David McCullough is a brilliant historian whose books have earned many awards including two Pulitzer Prizes (Truman and John Adams) and two National Book Awards (The Path Between the Seas and Mornings on Horseback). So it was with much anticipation when I got my hands on his latest book, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of
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It is not all that often that a book teaches so much in such a beautiful way. Every essay in Braiding Sweetgrass is enjoyable, overflowing with insight and information not only about plants, but of life, love, and the interconnection of everything. Written by Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass blends indigenous wisdom with science
American Wolf, written by Nate Blakeslee, is an action-packed story that reads like a novel. This true story follows the lives of some of Yellowstone National Park’s well-known wolves, including O-Six, a particularly popular alpha female. The lives of wolves are as complex and dynamic as they are misunderstood. Most wolf studies prior to reintroduction
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Published in 2009, Lenore Skenazy’s book Free Range Kids is still highly relevant and recommended. Kids not only spend less time outdoors than they did a generation ago, they also have more fears. The culprits: television, society, and mostly parents. Parenting is always evolving, but with on-demand news, tweets, and Facebook over-sharers, we parents are
George Bird Grinnell (1849-1938) lived in New York but his heart always belonged to the West. His life and career spanned a pivotal time in history, where the old west meets the new west; the end of the frontier. Michael Punke’s book Last Stand: George Bird Grinnell, the Battle to Save the Buffalo, and the
Written by renown historian Bernard DeVoto, Across the Wide Missouri won the Pulitzer Prize (history) in 1948. This hefty classic centers around the fur trade from 1832 to 1838 and delves deep in to the lives of some of the most famous mountain men and their interactions with Native Americans. DeVoto’s writing style is detailed
When people envision the “west” a lot of images come to mind: mountains, cowboys, large landscapes. Tallgrass prairies are not often on that list. Mention Kansas and people glaze over or remember it as a place to “drive through” or “fly over”. So, for William Least Heat-Moon to construct a 600+ page book centered on
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There is no denying, I am a dog person. I have always been drawn to dogs and have felt a deep, perhaps you could call it spiritual, connection towards canines. Thus, it is easy to feel that same connection towards wolves and coyotes. But it goes beyond the human-dog relationship. Undomesticated “dogs” play a critical
