Connections

Connections: with Wildlife and Nature

Connections chronicles the stories and journeys of wildlife rehabilitator Cindy Kamler. The book follows Cindy from her early connections with nature and wildlife, along a formative mid-life trip around the world, and into the Eastern Sierra where she currently directs the wildlife rehabilitation center that she founded. Fascinated by the animals she helps and the natural environments she experiences, Cindy weaves poetry throughout this narrative. Called to share her passion for wildlife with people of all ages, Connections also contains five tales for kids that are based on actual wildlife rescues.

Connections is the story of Cindy Kamler, an inspiring community leader in wildlife care and rehabilitation. This is a compelling read for anyone who loves wildlife, the natural world, and real-life heroines.

Book Details:

  • Print length: 316 pages
  • Weight: 14.3 ounces
  • Dimensions: 5.5 X 0.79 X 8.5 inches

Paperback: $16.95 available at independent bookstores and Amazon.

Sample Chapter:

A Family of Owls

The great horned owls—mysterious, elusive—are in my awareness whenever I walk the eucalyptus-crowned hill. In the moments between day and night, here among the tall, fragrant trees, is where I hear and, less frequently, see them. This tiny urban “wilderness” is a five-minute drive from my home. I come once or twice a week to watch red fox, great horned owls, red-tailed hawks, kestrels, mule deer, and songbirds galore. I am certain that the owls raised young the previous year because one dark autumn evening I was startled by the eerie, grating call of a juvenile owl as I felt my way down the steep trail. I never discovered the location of the nest despite diligent searching.

Now it’s early June and, if the life-bonded pair has raised another brood, the fluffy young should soon be venturing from their nest. I’ve narrowed my search for the nest to one area of the hilltop. Late the previous winter, I had heard red-shouldered hawks there, calling in agitation. Great horned owls do not build nests, so they would need to take over an existing one from unwitting hawks or squirrels. Nest-stealing owls may have been the cause of the hawks’ distress, but my neck-straining search did not reveal the well-hidden nest.

The sun is low on the western horizon; the eucalyptus trees thrust into the brilliant blue sky more than one hundred feet from the hill’s crown, the sun’s rays gilding the tops of the trees and setting the dangling clumps of leaves and bark into clear relief. Still no sign of the owls. Gently a special sense or intuition nudges me, and I turn. Looking back down the fire road, my eyes are drawn to a high, sunlit branch. My heart stops, and I hold my breath. I see an adult owl perched there, two downy gray balls pressed against her breast.

Feelings of gratitude and awe flow as the hidden life of the owls opens to me. I want to jump up and down with excitement, but I restrain myself and move quietly toward the threesome. I frequently stop to gaze raptly through my binoculars, noting that the owls had come from the direction of the suspected nest area. The eyes of the two fledglings are closed as if they are sleeping, but the mother’s round golden eyes rarely leave me. As I draw closer, the youngsters open their eyes, and all three watch me with great interest but no signs of unease.

Great horned owls breed in late winter. In cold climates, snow often covers the incubating bird. Incubation lasts from twenty-six to thirty-five days. Thirty-five days more pass before the young leave the nest or “fledge.” Since these owls have traveled several hundred yards from their nest tree, I guess they fledged four or five days earlier and are now about six weeks old.

I linger for a long time, watching the beautiful and miraculous tableau Mother Nature has created. The young ones soon lose interest, and their eyes slowly close. I could have stayed forever, but I take my leave, fearing to stress the mother owl by lingering any longer…

The Author:

Cindy Kamler heads Wildcare Eastern Sierra, a wildlife rehabilitation center near Bishop California, in the rugged Eastern Sierra Nevada. Learn more at: https://www.eswildcare.org

Summit Archaeology

Summit Archaeology: The Epic of Prehistoric Ascents in the High Mountains of the World

Summit Archaeology is chapter one in the history of world mountaineering. This is a history that has remained unwritten to the present day.

Today it is commonly accepted without further discussion that our great activity of ascending mountains began scientifically and sportively only a couple of centuries before our time.

These notions should be abandoned forever.

Summit Archaeology proves that thousands of years earlier prehistoric peoples had ascended at least 380 mountains across five continents. These peoples braved ice, snow, altitude, weather, and distances without proper garments and footgear. To mountaineers the world over, these beings were our true forerunners.

Summit Archaeology is mainly an inventory. The book seeks to list the hundreds of mountain peaks that ancients bravely ascended thousands of years ago—an era in the history of humankind that has received little mention, let alone a detailed listing.

Book Details

  • Print length: 160
  • Weight: 9.3 ounces
  • Dimensions: 5.5 X 0.38 X 8.5 inches

Hardcover: $34.95 available at independent bookstores and Amazon.

Paperback: $19.95 available at independent bookstores and Amazon.

The Author

Evelio A. Echevarria, 1926-2020, was born in Santiago, Chile. He taught Spanish and Latin-American literature at Colorado State University in Fort Collins for 32 years, retiring in 1994 as professor emeritus. He performed mountaineering along the Andes and the Rocky Mountains for some 65 years and researched both ranges, chronicling their known-and unknown-activities from ancient times to present. His own sportive activities included exploratory mountaineering, climbing over 375 mountains, with 101 documented first ascents in the Andes Mountain range.

It was when he began to chronicle ascents on Chilean mountain peaks that he came upon the then wholly unknown peak ascents by the Andean Indians of the past, a topic that caught his interest. Over the years he expanded his research on this peculiar combination of mountaineering and archaeology until it finally reached what this present work attempts to cover: the very “Chapter One” of the history of world mountaineering, in which the ancient peoples appear as the protagonists of an unrecorded epic. Such is the purpose of this unusual book.

Contents:

  • Preface
  • Introduction
  • A Survey of Prehistoric Ascents in the Mountains of the World
    • Europe
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Australia
    • Americas
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Appendix 1: Basic Terminology of Summit Archaeology
  • Append 2: Statistics
  • The Author

Half Dome

Half Dome: The History of Yosemite’s Iconic Mountain

Half Dome: The History of Yosemite’s Iconic Mountain traces this granite monolith’s story through the ages, from 500 million years ago to the present day. Learn about Half Dome’s fiery beginnings. Discover its unique summit ecology. Hear the origin story that the Native Americans knew. Feel the exhilaration of the first humans to climb its steep faces. Read the tragic tales of death that have befallen many on this dome. Tune in to the management of a mountain that belongs to all. Finally, find inspiration from the beauty that our planet holds.This book is an excellent resource for anyone visiting Yosemite, hikers and climbers who wish to reach the summit, lovers of mountains, and readers of history. Included are several maps of the area, numerous historical photos and drawings, a timeline of Half Dome, and an index.

Book Details:

  • Print Length: 174 pages
  • Weight: 9 ounces
  • Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.4 x 8 inches

Paperback: $13.95 available at most independent bookstores and Amazon.
eBook: $9.95 available at Amazon.
Wholesale: Wholesale copies for booksellers are available through Ingram or direct.

Contents:

  1. Geological History
  2. Ecological History
  3. Native American History
  4. European Sightings and Naming a Mountain
  5. First Attempts to Scale the Dome
  6. First Ascents
  7. The Cables
  8. First Technical Rock Climb
  9. The Regular Northwest Face
  10. The South Face
  11. Managing a Mountain
  12. A Dangerous Mountain
  13. Half Dome Today

The Author:

Joe Reidhead lives in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. An avid outdoorsman and mountain climber, Reidhead worked in Yosemite’s wilderness for several years and was fortunate to live beneath Half Dome’s shadow during that time.

The Andes

The Andes: The Complete History of Mountaineering in High South America

The history of climbing in the Andes has more unanswered questions than that of any other mountain range in the world. This climbing history began in the late Stone Age and covers a span of more than 15,000 years. The Andes is a climbing history that spans the ages, documenting the ascents of thousands of adventurous souls of all epochs: from unknown cavemen, hunters, Indians, grave-diggers, and miners to explorers, scientists, surveyors, artists, and, of course, modern sportive climbers!

With a wealth of over 800 pages, 290 illustrations and 60 maps, The Andes: The Complete History of Mountaineering in High South America is unparalleled in its breadth and bravely faces these unanswered questions.

The Andes is the most detailed and complete history ever written about the range. The book also includes a list of over 3,000 first ascents in the range—an unparalleled resource for any mountaineer.

Reviews:
The American Alpine Journal

andes
  • Print Length: 840 pages
  • Weight: 5.7 lbs
  • Dimensions: 8.5 x 2.3 x 11 inches

eBook: $19.99 available at Amazon and Apple iBookstore.

Paperback: $64.95 available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, the Book Depository, and on order at most independent bookstores.

Note on eBook: The iBook version is an enhanced eBook and we consider it the best value and the best format for enjoying this book. That said, it only works on the iPad and Apple computers.

Note for international buyers: The iBook and Kindle versions are available internationally. Purchasing one of these versions will have significant savings in shipping costs. The paperback is also available through some retailers outside the United States, including Amazon UK and Amazon EU, but we cannot control the retail price on these copies, and they could have a list price more than the recommended U.S. $64.95. If you have an issue, please contact us.

An Afterclap of Fate

An Afterclap of Fate: Mallory on Everest

Winner of the 2006 Boardman Tasker Prize for mountaineering literature.

In this epic narrative, Charles Lind creates a detailed, poetic, and convincing account of mountaineering’s greatest mystery – Mallory and Irvine’s last climb on Everest.

Mallory described a climb as a spiritual journey: “To struggle and to understand – never this last without the other.” An Afterclap of Fate is a profound recreation of that struggle, the journey to understand during the climb, set within a meticulously researched narrative. The reader is taken into the stream of Mallory’s consciousness. This vivid reliving of the detail of the climb leads the reader into the heart and soul of Mallory himself. The narrative stretches from Mallory’s earliest childhood memory to moving recollections of the First World War and finally to the realization of the dream – the summit of Mt. Everest.

An Afterclap of Fate is more than a meditation on the paths of glory and the changeling nicknamed Free Will, it is also about the why of climbing and its wild joy.

Stephen Venables called it “a magnificent poem … beautiful … and incredibly moving.” It is haunting and unforgettable – an elegy and a paean to the pioneers of the Golden and Silver Ages of mountaineering.

“This is a bold book; fact, fiction and fantasy rolled together in a refreshingly different approach. … the writing is powerful, superbly structured and Lind indeed casts the fine spell of words.”

– Ronald Faux, 2006 Boardman Tasker Prize chair of judges

afterclap

  • Print Length: 186 pages
  • Weight: 10.6 ounces
  • Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.5 x 8.5 inches

eBook: $9.99 available at Amazon.

Paperback: $18.95 available at Amazon and on order at most independent bookstores.

Downward Bound

Downward Bound: A Mad! Guide to Rock Climbing

Downward Bound is Warren Harding’s offbeat and inventive climbing classic. Harding gives readers an introduction to climbing and recounts his first ascents of the Nose and the Wall of the Early Morning Light on El Capitan in Yosemite Valley. The introduction to rock climbing and big walls is farcical. The tales of his ascents are vivid. And throughout he strives to return some of the fun to climbing through humorous storytelling of the climbing culture of the 60s and 70s.

Downward Bound is a testament to the rebellious and magnetic Batso.

“Why do people climb? How the hell do I know? Answers to this perennial question range from Mallory’s rather facetious (I think) ‘Because it’s there’ to (again) Mallory’s enigmatic ‘If you ask the question, there can be no answer.’ Personally, I dig another version of Mallory’s statement. Like, ‘We climb because it’s there and we’re mad!’ How else could you explain freezing your ass off, battling heat and thirst, scaring yourself to death just to get up some rock face or mountain peak. Rock climbing is especially questionable in this respect. In basic mountain climbing the object is to reach the summit by any or the easiest route possible. In rock climbing it’s not really necessary to reach a summit; the game seems to amount to finding the most difficult ways of getting nowhere.”

Downward Bound
  • Print Length: 220 pages
  • Weight: 11.4 ounces
  • Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.6 x 8.5 inches

Hardcover: $29.95 available at Amazon, the Book Depository, and on order at most independent bookstores.

Paperback: $16.95 available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and on order at most independent bookstores.

North

North is a historical tale of arctic adventure, political chicanery, the power of love, and abandonment at the ends of the earth.

Lieutenant Parish sails to the Arctic Ocean on the adventure of a lifetime as the leader of the American Arctic Expedition. It is a journey that will make his name in history – if he survives. Unfortunately for Parish, the ultimate survival of the expedition depends on corrupt and inept politicians. However, unknown to Parish in his arctic prison, his new wife, Martha, is a greater ally than he ever realized. As Martha casts off her innocence and overcomes the obstacles of the political machine, Parish struggles to hold his men together in a hostile landscape that pushes the human psyche into new and dangerous spaces.

North is set in the late nineteenth century and based on the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition – which has been called “one of the most shameful episodes in American Arctic history.” The novel explores the tragic story of the expedition’s terrible ordeal and its inevitable end.

Roger Hubank is a prize-winning novelist whose work is largely devoted to exploring risk-taking in a wilderness of one kind or another.

A rock-climber and mountaineer since the 1960’s Roger Hubank has climbed extensively in Britain and the Alps. His work has been published in the United States, in Spain, and has appeared in various editions in the UK. A former Lecturer in English Literature at Loughborough University, he holds degrees from the Universities of Cambridge and Nottingham.

north
  • Print Length: 410 pages
  • Weight: 1.2 lbs ounces
  • Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 1.025 inches

Paperback: $21.95 available at Amazon and on order at most independent bookstores.

eBook: $9.99 available at Amazon.

Reviews

“Roger Hubank comes close to producing the first great historical novel of the twenty-first century.”

— The Observer

“North was the book that whacked me.”

— Dermot Somers

Hazard’s Way

WINNER OF THE 2001 BOARDMAN TASKER

WINNER THE 2001 BANFF MOUNTAIN FESTIVAL GRAND PRIX

Hazard’s Way is the story of a young man’s development and his struggles to cope with strict 19th-century Edwardian family life, with conflicting attitudes toward the Boer War, and with the contradictory influences of the friends he makes in his life as a climber. It is a story of change, the inevitable conflicts between generations, and the young pushing the limits of impossible beyond those of their elders.

The novel is a marvelous evocation of the climbing lifestyle at Wastdale Head in England’s Lake District, and it is set among the company of actual climbers from the period – Oppenheimer, Collie, the Abrahams, and Montague. It culminates in a crisis that all climbers will recognize: a crossroads of intuition and ego.

hazards way

  • Print Length: 260 pages
  • Weight: 14.1 ounces
  • Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.6 x 8.5 inches

eBook: $9.99 available at Amazon.

Paperback: $21.95 available at Amazon and on order at most independent bookstores.

My First Summer in the Sierra

In My First Summer in the Sierra John Muir recounts his early travels in the Sierra while working as a shepherd. In the summer of 1869, Muir set out from California’s Central Valley with a flock of 2,050 sheep and made his way to the headwaters of the Merced and Tuolumne Rivers. As one of America’s great philosopher naturalists, Muir captures the spirit of the Sierra Nevada and brings the reader along as a witness to his great journey. He explores in great detail the mountains, meadows, waterfalls, flora, and fauna of the rich landscape that captured his heart. My First Summer in the Sierra is an excellent introduction to the writings of John Muir. This edition contains 30 illustrations.

John Muir (1838 – 1914) was a Scottish-born American naturalist, author, and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States.

sierra

  • Print Length: 182 pages
  • Weight: 10.4 ounces
  • Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches

Paperback: $13.95 available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and on order at most independent bookstores.

Publisher’s Note

I remember my first summer in the Sierra. It was a good one. Yosemite Valley: the East Buttress of Middle Cathedral with Henrich; cragging with Lori, Jean, Sean, and crew; naps by the Merced; shenanigans with Rich. Tuolumne: Cathedral Peak; Matthes Crest; more shenanigans. Bishop: wanderings on Mt. Williamson with Dan; and deer antlers.

I believe it is near impossible for anyone to have a bad first summer in the Sierra. There is no bias or first-hand experience to influence the first timer. Instead, there are only first impressions and the imagination. And the Sierra does not disappoint. Fantasize all day; look at photos; read books. But in the end, when you finally arrive after all of that dreaming, the real deal will take first place.

As you journey toward the Range of Light, read about Muir’s first summer in the Sierra, for only when you arrive and see it with your own eyes will you truly understand—and feel—his manic passion.

~ Joe Reidhead

Gary Hemming

Gary Hemming: The Beatnik of the Alps

Gary Hemming—the enigmatic Californian who brought the modern American climbing spirit and technique to the Alps during the 1960s—was a cultural hero in Europe during an era of social upheaval. Launched into fame after a daring rescue of stranded climbers on the West Face of the Dru, Hemming became a star of the French media. Yet his fame in Europe—and anonymity in America—sat uneasily with his rebellious nature. Mirella Tenderini explores Hemming’s tumultuous life and spectacular climbs, creating a profound and tragic portrait of a man who sought a freedom—of love and climbing—that eluded him in this world. And perhaps in death Hemming became what the living cannot be—a legend and a myth.

Mirella Tenderini is an Italian mountaineering journalist and author. She lived among the Alps for fifteen years, running Alpine huts with her husband, a mountain guide. Tenderini has translated several books from English and French into Italian and has written a biography on the Duke of Abruzzi.

Hemming Small
  • Print Length: 200 pages
  • Weight: 11.4 ounces
  • Dimensions: 5.5 X 8.5 X 0.5 inches

eBook: $6.99 available at Amazon.

Paperback: $16.95 available at Amazon and on order at most independent bookstores.

Reviews

Reviews from the French, Italian, Spanish, and first English editions.

“Hemming never behaved conventionally. A different man – fine mountaineer certainly, but also a poet and philosopher – he wrote, he loved, he hated and no one could hold him. He played with words, with people and with his own life. All that life is evoked by Mirella Tenderini.”

– Alain Roux in Le Dauphine Libere, Chamonix.

“The first time in years that we have a mountain book that is subtle, strong and intelligent. Here the mountain has its true place as the mirror of passion.”

– Jean-Michel Asselin in Vertical, Grenoble.

“The author’s great ability is revealed in this amalgam – she salvages both objective and subjective truths, giving to the life a wholeness denied it in the climbing chronicles and legends that flourished around the myth of Gary Hemming.”

– Andrea Gobetti in La Rivista della Montagna, Turin.

“Handsome, charismatic, with only poste restante for an address, Gary Hemming appeared as a rebel god when, in the summer of 1966, he rescued two Germans trapped on the west face of the Petit Dru. Fame overwhelmed him and he could never be the same lone Californian hippy able to achieve a synthesis of all his aspirations when climbing a big, Alpine wall. In 1969 his body was found in Wyoming. Suicide? Accident? LSD? We will never know, but some maintain it was merely a mise-en-scene: heroes never die.”

– Il Corriere della Sera, Milan.

“The image emerging from this story is that of a hero of his time … who was the very expression of the anxieties, contradictions and hopes of the young generation of the 60s.”

– Piero Spirito in Il Piccolo, Trieste.

“Gary Hemming belongs to that generation of American climbers which brought a purity of approach to the climbing of big Alpine routes.”

– Ignatio Cnado in Desnivel, Madrid.

“The portrait of Gary in Mirella’s account is of the Gary I remember, a  man who unfailingly tried to be as good a man as any he knew, a man who desperately needed to conceal his private self but who sometimes thought he wanted to be famous. The preponderance of Mirella’a evidence is overwhelmingly that Gary really wanted love more than fame or even privacy. He had that love. His tragedy was that he was damaged precisely in a way that prevented him from seeing that. “

– Pete Sinclair, American Alpine Journal, 1996

“In the early 1960s Gary Hemming rocked the Alps with the first ascents of the American Direct on the Dru, and the South Face of the Fou, then two of Chamonix’s most difficult routes. A daring rescue brightened the limelight. Before and after, he climbed extensively near the top standard for nearly two decades, with such illustrious partners as Royal Robbins, John Harlin, Tom Frost, and Barry Corbett, making very early ascents of testpieces from the Steck-Salathé (when it was the hardest route in Yosemite) to the Walker Spur of the Grandes Jorasses.”

– Jeff Achey, Climbing, 1996

Evening Light

The first Briton to climb all fourteen of the world’s 8000 meter summits, George Hazard long ago sacrificed wife and child to his ambitions as a mountaineer. Returning from a trekking trip to take up a commission from his publishers, his truck goes off the road. Emerging from a coma he is confronted by his daughter, Calon, who he abandoned many years before.

As father and daughter embark on a fraught relationship, Hazard discovers that Calon has found, in her in-laws, the family she needed. Drawn gradually, despite himself, into their domestic life he is forced to look on helplessly as they are caught up in a succession of personal calamities.

Meanwhile, as Hazard continues to struggle with his autobiography, he discovers that the story of his life is inextricable from that of other lives. Finally, overwhelmed by a scandal erupting out of his past, he is forced to recognize that a man is forever what he has been at any time for others. And might, at any time, be called upon to answer for it.

Evening Light asks those disturbing questions some mountaineers prefer to keep to themselves.

Roger Hubank is a prize-winning novelist whose work is largely devoted to exploring risk-taking in a wilderness of one kind or another.

A rock-climber and mountaineer since the 1960’s Roger Hubank has climbed extensively in Britain and the Alps. His work has been published in the United States, in Spain, and has appeared in various editions in the UK. A former Lecturer in English Literature at Loughborough University, he holds degrees from the Universities of Cambridge and Nottingham.

evening light
  • Print Length: 336 pages
  • Weight:  1.1 lbs
  • Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x .84 inches

Paperback: $21.95 available at Amazon and on order at most independent bookstores.

eBook: $9.99 available at Amazon.

River of Hope

River of Hope: A 1,000 Mile Winter Canoe Journey for Autism Awareness

In the dead of winter, Joe Reidhead embarked on a 1000-mile canoe journey that would connect two of America’s great rivers—the Missouri and the Mississippi. River of Hope follows Reidhead down these rivers as he braves freezing water, blizzards, massive barges, and hallucinations. These brutal conditions forced him to confront his innermost fears in an environment filled with danger. As though these challenges were not big enough, Reidhead also used the voyage as a platform to raise awareness for autism—a disorder that dwells close to home for the author.

River of Hope is a story of grandiose dreams and humility at the hands of nature. Along the way, Reidhead explores the history and culture of these rivers, and he discovers unexpected parallels between the struggles of his adventure and the struggles of those who live with autism.

River of Hope: A 1,000 Mile Winter Canoe Journey for Autism Awareness
  • Print Length: 108 pages
  • Weight: 1.6 ounces
  • Dimensions: 5 x 0.3 x 7 inches

eBook: $3.99 available at Amazon.

Paperback: $9.95 available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and on order at most independent bookstores.

Walking

Walking: Annotated Edition

In his classic essay on walking, Henry David Thoreau, the famous naturalist and philosopher, extols the virtues of immersing ourselves daily in nature. Thoreau treats the act of walking as a vehicle that transports us to the sacred space that is nature. The wildness of nature becomes a retreat from the noise of contemporary society and civilization—a place to rest our thoughts and regain balance between these two worlds. This edition contains nearly 40 new historical and biographical footnotes.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was an American naturalist, philosopher, and a leading transcendentalist. His writings have influenced environmentalism and civil disobedience.

walking
  • Print Length: 48 pages
  • Weight: 3.7 ounces
  • Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.1 inches

Paperback: $10.95 available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and on order at most independent bookstores.

Publisher’s Note

When I’m lost in the mire of work and life, I like to escape from my desk and responsibilities for a walk amid the woods or down an empty country gravel lane. These walks help me to re-center my thoughts and priorities, for during the hustle of the day these often become focused on things that are of no importance. The walks also—and perhaps more importantly—force me to interact with the world as it really is: muddy, dusty, smelly, cold, sweaty, wild, and—often—absolutely perfect.

If you take away all of our societal obligations and duties, all we have left to do is walk around and be amazed at what we see. Get rid of the car. Get rid of the bicycle. Throw out the TV and the computer. Walk to Goodwill and give them those dusty board games that were played once and already are missing a piece. Downsize the city mansion for a well-worn, one-room cabin. Get rid of these things and we need less money to live, and thus we can work less and live more. Now what to do with all of this newfound free time? Walk! Strip us of all of our possessions and what are we? We are simple human beings equipped with legs and arms for walking and scrambling over the globe. And we have been blessed with eyes, ears, a nose, a tongue, and touch through which we can experience this wild world of ours.

And out of this wild world was born Thoreau—a wild man that civilization could not box. Pay a poll tax? He preferred imprisonment. The latest fashion? How about a decades-old suit? A beard to attract the ladies? One word: neckbeard.

So what can we learn from this wildly independent person? We can learn to see the world as it is. We can learn to enjoy the world as it is. And we can learn to embrace the world as it is.

“Walking” is a book that should be reread each year and before any journey. I know that I benefit from this exercise.

The Compleat Angler

The Compleat Angler, Izaak Walton’s fishing classic, is a celebration of the art and spirit of fishing. Through prose, verse, song, and folklore, Walton inspires readers to go into nature — to go to its meandering streams and rivers — and fish. Walton teaches us about a life filled with harmony between nature, man, and God; and a life spent in the company of friends and free from the hustle of the city.

compleat
  • Print Length: 186 pages
  • Weight: 11.4 ounces
  • Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches

Paperback: $12.95 available at Amazon, the Barnes & Noble, and on order at most independent bookstores.

The Sea-Wolf

Jack London’s The Sea-Wolf is a novel of adventure, brutality, and survival at sea. Humphrey van Weyden, rescued from a shipwreck, is forced into service aboard the Ghost, a sealing ship under the command of the violent and powerful Wolf Larsen. Van Weyden must grow stronger and wiser to survive life on the ship, and he will need all of these skills to survive the final challenge.

Jack London (1876-1916) was an American author and journalist. Before finding success as an author, London worked grueling jobs including on a seal-hunting ship, as an oyster pirate, and as a prospector in the Klondike Gold Rush. His writing found success in the then-burgeoning magazine industry.

sea-wolf-copy
  • Print Length: 314 pages
  • Weight: 1 lb
  • Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x .785 inches

Paperback: $14.95 available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and on order at most independent bookstores.

Caves of Missouri

In this reprint of a classic piece of cave literature, the famed geologist, J Harlen Bretz, gives a detailed account of the formation and history of Missouri caves. Caves of Missouri contains over 450 surveyed caves, with in-depth geological and cultural histories, and 168 illustrations, including cross sections, maps, and photographs. This book is an excellent resource for anyone interested in Missouri’s natural and cultural history.

J Harlen Bretz (1882 – 1981) was an American geologist and professor at the University of Chicago. Bretz was best known for his revolutionary ideas about the origins of the Channeled Scablands of eastern Washington. His ideas, though eventually proven correct, contradicted the prevailing theory of the day. He was also an authority on caves and cave formation, authoring several works on caves.

caves-of-mo
  • Print Length: 582 pages
  • Weight: 2.1 lbs
  • Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.3 inches

Paperback: $34.95 available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and on order at most independent bookstores.

White Fang

Jack London’s White Fang is the tale of a wolf-dog and its coming of age amongst the violence of the wild northern frontier. The novel follows White Fang’s journey from a wild pup, to his abuse as a ruthless prizefighting dog, and finally as the faithful companion of a loving master. White Fang is a companion novel to London’s best-known work, The Call of the Wild.

Jack London (1876-1916) was an American author and journalist. Before finding success as an author, London worked grueling jobs including on a seal-hunting ship, as an oyster pirate, and as a prospector in the Klondike Gold Rush. His writing found success in the then-burgeoning magazine industry.

White Fang
  • Print Length: 212 pages
  • Weight: 9.1 ounces
  • Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x .53 inches

Paperback: $12.95 available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and on order at most independent bookstores.

Publisher’s Note

White Fang is an amazing story that is one of my personal favorites.

In my English Lit class our teacher would talk for hours about how White Fang is a symbolic story about the change from nature to civilization and that the world we live in depends on the survival of the fittest. While this is not untrue, it is also so much more.

It’s a story that teaches you about surviving even when the odds are mentally and physically against you. It’s about learning new things and trying new experiences—and that adapting to a new way of life does not mean giving up who you are. Most importantly, though, White Fang is a story about learning to trust, even when the world has given you no reason to, for with the power and love that comes from true friendship you can overcome any obstacle life throws at you.

Taking Leave

Fleeing from an imprisoning job and a disintegrating marriage, Anthony Hardman seeks refuge in a remote house on the edge of a lonely moor. Here, set free by the liberating expanses of sky and rock, he begins to discover the co-existence of past and present, and the strangeness of remembered experience, in the re-awakening of the bold young climber he once was, finding his fulfillment among the limestone crags and gritstone edges.

Darker memories, long suppressed, emerging from his buried self, compel him to re-examine the breakdown of relations with his wife, Elizabeth. Through his friendship with a shepherd and his family, above all with a feral child, he begins to understand what has been lacking in his life. Meanwhile, as he and Elizabeth struggle to come to terms with the unfinished business of their marriage, a catastrophe is looming which will have tragic consequences.

Set among the hills and crags of the Peak District, Roger Hubank’s novel explores the nature of the “self”, its relationship with the sustaining energies of the earth, and the claims of other lives.

Roger Hubank is a prize-winning novelist whose work is largely devoted to exploring risk-taking in a wilderness of one kind or another.

A rock-climber and mountaineer since the 1960’s Roger Hubank has climbed extensively in Britain and the Alps. His work has been published in the United States, in Spain, and has appeared in various editions in the UK. A former Lecturer in English Literature at Loughborough University, he holds degrees from the Universities of Cambridge and Nottingham.

taking leave
  • Print Length: 296 pages
  • Weight: 11.4 ounces
  • Dimensions: 8.5 X 5.5 X .74 inches

eBook: $9.99 available at Amazon.

Paperback: $21.95 available at Amazon.

Reviews

“The lyrical evocations of place urge on the reader a sense of a living presence, akin to the omnipresent landscape in the work of Thomas Hardy…”

— Val Randall in the Alpine Journal

The Call of the Wild

The Call of the Wild is the story of Buck, who starts the tale as a domesticated dog living a life of luxury on a Californian estate. However, when Buck is kidnapped to work as a sled dog in the Yukon, he must learn to survive in the harsh, unforgiving wilderness. With each brutal lesson encountered on his journey, Buck loses his civilized demeanor and adapts to the realities of life in the wild. London’s novel White Fang is the companion and mirror to The Call of the Wild.

Jack London (1876-1916) was an American author and journalist. Before finding success as an author, London worked grueling jobs including on a seal-hunting ship, as an oyster pirate, and as a prospector in the Klondike Gold Rush. His writing found success in the then-burgeoning magazine industry.

call of the wild
  • Print Length: 98 pages
  • Weight: 6.4 ounces
  • Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x .245 inches

Paperback: $9.95 available at Amazon, the Barnes & Noble, and on order at most independent bookstores.

Publisher’s Note

Gambling, travel, fights to the death, acts of heroism, feats of strength and vengeful ghost dogs are all a part of what makes The Call of the Wild just a fun book, and part of why I never get tired of reading it.

The first time I read it was back in grade school. From the first page, I was hooked. Buck, the hero of the tale, draws you in so quickly that before you realize it you’re invested—emotionally—in the survival of a fictitious character. He’s a hero you want to not only see succeed but also get his happy ever after—or at least a nice family.

For me, Buck is one of the most realistic literary heroes. He is thrown into a life he never wanted but doesn’t let that get him down. Instead, he works to learn what he needs to survive, getting help when he needs it. He is not always good at what he does, and sometimes he fails. He might not possess much honor, but he is loyal and true to himself.

Granite Climbs of Missouri

Granite Climbs of Missouri: The Silver Mines, Millstream Gardens, and Amidon

Granite Climbs of Missouri is the most extensive guidebook to the rock climbing routes and bouldering problems of Missouri’s granite heartland—the St. Francois Mountains. Only an hour and a half south of St. Louis, the Silver Mines, Millstream Gardens, and Amidon offer some of the best climbing in Missouri. The book contains over 420 documented routes, and over 275 of these are easy to moderate in difficulty. Color photos and maps help climbers locate routes with ease and speed.

granite
  • Print Length: 212 pages
  • Weight: 10.4 ounces
  • Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.4 inches

Paperback: $34.95 available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and on order at most independent bookstores.