kuralt wrote: “There is no contentment on the road, and little enough fulfillment. I know that now. I am acquainted with people who live settled lives and find deep gratification in family and home. I know what I have missed...the generations together at the table, the pleasures of kinship, the rituals of the hearth. And still I wander, seeking compensation in unforeseen encounters and unexpected sights…No train leaves the station that I do not want to catch.” His words are as sad as they are thrilling and they move me every time I read them.

By Charles Kuralt,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Life on the Road as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"A professional memoir of a gifted, good-humored and gracious man...The book has the feel of good conversation on a long trip."
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
John Charles Kuralt on the journey of his life. From a southern boy bitten by wanderlust and wonder, to a curious rover writing for newspapers, radio, and TV, to a CBS News correspondent adventuring around the world--from Cuba and Vietnam to the Congo and the North Pole, to his twenty-plus years roaming the back roads of America. In this engaging memoir, Kuralt relives a lifetime of discovering places and people whose unique stories…


Book cover of Out West: An American Journey

M.M. Holaday Author Of The Open Road

From my list on following the open road to discover America.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up a fan of an evening news segment called “On the Road with Charles Kuralt.” Kuralt spotlighted upbeat, affirmative, sometimes nostalgic stories of people and places he discovered as he traveled across the American landscape. The charming stories he told were only part of the appeal; the freedom and adventure of being on the open road ignited a spark that continues to smolder. Some of my fondest memories from childhood are our annual family road trips, and I still jump at the chance to drive across the country.

M.M.'s book list on following the open road to discover America

M.M. Holaday Why did M.M. love this book?

Duncan follows the route Lewis and Clark took as they headed up the Missouri River. He embarks on the trip several generations later and drives a camper, so he experiences a very different landscape from the early explorers. It doesn’t matter; while the book itself is thirty-five years old, his blend of history, traveler’s and camping advice, and personal encounters make this memoir insightful, funny, and poignant even now. For anyone who would prefer to take a road trip from the comfort of their favorite reading chair, this is a satisfying read.

By Dayton Duncan,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Out West as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Describes the author's trip through the American West--retracing Lewis and Clark's historic trail from the Gateway Arch in St. Louis to the Oregon coast--and his encounters with the people who have adopted the myths of the West


Book cover of Leaves of Grass

Loretta Pyles

From my list on rewilding and falling in love with outdoor adventure.

Why am I passionate about this?

Growing up, I built snow forts, climbed the white birch tree in my front yard, and talked to a rabbit named Bobby who lived in the bushes. I rode my bike on adventures, getting lost and exploring woods, ditches, and surrounding landscapes. In a household where I often felt unsafe, time outdoors was a refuge. Working in a career as a university professor of social work for the past 20 years, I have used mindful outdoor experiences, as well as yoga and meditation, as a source of healing. And I have loved sharing these practices with my students. Today, I am documenting my rewilding adventures in my van which has been a joyful way to honor my inner child.

Loretta's book list on rewilding and falling in love with outdoor adventure

Loretta Pyles Why did Loretta love this book?

I read this book as a young person in college, but it wasn’t until I re-read it about 10 years ago that I was able to experience the depths of its power.

This classic collection of 19th-century poems was a beacon at the time and holds true today for modern people who long to re-claim our interconnectedness with the natural world and embrace ourselves in all of our complexity. It’s a book I keep in my campervan to read on camping trips and one that I go to when I need inspiration with my own writing. 

By Walt Whitman,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Leaves of Grass as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Features several of Whitman's most famous poems including 'I Hear America Singing', 'I Sing the Body Electric' and 'One's-self I sing'.


Book cover of Billionaire Wilderness: The Ultra-Wealthy and the Remaking of the American West

Kimberly Kay Hoang Author Of Spiderweb Capitalism: How Global Elites Exploit Frontier Markets

From my list on global financial elites.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, and I am interested in global capitalism, financial elites, and all aspects of how people broker capital deals. I am a scholar of anti-heroes who studies all of the ways that people play in the gray. My first book, Dealing in Desire, is an ethnography where I embedded myself in several different hostess bars to study the relationship between sex work and financial deal-making. I grew up in California but have lived most of my adult life in Ho Chi Minh City, Houston, Boston, and Chicago. 

Kimberly's book list on global financial elites

Kimberly Kay Hoang Why did Kimberly love this book?

I loved this book because it takes you inside the exclusive world of the ultra-wealthy within the United States and shows how the richest are exploiting the natural environment in Teton County, Wyoming, to solve personal existential crises.

The author managed to get incredible access to prominent tech CEOs, Wall Street financiers, and other ultra-high-net-worth individuals who have moved to a place where they can profit from their environmental philanthropy while also contributing to ever-widening economic inequality by privatizing public goods. I thought this book provided a fair yet fascinating insight into the contradictions of philanthropy, which allow the rich to donate in ways that absolve themselves from the guilt of the inequality that they contribute to. 

By Justin Farrell,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Billionaire Wilderness as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A revealing look at the intersection of wealth, philanthropy, and conservation

Billionaire Wilderness takes you inside the exclusive world of the ultra-wealthy, showing how today's richest people are using the natural environment to solve the existential dilemmas they face. Justin Farrell spent five years in Teton County, Wyoming, the richest county in the United States, and a community where income inequality is the worst in the nation. He conducted hundreds of in-depth interviews, gaining unprecedented access to tech CEOs, Wall Street financiers, and other prominent figures in business and politics. He also talked with the rural poor who live among…


Book cover of Mass Destruction: The Men and Giant Mines That Wired America and Scarred the Planet

John Sandlos Author Of Mining Country: A People's History of Canada's Mines and Miners

From my list on environmental and health impacts of mining.

Why am I passionate about this?

My passion for mining history was sparked when I lived in Fort Resolution, Northwest Territories. One of my students wanted to write a short essay on the Pine Point Mine, which he claimed had cheated the community by making so much money, providing few jobs, and leaving a big mess after closing. I offered to drive the student out to tour the abandoned mine and was blown away by the dozens of open pits and abandoned haul roads that had been carved out of the northern forest. From that day on, I was hooked on mining history, hungry to learn as much as possible about these abandoned places. 

John's book list on environmental and health impacts of mining

John Sandlos Why did John love this book?

This book was released when I was starting my own work on mining history, and it greatly influenced everything I have written since. I love how LeCain traces how the demand for copper to electrify American cities led to the creation of massive holes such as the Bingham and Berkeley pits.

For me, the crux of the book is the idea that, as the quality of copper ore declined, mining companies used more energy and brute force machinery to dig unimaginably large open pits, producing landscape scars and toxic legacies that are still with us today. It makes visible the immense cost of America’s great industrial acceleration. 

By Timothy J. LeCain,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Mass Destruction as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The place: The steep mountains outside Salt Lake City. The time: The first decade of the twentieth century. The man: Daniel Jackling, a young metallurgical engineer. The goal: A bold new technology that could provide billions of pounds of cheap copper for a rapidly electrifying America. The result: Bingham's enormous "Glory Hole," the first large-scale open-pit copper mine, an enormous chasm in the earth and one of the largest humanmade artifacts on the planet. Mass Destruction is the compelling story of Jackling and the development of open-pit hard rock mining, its role in the wiring of an electrified America, as…


Book cover of Adventures with Ed: A Portrait of Abbey

Sean Prentiss Author Of Finding Abbey: The Search for Edward Abbey and His Hidden Desert Grave

From my list on reads by or about to Edward Abbey.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been passionate about Edward Abbey since I read Desert Solitaire in 1994. By 2010, I decided to write a biography on Abbey, Finding Abbey: The Search for Edward Abbey and His Hidden Desert Grave, which allowed me to research and explore Abbey. I interviewed his great friends, including Jack Loeffler, Doug Peacock, Ken Sleight, and David Petersen. I visited Abbey’s special collections library and read his master’s thesis on anarchism and an unpublished novel. I visited his first home in Pennsylvania and many of his Desert Southwest homes. Along the way, I found the spirit of Abbey and the American Southwest. Finding Abbey won the National Outdoor Book Award.

Sean's book list on reads by or about to Edward Abbey

Sean Prentiss Why did Sean love this book?

For decades, Jack Loeffler and Ed Abbey were best friends. Nearly fifteen years after Abbey’s death, Loeffler wrote about their friendship and their time exploring the Desert Southwest in this beautiful biographical memoir.

Loeffler takes us on some of the countless backpacking trips the two men went on while also revealing the many complexities of Abbey. This beautiful book lets us lean in and listen to Loeffler and Abbey talking about anarchism and environmentalism around so many campfires. I had the pleasure of interviewing Loeffler, and this book sounds so authentic to him.

It is smart, passionate, and kind, just like Loeffler is. 

By Jack Loeffler,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Adventures with Ed as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

No writer has had a greater influence on the American West than Edward Abbey (1927-1989), author of twenty-one books of fiction and non-fiction. This long-awaited biographical memoir by one of Abbey's closest friends is a tribute to the anarchist who popularised environmental activism in his novel 'The Monkey Wrench Gang' and articulated the spirit of the arid West in Desert Solitaire and scores of other essays and articles. His 1956 novel 'The Brave Cowboy' launched his literary career, and by the 1970s he was recognised as an important, uniquely American voice. Abbey used his talents to protest against the mining…


Book cover of How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America

Mary E. Stuckey Author Of Deplorable: The Worst Presidential Campaigns from Jefferson to Trump

From my list on why American politics are terrible and what to do.

Why am I passionate about this?

I believe in democracy. I think the US has the opportunity to be the world’s first multicultural and inclusive democracy. And I think that’s a very, very hard thing to do. I’ve been writing about democracy through the lens of presidential history my whole career, and I think the US has done some things so impressively well while at the same time it frustratingly keeps failing to live up to its own ideals. The tensions and contradictions in our history as we try to expand and enact those ideas are endlessly fascinating. And I’m nervous that we may be seeing the end of a national commitment to democracy. 

Mary's book list on why American politics are terrible and what to do

Mary E. Stuckey Why did Mary love this book?

She’s a super-smart Civil War historian, and this book does something I haven’t seen in a lot of Civil War books—it shows how important the West was to the way the US developed after the Civil War—it wasn’t just that the nation expanded, but she writes about how both the North and South relied on racial hierarchies, and she centers Native Americans, which I think is a really important part of that story.

By Heather Cox Richardson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked How the South Won the Civil War as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this provocative new work, Heather Cox Richardson argues that while the North won the Civil War, ending slavery, oligarchy, and giving the country a "new birth of freedom," the victory was short-lived. Settlers from the East pushed into the West, where the seizure of Mexican lands at the end of the Mexican-American War and treatment of Native Americans cemented racial hierarchies. The Old South found a new home in the West. Both depended on extractive
industries-cotton in the former and mining, cattle, and oil in the latter-giving rise to a white ruling elite, one that thrived despite the abolition…


Book cover of Whiskey When We're Dry

Reese Hogan Author Of Shrouded Loyalties

From my list on cross-dressing women in wartime.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a nonbinary trans guy, I grew up obsessed with novels about women disguising themselves as men. I loved everything about the trope, and always felt disappointed when they had to go back to living as women. It is a trope I eagerly embraced when I wrote Shrouded Loyalties, and though I didn’t yet know the term “transgender,” I was already exploring my own gender identity through my reading and writing of this theme. The books I’ve chosen to highlight here are ones that became some of my very favorites, and also feature action-packed wartime settings like the one used in Shrouded Loyalties.

Reese's book list on cross-dressing women in wartime

Reese Hogan Why did Reese love this book?

This is slightly outside the boundaries of a wartime novel, as it takes place in the Old West, but it’s a fantastic book for this list, and shouldn’t be overlooked if you love this trope. Jess Harney makes a name for herself as a notorious male sharpshooter and outlaw. Her first-person voice is one of the most interesting I’ve read, and I loved how she fit in as one of the guys while never sacrificing who she was. She barely even thinks about her gender as she so naturally considers herself male. Books like this really highlight the blurred lines between cross-dressing out of necessity or desire, and I’m excited to see more authors addressing this trope with the nuance of queerness which is often part of it.

By John Larison,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Whiskey When We're Dry as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Named a Best Book by Entertainment Weekly, O Magazine, Goodreads, Southern Living, Outside Magazine, Oprah.com, HelloGiggles, Parade, Fodor's Travel, Sioux City Journal, Read it Forward, Medium.com, and NPR's All Things Considered.

"A thunderclap of originality, here is a fresh voice and fresh take on one of the oldest stories we tell about ourselves as Americans and Westerners. It's riveting in all the right ways -- a damn good read that stayed with me long after closing the covers." - Timothy Egan, New York Times bestselling author of The Worst Hard Time

From a blazing new voice in fiction, a gritty…


Book cover of The Plains Across: The Overland Emigrants and the Trans-Mississippi West, 1840-60

Jim Rasenberger Author Of Revolver: Sam Colt and the Six-Shooter That Changed America

From my list on western migration before the Civil War.

Why am I passionate about this?

Jim Rasenberger is a writer and author of four books - Revolver, The Brilliant Disaster; America, 1908, and High SteelHe has contributed to the New York Times, Vanity Fair, Smithsonian, and other publications. A native of Washington, DC, he lives in New York City.

Jim's book list on western migration before the Civil War

Jim Rasenberger Why did Jim love this book?

Posthumously published in 1970 by the University of Illinois Press, this is a must-have for anyone interested in the early years of the western migration. Unruh — who died young shortly after completing the manuscript performs the essential task of assembling credible data about emigrants and Native Americans, and — most importantly — about their encounters with each other. Popular myths and Hollywood movies notwithstanding, Unruh makes clear that Native Americans seldom caused emigrants much harm. Indeed, emigrants of the 1840s were more likely to shoot themselves and each other by accident than require a gun for self-defense.

By John D. Unruh,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Plains Across as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

One of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in History and the winner of seven awards, including the John H. Dunning Prize of the American Historical Association, the Ray A. Billington Book Award of the Organization of American Historians, and the National Historical Society Book Prize.


Book cover of My Ántonia
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Book cover of Out West: An American Journey

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