Nineteenth-century scientist David Starr Jordan built one of the most important fish specimen collections ever seen, until the 1906 San Francisco earthquake shattered his life's work.

"Walden. yesterday I cam here to live." That entry from the journal of Henry David Thoreau, and the intellectual journey it began, would by themselves be enough to place Thoreau in the American pantheon. His attempt to "live deliberately" in a small woods at the edge of his hometown of Concord has been a touchstone for individualists and seekers since the publication of Walden in 1854. But there was much more to Thoreau than his brief experiment in...

Considered one of the patron saints of twentieth-century environmental activity, John Muir's appeal to modern readers is that he not only explored the American West but also fought for its preservation. My First Summer in the Sierra is Muir's account of his adventures and observations while working as a shepherd in the Yosemite Valley, which later became Yosemite National Park as a direct result of Muir's writings and activism. Muir's heartfelt and...

The Outermost House is a classic of American nature literature. In 1926, Henry Beston spent two weeks in a two-room cottage on the sand dunes of Cape Cod. He had not intended to stay longer, but, as he later wrote, "I lingered on, and as the year lengthened into autumn, the beauty and mystery of this earth and outer sea so possessed and held me that I could not go." Beston stayed for a year, meditating on humanity and the natural world. In The Outermost...

"Author Erika Bolstad was shocked to learn she had inherited mineral rights in North Dakota in the throes of an oil bonanza. Determined to unearth the story behind her unexpected inheritance, she followed the trail to her great-grandmother, Anna, who her family had painted to be a courageous homesteader who paved her way in the unforgiving American West. But, Bolstad discovers a darker truth about Anna than her family had ever shared. With journalistic...

"As Jon Krakauer did with Into the Wild, Blehm turns a missing-man riddle into an insightful meditation on wilderness and the personal demons and angels that propel us into it alone." — Outside magazine

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

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John Muir, the most famous naturalist in American history, protected Yosemite, co-founded the Sierra Club, and is sometimes called the Father of the National Parks. A poor immigrant, self-taught, individualistic, and skeptical of institutions, his idealistic belief in the spiritual benefits of holistic natural systems led him to a philosophy of preserving wilderness unimpaired. Gifford Pinchot founded the U.S. Forest Service and advised his friend...

All who have admired John Muir's ruggedly individualistic lifestyle, or who desire a greater appreciation of the history of environmental preservation in America, will be enthralled and enlightened by this Pulitzer Prize-winning biography. Following Muir from his ancestral home in Scotland, through his early years in the harsh Wisconsin wilderness, to his historic pilgrimage to California, Linnie Marsh Wolfe creates a full and rounded portrait of...

"Gwen Frostic sought solace in art and nature. She learned to be persistent and independent--never taking no for an answer or letting her disabilities define her. An artist and business owner, Gwen dedicated her work and her life to reminding people of the wonder and beauty in nature"--

In this widely acclaimed biography, an outstanding Thoreau scholar presents the culmination of a lifetime of research. This eminently readable work reveals Thoreau's many-sidedness; famous and little-known incidents; encounters with Hawthorne, Whitman, other notables; much more. Fully corrected and enlarged by the author. Introduction. Map. Afterword. Bibliography. Index. 36 illustration.