A masterful post-apocalyptic novel set in California. It is almost a cosy-dystopia, following the life of one man and his gathering tribe. The prose is excellent and the dramas of family life are well documented.
I can't believe this book was published in 1949: it feels more like the late '60s or early '70s.
In this profound ecological fable, a mysterious plague has destroyed the vast majority of the human race. Isherwood Williams, one of the few survivors, returns from a wilderness field trip to discover that civilization has vanished during his absence.
Eventually he returns to San Francisco and encounters a female survivor who becomes his wife. Around them and their children a small community develops, living like their pioneer ancestors, but rebuilding civilization is beyond their resources, and gradually they return to a simpler way of life.
A poignant novel about finding a new normal after the upheaval of a global crisis.
At some point I decided that if I was going to teach US history, I better have a good sense of what the place looked like. So I drove across the country—and then back again—and then again, and then once more, each time at a different latitude. I drove through North Dakota and South Dakota, Montana and Idaho, Nebraska and Kansas, Arkansas and Oklahoma, Louisiana and Texas, up and down California, Oregon and Washington, and on and on. I got addicted to seeing the landscape in all its amazing variety and vastness, and seeing the landscape made the histories come alive.
Surely the Gold Rush is one of the first things we learn about the West, but who were these people? Where did they come from? Susan Johnson is a great storyteller, and this story is peopled with men and women from across the globe, radicals and racists, Chinese, Mexicans, Germans, Irish, and everyone else, how they worked, loved, and made a life.
The world of the California Gold Rush that comes down to us through fiction and film is one of half-truths. In this brilliant work of social history, Susan Lee Johnson enters the well-worked diggings of Gold Rush history and strikes a rich lode.
Johnson explores the dynamic social world created by the Gold Rush in the Sierra Nevada foothills east of Stockton, charting the surprising ways in which the conventions of identity-ethnic, national, and sexual-were reshaped. With a keen eye for character and story, she shows us how this peculiar world evolved over time, and how our cultural memory of…
Hiking in the Sierra has been equal parts recreation and profession since I’ve been an adult. I’ve worked for the concessionaire in Yosemite Valley, surveyed lakes for rare amphibians, completed a PhD on alpine plants, and, over the past 15 years, written nine books on the Sierra Nevada. I continue to spend every summer obsessively exploring its trails, peaks, and remote lake basins, always excited to see a new view, find a rare flower, or simply see a favorite place in a new light. The rest of the year is spent writing—and reading what others have written, broadening my knowledge about my favorite place on Earth before I set out on the next summer’s adventures.
The folklore of any region is defined by big personalities—people whose impact far outlasts their lifetime and whose name is almost always mentioned with reverence. As the decades pass and their accomplishments and life stories become more distant, it is essential to have books that remind us why they are worth memorializing. This book tells the story of two such Sierran giants, Pete Starr and Norman Clyde. Pete Starr, was a young, accomplished mountaineer when he vanished on a climbing trip in the Minarets, west of Mammoth Lakes. He already had a completed draft of the first comprehensive hiking guide to the Sierra. Norman Clyde probably claims the most first Sierran ascents to his name. When search parties failed to find Starr, only Clyde persisted, showing the true character of a man often remembered for refusing to abide by society's norms.
This riveting narrative details the mysterious disappearance of Peter Starr, a San Francisco attorney from a prominent family, who set off to climb alone in the rugged Minaret region of the Sierra Nevada in July 1933. Rigorous and thorough searches by some of the best climbers in the history of the range failed to locate him despite a number of promising clues. When all hope seemed gone and the last search party had left the Minarets, mountaineering legend Norman Clyde refused to give up. Climbing alone, he persevered in the face of failure, resolved that he would learn the fate…
The books I read have to draw me in like a good movie. It has to be relatable as far as characters and plot go. I want to see it, smell it, and taste it. We’ve moved a lot, and every time we’ve moved, we always check out the local history and geology. There are so many stories to tell. I’ll see the name of a road, a creek, or a mountain, and it will spark a story within me, like seeing a really good movie with great actors.
It’s been a while since I read this one, but one thing I do remember is that it was full of descriptions of places I could see in my mind’s eye because I had lived near places that were similar in their remote, ruggedness. I could be there in my head as the story progressed.
She’s great at painting a picture or a situation with words. The splashes of historical fact ran through the story; I admire that. And I look for it when I’m searching for something to read that will keep me interested until the end of the story.
In 1844, two years before the Donner Party, the Stevens-Murphy company left Missouri to be the first wagons into California through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Mostly Irish Catholics, the party sought religious freedom and education in the mission-dominated land and enjoyed a safe journey--until October, when a heavy snowstorm forced difficult decisions. The first of many for young Mary Sullivan, newlywed Sarah Montgomery, the widow Ellen Murphy, and her pregnant sister-in-law Maolisa.
When the party separates in three directions, each risks losing those they loved and faces the prospect of learning that adversity can destroy or redefine. Two women and…
Hiking in the Sierra has been equal parts recreation and profession since I’ve been an adult. I’ve worked for the concessionaire in Yosemite Valley, surveyed lakes for rare amphibians, completed a PhD on alpine plants, and, over the past 15 years, written nine books on the Sierra Nevada. I continue to spend every summer obsessively exploring its trails, peaks, and remote lake basins, always excited to see a new view, find a rare flower, or simply see a favorite place in a new light. The rest of the year is spent writing—and reading what others have written, broadening my knowledge about my favorite place on Earth before I set out on the next summer’s adventures.
Rachel Mazur was a wildlife biologist in Yosemite, Kings Canyon, and Sequoia National Parks for many years. A core component of her job was “solving the bear problem”—generation upon generation of bears dependent on human food and ever more aggressive and crafty as they endeavored to satisfy this desire. Her story artfully weaves together the history of bear-human interactions in the Sierra, scientific research on bear habits and diets, and importantly sociology, especially people’s changing perception of acceptable wildlife management and visitors changing expectations of the attractions on offer in a national park. The book is skillfully written and thought-provoking, but also heartening as it ends with evidence that changing wildlife management and visitor actions mean bears are slowly becoming wilder again.
As majestic as they are powerful, and as timeless as they are current, bears continue to captivate. Speaking of Bears is not your average collection of stories. Rather, it is the history, compiled from interviews with more than 100 individuals, of how Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon National Parks, all in California's Sierra Nevada, created a human-bear problem so bad that there were eventually over 2,000 incidents in a single year. It then describes the pivotal moments during which park employees used trial and error, conducted research, invented devices, collaborated with other parks, and found funding to get the crisis…
I’m an award-winning children’s author of more than 100 books, including many biographies. I first fell in love with biographies when I was a child and read about young blind and deaf Helen Keller. Blind and deaf? I couldn’t imagine. Yet, page by page, as I stepped into little Helen’s world, I felt as if I experienced her struggles, triumphs, and tragedies right along with her. I discovered that in spite of her great challenges, she succeeded. That’s why I love biographies and why I write them. I hope my biographies open a door into someone else’s world that can remind readers that they can succeed too, in spite of obstacles in front of them. I try to write the sort of picture books I love—funny, whimsical, captivating, and unforgettable.
I’m a big fan of Don Brown and this is one of my favorites. In this biography, we follow the adventure of Alice Ramsey who was the first woman to drive across the United States. It was 1909, so no easy task since there weren’t any interstates, road maps, or gas stations. Yet, Alice, along with her companions, set off. Magically, Brown lets us go along with them as they ramble past farms and fields, muster their way down roads clogged with pigs, dig themselves out of muddy holes, and urge the car across vast moonlit deserts, and over the grueling Sierra Nevada mountains. Alice’s grand adventure not only celebrates a woman’s first, but takes us along for the long, extraordinary, bumpy ride. Bravo Alice! Bravo Don Brown!
Don Brown introduces us to yet another little-known heroine. On June 9, 1909, twenty-two-year-old Alice Ramsey hitched up her skirts and climbed behind the wheel of a Maxwell touring car. Fifty-nine days later she rolled into San Francisco, becoming the first woman to drive across America. What happened in between is quite a tale! Through words and pictures, the author shares this story of a brave and tenacious young woman who followed her vision to conquer the open road - even when the road was nothing more than a wagon trail. Alice Ramsey's adventure offers a unique perspective on turn-of-the-century…
Andrew Vietze was five years old when he told his older sister that one day, he would be a park ranger. Twenty-eight years later, he put on his badge for the first time as a seasonal ranger in one of the premier wilderness areas in the East, Maine’s Baxter State Park. Home of Katahdin and the terminus of the Appalachian Trail, “Forever Wild” Baxter has no pavement, no electricity, no stores, no cell service. As a boy, Vietze imagined a life flying around in helicopters, rescuing hikers off mountaintops, fighting forest fires, chasing wilderness despoilers, and plucking people out of raging rivers. And he's spent the past twenty years doing just that.
The Last Seasonrecounts the disappearance of ranger Randy Morgenstern in California’s High Sierra. A legend in the NPS for his devotion to wild places, Morgenson spent more than 25 seasons as a backcountry ranger in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks before disappearing without a trace in 1996. An introspective sort who knew every corner of the territory he patrolled, Morgenson left behind a tantalizing mystery that writer Eric Blehm turns into a page-turning, psychological thriller. Did he fall off a cliff? Was he murdered? Did he take his own life? As a young ranger, I read this book late into the night under the hissing gas light of my duty station. We’ve had campers vanish in our wilderness—and a ranger die in the line of duty—so every page rang true.
Destined to become a classic of adventure literature, The Last Season examines the extraordinary life of legendary backcountry ranger Randy Morgenson and his mysterious disappearance in California's unforgiving Sierra Nevada—mountains as perilous as they are beautiful. Eric Blehm's masterful work is a gripping detective story interwoven with the riveting biography of a complicated, original, and wholly fascinating man.
Much of what Deb knows about writing, nature, and life she learned in Alaska, where she also mastered the art of hauling water and cooking ptarmigan. She loves characters who tug at the heart and stories that grab you from the opening line and never let go. Deb is the co-founder of Alaska’s 49 Writers, and she has been invited to join the faculty at several writers’ conferences. After 36 years in Alaska, she now lives on Oregon’s north coast, where you’ll find her strolling the beaches and forests with her husband and boxer dog.
One of my delights upon moving to the Oregon coast was learning that the venerable yet approachable biologist and writer Robert Michael Pyle lives right across the Columbia River. Eclectic, insightful, and never stuffy or overwrought, he’s on equally firm footing delving into the mysteries of butterflies and Sasquatches. No wonder he’s the subject of the recent feature film The Dark Divide. None of his books disappoint, but this recent essay collection is especially remarkable for its depth and breadth.
Nature Matrix is a gathering of some of Robert Michael Pyle’s most significant, original, and timely expressions of a life immersed in the natural world, in all its splendor, power, and peril
Nature Matrix: New and Selected Essays contains sixteen pieces that encompass the philosophy, ethic, and aesthetic of Robert Michael Pyle. The essays range from Pyle’s experience as a young national park ranger in the Sierra Nevada to the streets of Manhattan; from the suburban jungle to the tangles of the written word; and from the phenomenon of Bigfoot to that of the Big Year—a personal exercise in extreme…
Hiking in the Sierra has been equal parts recreation and profession since I’ve been an adult. I’ve worked for the concessionaire in Yosemite Valley, surveyed lakes for rare amphibians, completed a PhD on alpine plants, and, over the past 15 years, written nine books on the Sierra Nevada. I continue to spend every summer obsessively exploring its trails, peaks, and remote lake basins, always excited to see a new view, find a rare flower, or simply see a favorite place in a new light. The rest of the year is spent writing—and reading what others have written, broadening my knowledge about my favorite place on Earth before I set out on the next summer’s adventures.
Daniel Arnold’s book describes his journey to climb 15 of the Sierra’s most prominent peaks by their first-ascent routes—and mostly using similar gear to the first-ascent party. As a Sierra mountaineer and backpacker, his writing immediately captivated me because he wove his adventure together with that of the first ascent party. His careful historical research drew me back in time, providing context for why each climber was pursuing the summit, their personalities and passions, and, importantly, how well (or poorly…) documented the Sierra’s topography was at the time of their explorations. My mind kept wandering into the past, imagining a time when I didn’t have ready access to detailed maps and thinking how different Sierra exploring once was.
“A splendid chronicle of early climbing in the Sierra Nevada.” —Royal Robbins
It’s 1873. Gore–Tex shells and aluminum climbing gear are a century away, but the high mountains still call to those with a spirit of adventure. Imagine the stone in your hands and thousands of feet of open air below you, with only a wool jacket to weather a storm and no rope to catch a fall.
Daniel Arnold did more than imagine—he spent three years retracing the steps of his climbing forefathers, and in Early Days in the Range of Light, he tells their riveting stories. From 1864…
Hiking in the Sierra has been equal parts recreation and profession since I’ve been an adult. I’ve worked for the concessionaire in Yosemite Valley, surveyed lakes for rare amphibians, completed a PhD on alpine plants, and, over the past 15 years, written nine books on the Sierra Nevada. I continue to spend every summer obsessively exploring its trails, peaks, and remote lake basins, always excited to see a new view, find a rare flower, or simply see a favorite place in a new light. The rest of the year is spent writing—and reading what others have written, broadening my knowledge about my favorite place on Earth before I set out on the next summer’s adventures.
I’ve read and enjoyed reading nearly every trail narrative on the John Muir Trail (JMT). I find it difficult to pick one to highlight as a favorite and ultimately selected Christy’s because I truly connected to her descriptions of self-discovery as she hiked the JMT. She reflected and learned from each mistake and internally celebrated each success. She describes her trip with humility, happily laughing at her own mistakes, yet simultaneously has a wonderful sense that she knew she would emerge from her trip stronger and she knew what was important to her. I cannot imagine a better book for a newcomer to long distance hiking; you’ll learn how much planning is required, but also how much you can only learn once on the trail.
“You’re hiking how far solo?” “How are you going to hike the entire John Muir Trail when you’ve never even been backpacking before?”
These were the two most common questions that accompanied baffled looks from Christy’s corporate coworkers when she mentioned her plans. Legitimate questions Christy had pondered herself. Yet, she couldn’t fully express the pull to hike more than 220 miles in the California High Sierra Mountains. She only knew that her whole being told her that she needed to. After six months of research, reading books, watching documentaries, and training hikes, Christy began walking southbound on the world-famous…
