National Park Readers - Böcker

The first and only anthology of key writings about Glacier National Park, this comprehensive collection ranges from Native American myths to early exploration narratives to contemporary journeys, from investigations of the park’s geology and biology to hair-raising encounters with wild animals, fires, and mountain peaks.  Soon after the park was established in 1910, visitors began to arrive, often with pen in hand. They included such well-known authors as mystery writer Mary Roberts Rinehart, historian Agnes C. Laut, fiction writer Dorothy Johnson, humorist Irvin S. Cobb, poet Vachel Lindsay, and artist Maynard Dixon—all featured in the book. Readers will encounter colorful characters who lived in and around the park in its early days, including railroad magnate and conservationist Louis Hill, renegade ranger and poacher Joe Cosley, bootlegger Josephine Doody, and old-time cowboy guide Jim Whilt. Blackfeet and Kalispel myths, politically charged descriptions by early explorers such as John Muir and George Bird Grinnell, and full-color reproductions of the illustrated letters of cowboy artist and Glacier resident Charles M. Russell are also included. Copublished with the Glacier National Park Conservancy. The Glacier National Park Conservancy preserves the Park for generations to come.

For 12,000 years, people have left a rich record of their experiences in Utah's Capitol Reef National Park. In The Capitol Reef Reader, award-winning author and photographer Stephen Trimble collects the best of this writing—160 years worth of words that capture the spirit of the park and its surrounding landscape in personal narratives, philosophical riffs, and historic and scientific records.The volume features nearly fifty writers who have anchored their attention and imagination in Utah's least-known national park. The bedrock elders of Colorado Plateau literature are here (Clarence Dutton, Wallace Stegner, Edward Abbey), as are generations of writers who love this land (including Ellen Meloy, Craig Childs, Charles Bowden, Renny Russell, Ann Zwinger, Gary Ferguson, and Rose Houk). Their pieces are a pleasure to read and each reveals a facet of Capitol Reef's story, creating a gem of a volume. Editor Stephen Trimble guides and orients with commentary and context.A visual survey of the park in almost 100 photographs adds another layer to our understanding of this place. Historic photos, pictures from Trimble's forty-five years of hiking the park, as well as images from master visual artists who have worked in Capitol Reef are included. No other book captures the essence of Capitol Reef like this one.

Grand Teton National Park draws more than three million visitors annually in search of wildlife, outdoor adventure, solitude, and inspiration. This collection of writings showcases the park's natural and human histories through stories of drama and beauty, tragedy and triumph.  Editor Robert Righter has selected thirty-five contributors whose work takes readers from the Tetons' geological origins to the time of Euro-American encroachment and the park's politically tumultuous creation. Selections range from Laine Thom's Shoshone legend of the Snake River and Owen Wister's essay 'Great God! I've Just Killed a Bear,' to Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson's humorous yet fearful account of crossing the Snake River, and William Owen's first attempt to climb the Grand Teton. Conservationists, naturalists, and environmentalists are also represented: Terry Tempest Williams chronicles her multiyear encounter with her 'Range of Memory,' and Olaus and Mardy Murie recount the difficulties of 'park-making' in an often-hostile human environment.Anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the park's wild beauty and controversial past will want to read these stories by people who lived it.

Geology is the star attraction in many national parks, but Arches National Park reveals erosional wonders like no other place on earth. There’s something thrilling and slightly unsettling about a massive rock with a hole in its middle or a ribbon of stone flung like a spider’s thread from one rock face to another. And there’s nothing quite like a view of blue sky or snow-capped mountains framed by stone. So many stony holes of so many shapes and sizes abound here that people spend years hunting unrecorded arches, quarreling over measurements and categories, and dreaming up original names.Part of the National Park Readers series, The Arches Reader is an anthology of writing about Arches National Park and the surrounding area. The selections range from creative nonfiction to short fiction to poetry to amateur versions of scientific reports; they are wide-ranging and have never before been collected in one place; several selections are previously unpublished. Photographs collected here include both historic black-and-white images and beautiful, full-color images of some of Arches’ most striking features. The Arches Reader is an essential companion for anyone who wants to better understand its unique natural and human past.