My first favorite food was a mushroom and as a budding young chef, my first dish, made at 6, was a terrible take on mushrooms on toast points made with Wonder Bread, margarine, and a sad can of mushrooms. My father pretended to eat it. For his sake, I’m glad he didn’t. Things have improved for me since then and I turned my passion for mushrooms into a lifelong love of cooking them which led to my book Shroom, a cookbook for both mushroom lovers and avowed fungiphobes. Mushrooms have distinct culinary personalities and the diversity in edible mushrooms is as vast as that between a salinic, ocean-kissed oyster and a smoky, meaty grilled ribeye.
For starters, what’s not to like with a poetic title and a quirky, nerdy, tux-beclad mushroom expert on the front holding a trumpet (the horn, not the mushroom) and a mushroom haul? David Aurora is the mushroom god’s mushroom god and has cheerfully guided thousands if not millions of fungiphiles on their forest quests in search of both edible and nonedible mushrooms. His larger book Mushrooms Demystified is truly the bible, but this smaller Western guide which easily fits in a back pocket is the one I’ve carried with me for years. It’s where I cut my teeth when I first ventured out as a new forager, but it’s continued to guide me as I learn new mushrooms to add to my basket. Color photos, key features, notes on where to find the mushroom, and notes on edibility are listed for each type of mushroom in the book such as:…
“[All That the Rain Promises and More] is certainly the best guide to fungi, and may in fact be a long lasting masterpiece in guide writing for all subjects.”—Roger McKnight, The New York Times
Mushrooms appeal to all kinds of people—and so will this handy pocket guide, which includes key information for more than 200 Western mushrooms
Over 200 edible and poisonous mushrooms are depicted with simple checklists of their identifying features, as David Arora celebrates the fun in fungi with the same engaging bend of wit and wisdom, fact and fancy, that has made his comprehensive guide, Mushrooms Demystified,…
I spent most of my life in the western United States. Born and raised in northern Idaho, a professorial position attracted me to Tucson, Arizona, the long-time home of Edward Abbey. Cactus Ed said it best: “The idea of wilderness needs no defense. It only needs more defenders. Remaining silent about the destruction of nature is an endorsement of that destruction.” Upon reading books by Abbey and others writing about the American West, I became a defender of the idea of wilderness.
Peacock is one of two authors who make me want to put down the book and take a hike. I am an avid reader, and the ability of Peacock to make me put down his book is astonishing. Walking it Off is simultaneously a personal journey in light of the death of his friend Edward Abbey and also a pragmatic guide to hiking in the southwestern United States.
This book reveals Peacock and his relationship with Edward Abbey, the desert anarchist.
When he wrote The Monkey Wrench Gang in 1975, Edward Abbey became the spokesperson for a generation of Americans angered by the unthinking destruction of our natural heritage. Without consultation, Abbey based the central character of eco-guerilla George Washington Hayduke on his friend Doug Peacock. Since then Peacock has become an articulate environmental individualist writing about the West's abundant wildscapes. Abbey and Peacock had an at times stormy, almost father and son relationship that was peacefully resolved in Abbey's last days before his death in 1989. This rich recollection of their relationship and the dry places they explored are recalled…
When I wrote The Shopkeeper, I wanted to write a different type of western. I love buddy stories. I also love fish-out-of-water stories. The Steve Dancy Tales combines both. More accurately, the first couple of novels maintain the fish-of-of-water storyline, but eventually, our shopkeeper gets the hang of the Wild West. Steve and his two friends, however, remain united throughout all seven books. They fight common foes, move through the western states, marry, have children, grow older, but remain fast friends. In fact, I consider Steve Dancy, Joseph McAllen, and Jeff Sharp friends of mine. I have sure spent a lot of time with them.
In The Sisters Brothers, Patrick deWitt pulls off the difficult task of making hired killers captivating. The sibling antiheroes go on a journey across the western landscape while contemplating their inner selves. In many ways weird, The Sisters Brothers ties a sometimes sad story together in a neat package. The book is a fascinating take on the traditional western.
Hermann Kermit Warm is going to die. Across 1000 miles of Oregon desert his assassins, the notorious Eli and Charlies Sisters, ride - fighting, shooting, and drinking their way to Sacramento. But their prey isn't an easy mark, the road is long and bloody, and somewhere along the path Eli begins to question what he does for a living - and whom he does it for.
The Sisters Brothers pays homage to the classic Western, transforming it into an unforgettable ribald tour de force. Filled with a remarkable cast of losers, cheaters, and ne'er-do-wells from…
Like Thomas Jefferson, I cannot live without books. And, while I read in a variety of genres, from early childhood on, my favorite stories were the ones that began with “once upon a time.” My fascination with historicals started with one of my father’s few books from his childhood, The Cave Twins, which introduced me to a world far different from suburban America. For me, the appeal of historicals is the opportunity to learn about another era and to escape from the modern world. And so, if you want to escape from what seems like an endless pandemic, I invite you to explore the worlds six talented authors have created.
Like many authors, I’m a very picky reader and frequently abandon books after reading less than 10 percent. Over the past year or so, I’ve found myself abandoning more and more historicals because of poor writing, anachronisms, or unrealistic characters. I was beginning to despair of finding a book that met my standards, and then I opened A Cowboy for Keeps. Not only did Hedlund’s story meet my standards, it exceeded them. Her beautiful writing and vivid descriptions immersed me in the Old West, and the story itself was so riveting that while I wanted to see what happened next, part of me hated the idea of turning the last page. This is an outstanding historical romance.
Greta Nilsson's trip west to save her ailing little sister, Astrid, could not have gone more wrong. First, bandits hold up her stagecoach, stealing all her money. Then, upon arriving in Fairplay, Colorado, she learns the man she was betrothed to as a mail-order bride has died. Homeless, penniless, and jobless, Greta and her sister are worse off than when they started.
Wyatt McQuaid is struggling to get his new ranch up and running and is in town to purchase cattle when the mayor proposes the most unlikely of bargains. He'll invest in a herd of cattle for Wyatt's ranch…
Edward Abbey is among my favorite writers. The Serpents of Paradise represents an editorial masterpiece by John MacRae that is clearly different from any other book by Abbey.
An editorial masterpiece, it includes essays, travel pieces, and extracts from Abbey’s fiction and non-fiction books. Although I read this book when it was first published more than 25 years ago, it was worth re-reading. In this book, MacRae arranges incidents in Abbey’s life chronologically, rather than by date of publication.
A short note introduces each of the four parts of the book to explain the lifelong journey of Cactus Ed from his childhood as “Ned” in Pennsylvania until his death in Tucson, Arizona at the age of 62 years.
This book is different from any other Edward Abbey book. It includes essays, travel pieces and fictions to reveal Ed's life directly, in his own words.
The selections gathered here are arranged chronologically by incident, not by date of publication, to offer Edward Abbey's life from the time he was the boy called Ned in Home, Pennsylvania, until his death in Tucson at age 62. A short note introduces each of the four parts of the book and attempts to identify what's happening in the author's life at the time. When relevant, some details of publishing history are provided.
I had never been out of a Los Angeles suburb until my high school biology teacher took our class on a river trip running rapids down the Yampa and Green Rivers in Colorado and Utah. The trip was absolutely exhilarating and opened my eyes to the American West and to a career exploring its geology and landscapes. Fifty years and over 300 field trips later, mostly in southern California, I finally learned enough to write Roadside Geology of Southern California. That book was followed by the second editions of Geology Underfoot in Southern California, and Geology Underfoot in Death Valley and Eastern California with co-authors Allen Glazner and Robert Sharp.
If I could return to any place and time in history, it would be to the American West in the years between 1830 to 1880. It was an exciting time of exploration, territorial acquisitions, invention, and discovery of all of the major mineral deposits (Comstock Lode 1859, Butte 1864, Mother Lode 1849), construction of a transcontinental railroad (completed 1869), and establishment of the world’s first national park, Yellowstone (1872). This book opened my eyes to the American West.
Acclaimed author of biographical and historical fiction Irving Stone turns his magnificent talent to telling America's most colorful and exciting story-the opening of the Far West.
Men to Match My Mountains is a true historical masterpiece, an unforgettable pageant of giants-men like John Sutter, whose dream of paradise was shattered by the California Gold Rush; Brigham Young and the Mormons, who tamed the desert with Bible texts; and the silver kings and the miners, who developed Nevada's Comstock Lode and settled the Rockies.
America called for greatness...and got it. There is nothing in history to match the stories of these…
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 Abbeywon the National Outdoor Book Award.
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.
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…
When writing about quick-witted heroes fighting through danger to protect the innocent and those they love, I draw on the thousands of books and their authors who shaped my own understanding of how a hero behaves; of the principles and emotions which drive a person to persist in the face of massive adversity. Lost in the worlds of those books, inspired by the reading habits of my adopted father, I inhaled these five authors' works in particular. They became an illustrated history of the craft for me, showing through example how adventure writing had evolved and what it could become at its finest.
Louis L'Amour mastered the art of the adventure story. A story where we root for the hero to succeed and live their exuberance with them when they do. In 1965, he published The Sacket Brand, a western about a man and his new bride traveling to their first home together. Ambushed, badly injured, hungry, cold, and desperate, we live his experience of being hunted by enemies while uncovering the mystery of why it's all happening.
When he finally discovers the truth, we cheer as he, in turn, forces his enemies to run from him. Honor, integrity, stubborn principle. Persistence in the face of extreme adversity. Those were the life lessons I received from L'Amour's books and try to pass on in mine.
In The Sackett Brand, Louis L’Amour spins the story of a courageous man who must face overwhelming odds to track down a killer.
Tell Sackett and his bride, Ange, came to Arizona to build a home and start a family. But on Black Mesa, something goes terribly wrong. Tell is ambushed and badly injured. When he finally manages to drag himself back to where he left Ange, she is gone. Desperate, cold, hungry, and with nothing to defend himself, Tell is stalked like a wounded animal. While he hides from his attackers, his rage and frustration mount as he tries…
Research for my new
project has me digging into the crazed part of the American psyche, and this
has been the most compelling read thus far.
Quammen covers events in my own
backyard, so it was especially pertinent for me, but anyone interested in the
odiferous mix of religion, patriotism, and a nearly sociopathic self-centered
interest that is driving American politics will find this compelling.
Through
in-depth interviews and research, Quammen paints a vivid picture of the
reckless cowboys (both criminal and nominally law-enforcement) whose antics
reverberate across the society in the West. In addition, she delves deep into
the history of the Mormon religion that provides the backdrop for a
quintessentially American conflict.
"A deep, fascinating dive into a uniquely American brand of religious zealotry that poses a grave threat to our national parks, wilderness areas, wildlife sanctuaries, and other public lands. It also happens to be a delight to read." —JON KRAKAUER
American Zion is the story of the Bundy family, famous for their armed conflicts in the West. With an antagonism that goes back to the very first Mormons who fled the Midwest for the Great Basin, they hold a sense of entitlement that confronts both law and democracy. Today their cowboy confrontations threaten public lands, wild species, and American heritage.…
As an Indigenous person, I have a lived experience of the negative impacts of an erased history on all people. Students I teach are shocked to hear that Indigenous people have been in the Americas for over 60,000 years. The violence against archaeologists publishing on older than Clovis sites in the Americas is intense; that got me asking why? I sought the truth about the evidence for Pleistocene age archaeology sites in the Americas. Global human migrations attest to the fact that humans have been migrating great distances for over 2 million years. Reclaiming and rewriting Indigenous history is one path of many, leading to healing and reconciliation.
Though only discussing the “day before Clovis” a few thousand years prior to Clovis archaeological sites Dixon and Dixon provide a synthesis of over 40 archaeological sites that predate Clovis. Dixon and Dixon dispel archaeological stereotypes that depict early Indigenous people as simply big-game hunters and provide evidence for a diverse cultural landscape of marine mammal hunters, fishers, and general foragers across the Americas.
This revolutionary archeological synthesis argues an alternative model of the earliest human population of North America. E. James Dixon dispels the stereotype of big-game hunters following mammoths across the Bering Land Bridge and paints a vivid picture of marine mammal hunters, fishers, and general foragers colonising the New World. Applying contemporary scientific methods and drawing on new archaeological discoveries, he advances evidence indicating that humans first reached the Americas using water craft along the deglaciated Northwest Coast about 13,500 years ago, some 2,000 years before the first Clovis hunters. Dixons rigorous evaluation of the oldest North American archaeological sites and…
