As part of our annual Books & Essays print edition, we asked our readers, Facebook fans and Twitter followers what their favorite books about the West are and why. Many of you responded with fantastic titles for a wide variety of reasons. Here they are:
Replies from Twitter:
- @razoredhound: Wild Horse Mesa by Zane Gray about some tuff old birds!
- C. C. Harrison @CCHAzAuthor: SAGE CANE’S HOUSE OF GRACE AND FAVOR/Women needed guts to live in the Old West/Sage had an abundance/Turned a town around.
- Mark Tukman @tukmangeo: Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West
- Pat @Cadenza17: James Galvin’s The Meadow because nature and sense of place defines who we are.
- DonZancanella @DonZancanella: The Power of the Dog by Thomas Savage. Also The Meadow by James Galvin. Richard Hugo’s Collected Poems.
- Kealoha @lkfreidenburg: The Angle of Repose by W. Stegner. Beautiful writing. Snapshot of life when the West was being explored.
- Charlie Fautin @PHautin: “Rising From The Plains”: REAL history – natural and human – by John McPhee
- curtis johnson @sidemeat: Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey
- Madeleine Carey @the_maddawg: The Goat in The Rug by Geraldine (as told to C.L Blood) because it is about cooperation, culture and wild things.
- Talitha Agan @TalithaAgan: Legacy of Conquest by Patricia Nelson Limerick because it is a great choice instead of the traditional ones 🙂
- David BIEMEL @DavidBiemel: Lewis & Clark’s Journals. A classic that describes the West as it was, pre-development. Inspired my love of the outdoors.
- John Orr @CoyoteGulch: Blood and Thunder. Who would know that a history could also be a page-turner?
- Tyler Green @TylerGreenDC: “Carleton Watkins: The Complete Mammoth Photographs.”
- robb cadwell @somsai: Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey well written, lots of color, shoot em up, great music.
- Jason Heppler @jaheppler: Nature’s Metropolis by Cronon, because it changed the way I think about cities, nature, and place.
- Travis Mason-Bushman @polarscribe: Cadillac Desert, by Marc Reisner – at turns magisterial, hilarious, unbelievable – and impossibly prescient.
- corbin gentzler @corbin_gentzler: Cowboys and East Indians by @ninawyo because it’s a love poem to Wyoming and all underdogs everywhere.
- Russ Lyon @RussLyon2: The Secret Knowledge of Water bc you can’t talk about the west with talking about water
- Monica Ortiz Uribe @MOrtizUribe: Fire Season/Philip Connors. Introduced me to the Gila, nation’s 1st designated wilderness & schooled me on ways of wildfire
- Pat @Cadenza17: James Galvin’s The Meadow because nature and sense of place defines who we are.
- Tay Wiles @taywiles: I’m going to agree with @luvintheanthrop here. #angleofrepose but also tack on #collectedworksofbillthekid by @him323
- Kevin Essington @keviness1967: 1) Beyond the Hundredth Meridian. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Refuge, and Cadillac Desert all tied for second!
- luvintheanthropocene @luvintheanthrop: Angle of Repose: full of contradiction, toil, heartache, history that won’t leave us alone, and so. much. failure.
- Neil @Burghpunk: Undaunted Courage has to be one of the best – I mean, the first American exploration of the area from St. Louis to Oregon
- Don Pogreba @dpogreba: Desert Solitaire, because like the West, it’s occasionally austere, always irreverent, and it will always feel like home.
- David BIEMEL @DavidBiemel: Lewis & Clark’s Journals. A classic that describes the West as it was, pre-development. Inspired my love of the outdoors.
Replies from Facebook:
- Marcy Woodwell Neilson
I just entered your contest with my favorite book about the West (Animal Dialogs). But my husband, Steve Neilson, who doesn’t do FB, would like to enter his favorite: Hard Road West (Meldahl). And while I’m here, we’d both like to give a shout out to what might be the best book of all, by the late Marc Reisner: CADILLAC DESERT. - Matt Minich
Beyond the Hundredth Meridian by Wallace Stegner, because it’s probably the best one-book education on the history of water and environmental issues in the West. - Steve Swanson
The Living, by Annie Dillard. Illustrates the extractive, explosive nature of Westward expansion, the heartbreak of the decline of Native ways and loss of the country as it was, and the infinite variety of strength and weakness in all Westerners. - Kealoha
The Angle of Repose by W. Stegner. Beautiful writing. Snapshot of life when the West was being explored. - Carolyn Rosner
Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy. Because it’s stripped down, and it’s real. - Estee Rivera Murdock
Desert Solitaire seems like the classic choice. - Laurie James
Angle of Repose – Wallace Stegner A saga of new westerners who find themselves in many places. The book is written in the best of prose. - David Glasser
Basin and Range – John McPhee. Excellent exploration of the geography of the Southwest. I never look at those mountain ranges without thinking of this book. - Andrew Vitale
Monkey Wrench Gang because Rudolph the Red knows rain, dear. - Clay Williams
Stegner’s Angle of Repose. Wonderful prose, great character development, great sense of place(Leadville, CO). Second is Lonesome Dove-yes I know… - Michael Stubbs
I love Nancy Lord’s Green Alaska because it led me to so many other books about Alaska. She works in John Muir and John Burroughs and so many others. - Kevin Herman
Desert Solitaire, for more reasons than I have time to list them. - Jane Stebbins
Ooh-ooh! And The Golden Spruce, about a beloved genetically unusual tree that lived in BC and was revered by all. The book, nonfiction, shows the sometimes fine line between environmentalism and logging. - Laurynda Ann Williams
Annie Proulx “The Ace In The Hole” or the “Monkey Wrench Gang” - Charlie Quimby
Stegner’s Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, because it subsumes adventurist exploration, environmentalism and the federal bureaucracy in one great package, setting the table for so many of the good books above. - Geoffrey Guthrie
I don’t think anyone’s mentioned The Milagro Beanfield War… - Jeff Foster
I already put in my vote for Desert Solitaire but I can’t fail to mention the writings of Mary Sojourner since I haven’t seen her listed in the other comments yet. - Gulilat Tesfaye
Travels with Charley - Susan Markley
Many that others have already selected, but I will add Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean for a soulful telling of a terrible story, for giving me better understanding of fire and its politics, for blending reporting of facts with heart, and for trying to bring closure to the tragic story of young men (and not quite making it) before his own time ran out. It made me cry. - Shaun Oldenburger
The House Of Sky is one of the best western memoirs by Doig - Pete Aniello
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. Epic and brutal historical fiction, intense and flawless writing. - Ray Yurkewycz
I gotta go with Ed Abbey’s “The Fools Progress”. It combines his ever-present environmental themes and vivid descriptions of the landscape with a heart-wrenching narrative that tends to wreck me for a few days after reading it. - Peter Hickman
Blood Meridian because it evokes the savage wilderness of the West more hauntingly than anything else I have read. Anyone alone for long in the backcountry has probably felt, in some way, the edge of what Blood Meridian explores. - Walter Kloefkorn
Favorite? Singular? Impossible!
Some of aforementioned, especially Desert Solitaire. Abbey’s “Monkey Wrench Gang” has a special appeal.
Richard Manning’s “Against the Grain” although that would include the midwest too. His “Rewilding the West” is also good.
Robt. Michael Pyle- “Sky Time in Grays River.”
Hard to pick just one out from Rick Bass’ list.
“Encounters With the Archdruid” and Coming Into the Country,” by John McPhee
“Cadillac Desert” Marc Reisner
Blaine Hardin “A River Lost”
Donald Worster- “Rivers of Empire,” and “A River Running West”
Barbara Kingsolver “Bean Tree” novels. - Magda Sokolowski
First place: “Beyond the Hundredth Meridian” by Wallace Stegner. Arguably, no other single voice has stood up for the West and what it represents as strongly, intelligently and compassionately as Stegner did. 2nd: “The Collected Poems” by William Stafford. 3rd: “My First Summer in the Sierras” – John Muir. 4th: Gary Snyder, Terry Tempest Williams, Ed Abbey … - Amy Bulger
Is it possibly to pick just one? Since a lot have already listed Cormac McCarthy’s border trilogy, I’ll throw another trilogy in the hat – Annie Proulx’s Wyoming Stories. They make me want to go outside and roll around in the dirt. In a good way. - Bear Trust International
Empire of the Summer Moon
A sweeping narrative about the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful and influential tribe in American history. - Amahia Mallea
Wallace Stegner, _The Angle of Repose_ tells the story of multiple generations of Westerners (often transplants), complexly defines the West’s central importance to economy and culture, and is beautifully written and well-researched historical fiction. Amidst wonderful company of western fiction and history, this book stands out. - Elin Hert
James Galvin’s The Meadow took me back to the desolate, beautiful landscape near my college town of Laramie. - Michael J. Dax
Loving everyone who is throwing out Stegner classics – to add to the list “Where the Blue Bird Sings to the Lemonade Springs.” Beautiful collection of essays - Sarah Councell
Desert solitaire for sure! - Sharon Vollers
The collection of short stories called “The Heart of the West” by O’Henry!!! - Hayden Simmons
The Devil’s Highway…wake of forgiveness…the crossing…blood meridian…secret life of Edgar Mint…why would you read about anywhere else? - Shana Payne O’Halloran
I am torn between The Secret Knowledge of Water (Craig Childs) & the Monkey Wrench Gang (Ed Abbey) – very different choices, I know! My physical self may now reside in Ontario, Canada, but my soul belongs to the desert southwest and just about any book from either of these two authors makes me feel like I am home. - Scott Carleton
Empire of the Summer Moon. I always romanticized what it was like before westward expansion and this book truly captures the spirit of the plains Indians and chronicles its eventual demise. Couldn’t put it down. - Tracy Murphy
This House of Sky by Ivan Doig. He evokes the essence of Big Sky country like no other in that book. A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean is a close second for the same reason. - Dallas Robbins
This is a bit cliche, but Angle of Repose. Read it for the first time at the beginning of the year and it has haunted my imagination since. - Eric T. Liknes
A River Runs Through It and Other Stories – Norman Maclean, a portrait of the west “with dew still on it.” - Barbara Howard
Absolutely all of the above tho let’s not forget the Louis L’Amour books, esp. the half dozen or so taking place in New Mexico. Excellent researched history and descriptive landscapes. Can be found in Trailing Louis L’Amour in New Mexico by Bert Murphy, a great book in itself. - Glen Hootman
Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey. I first read this in 1975 as an Environmental Sciences major in college. It was a fun fiction read that was sorely needed between mid-terms and finals. - Deja Malone-Persha
The Anthropology of Turquoise by Ellen Meloy as she acknowledges the way we weave meaning and identity with place - Brian Smith
Encompasses more than the West, but Undaunted Courage by Ambrose is an amazing account of the Lewis & Clark journey - Mike Coronella
Desert Solitaire by Ed Abbey, because it conveys the fascination and passion for the desert. That book changed my life.
The other might be Vagabond for Beauty by WL Rusho–all about Everett Ruess. - Julie Klett
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown (because this part of our nation’s history is overlooked/forgotten). OR The Great Plains by Ian Frazier (a great road trip!). - Stephani Stephenson
“1846: Year of Decision”, by Bernard deVoto - Robert Woodward
Michener’s “Centennial”. It is historical fiction about the central Colorado region. I regard it as a classic! - Farland Fish
“This House of Sky” by Ivan Doig. I read it every few years. Pure delight. - Kevin Montgomery
Wildfire by Zane Grey - Mary Groom Hall
Perma Red, a novel set on the Flathead Reservation, by Debra Magpie Earling. - Kelly Harrell
Wilderness and the American Mind because it probes so deeply what the “west” has meant to our country. - Charles Hudson
The Last Picture Show – Larry McMurtry shows, in post-war small town Texas, the incongruence of Colonial mythology and our open spaces. A second choice would be Rock Springs by Richard Ford – Western melancholy tour de force. We don’t own the West, it just lets us live here. - Caroline Tracey
Wallace Stegner’s The American West as Living Space! The most astounding exposition on why the West is so unique I’ve ever read - Priscilla Burton
Ivan Doig’s, This House of Sky, is an autobiography and a wonderful portrayal of life and landscape in the west in the early 20th century. - Amanda Pilley
Anything by Terry Tempest Williams, but especially Refuge. Her beautiful and prosaic writing about our connection to place and our obligation to preserve those places should be on everyone’s Must Read list! - WM Rine
There isn’t even one “West.” So ….
Angle of Repose, Wallace Stegner
The Devil’s Highway, Luis Alberto Urrea
Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, Wallace Stegner
The Milagro Beanfield War, John Nichols
Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner
Beyond the Wall, Edward Abbey
Refuge, Terry Tempest Williams
Bad Land, Jonathan Raban
House Made of Dawn, N. Scott Momaday
Rising from the Plains, John McPhee
Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather
Down by the River, Charles Bowden
The Death of Jim Loney, James Welch
Sometimes a Great Notion, Ken Kesey - Nick Persellin
Encounters with the Archdruid by McPhee. Just one of my favorites but one I didn’t see scanning down the list of prior comments. Why? Because I like the pairings of opposites to get their views. - Liz Hall
Ann Zwinger Wind in the Rock and Ellen Meloy’s Eating Stone. - Ryann Savino
Raven’s Exile by Ellen Meloy; because I love the Green River & no one writes about it like Ellen Meloy. - Edward G Luhm
I don’t see Richard Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America. - Bahia Nightengale
The Monkeywrench Gang and Cadillac Desert but I concur with Elijah! ONE favorite? Too tough! - Zach Johns
DESERT SOLITAIRE followed by THE MONKEY WRENCH GANG. Why? It’s ABBEY! Read them and you’ll see! - Adam Hannuksela
It’s impossible. In the last year? In all time? Just so many. Abbey, Stegner, McCarthy, Geronimo, Bowden, I can’t even think if one author. (Ever notice how many of our “great western writers are from the east?) lately it’s been the hummingbird’s daughter though. - Fritz Kindberg
Hell’s Canyon: the deepest gorge on earth. - Corey Radman
Here’s another vote for Cadillac Desert. It changed my perceptions on sustainable development and 10 years later I still think about John Wesley Powell as described in the book.
And one more young, but impressive voice. Are you guys reading Laura Pritchett? Stars Go Blue is fiction, one heck of a good yarn, and deeply rooted in a love for the West and its people. It’s worth your time. - Sarah Tortora
I haven’t read nearly enough, but rebecca solnit’s river of shadows. what a great reading list compiled here. - Lisa Matlock
Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It. Not only a nearly perfect story but the story of how the culture and heart of a family are tied to a western Montana landscape. Plus, it teaches the reader how to fly fish to boot. - Lori Zimmett
Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee; It’s the Truth of the Geniside - Heidi Weiland
Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey….for me it truly depicts the haunting beauty and spirit of the west. I get swept away. - Barbara Ruslana
Beyond the hundredth meridian. Wallace Stegner. John Wesley Powell is one of my heroes, this book is a wonderful account of the first experiences down the Colorado. Another must is Cadillac Desert. - Gary Matlock
One Man’s West by David Lavender about life in western colorado in the 30s. Great western humor. - Claudia Kurland Cunningham
One Man’s West – David Lavender. The Telling Distance – Bruce Berger - Drew Lane
Desert Solitaire - Phil Millam
The Good Rain by Tim Egan. - Heidi Boardman
“Happy as a Big Sunflower, Adventures in the West, 1876 – 1880″ by Rolf Johnson; a great read… also,”Buffalo Girls” by Larry McMurtry. “Montana 1948 A Novel” by Larry Watson; I have spent the last 7 winters in Idaho off the grid & I do read many books! - Martina Rose Keil
Annie Proulx “Close Range”, “Bad Dirt”, and ” Fine Just The Way It Is”. I had the pleasure of living in an area of Wyoming where these stories are based. My husband and I tried our hands at giving life to a barren landscape, balanced our careers in natural resources with being part of a community made up of fiercely independent individuals and spent many days getting g to know the landscapes from the bad water basins to the lush green mountain meadows. Annie captures these experiences and more with her characters and prose. I swear I have had first hand experience with most of the people she introduces her readers to. - Cindy Kleh
Road Dogs: A Conversation with America because it’s today’s West. - Bo Hemian Sr.
On the Loose by Terry & Renny Russell. A simple yet profound little book! Inspired my first western road trip in 1972! Also, most anything by Abbey, Childs, McCarthy (western trilogy), Sojourner…. - Robert Irwin Pochapin
Vagabond for Beauty. Everett Ruess, paints a brilliant picture of innocence and wide eyed wonder that can only have been had in his shoes, in his time, in the American west. - Andrew Aldrich
Amen to much of the above! I just re-read my favorite for now: Keith Heyer Meldahl, “Rough-Hewn Land: A Geologic Journey from California to the Rocky Mountains”.
Also by Keith Heyer Meldahl: “Hard Road West: History and Geology along the Gold Rush Trail.” - Christopher James
Angle of repose. Of course. Norman Maclean a river runs through it. Anything by Ivan Doig. You don’t need to know why. Any westerners have those books in their blood. Earlier: john muirs Yosemite writings. I’d include david gutersons east of the mountains in that list too. - Wesley Ryan
Abbey, Stegner, Leopold, Childs, McPhee, Risner…all possess greatness. Let’s not overlook local talent Charles Bowden. Start with ‘Blue Desert’ and ‘Frog Mountain Blues.’ - Chris Roberts
“The Jumanos” by Nancy Parrot Hickerson is a history of a “vanished” people using first hand accounts from Spanish explorers in the 16th and 17th centuries in NM and West TX sets my imagination on fire. Also since there’s been no mention of the tween books by Scott Odell such as “island of the blue dolphins” was essential reading for me as a kid. - Barbara Richardson
“Wildlife” by Molly Gloss. It may be set in the Northwest, but that’s still West. A masterwork. - Ashley Elaine Reis
Gretel Ehrlich’s “The Solace of Open Spaces.” Herein, she coins one of the most appropriate terms we “Westerners” can use to identify ourselves: “culture straddler.” - Carolyn Hopper
“Red” by Terry Tempest Williams because it was her book about the Red Rock Country that galvanized me to begin to work to help save it. - Reform Schooler
On the Loose by Terry and Renny Russell. This book inspired a generation to explore parts of the West off the beaten track and to work for their preservation. For many — me included — it was a life-changing book. - Becky Grswld
Monkey Wrench Gang for Obvious reasons and The Anthropology of Turquoise by Ellen Meloy. Paints wonderful images of the significance of the color turquoise in our everyday lives. - Catherine Billings Roy
Blood and Thunder, baby. It actually scratches the surface of the complex history and some of the mythological personalities that shaped the wild wild west. Great read. - Sharon Leach
Loved Bill Kittredge’s Hole in the Sky, but for Western novels, I’ll take Wallace Stegner’s Big Rock Candy Mountain. It felt relentlessly realistic about the difficulties and indestructible hopefulness of the Western spirit. - Andrew Mergen
Keith Basso’s Wisdom sits in Places is an extraordinary book about landscape and language. - Damien Powledge
the gazetteer of Montana. why? endless possibilities, without future trips spoiled by internet pictures or trip reports. - Janet Zich
Crossing Open Ground by Barry Lopez. Anything by Wallace Stegner. The Collected Works of Billy the Kid by Michael Ondaatje – a terrifying, haunting, beautiful salute to the myth of the American West by a Dutch-Ceylonese Englishman. Natural State, a UC Press anthology of California nature writing. - Olga Harbour
I can’t choose only one. I love anything written by Will Bagley; Fur Fortune and Empire by Eric Jay Dolin; The Wilderness Warrior by Douglas Brinkley – it’s about Teddy Roosevelt and how he saved so many of the public lands in the West that we now enjoy. OK, I’ll stop now. - Peter Shemitz
Angle of Repose, by Wallace Stegner. My love of the west matured out of the story lines. Maybe Ceremony. By Leslie Marmon Silko. Possibly the most compelling western stoty, often squeezed into native American fiction, but so much complexity and unexpectedness. - Jacqueline Soule
It’s a tie: Returning to Bisbee//Desert Solitaire (But my Kearney & Peebles “Arizona Flora” is most used) I wrote this quickly before looking at other’s posts. Then I looked. What a great list of reads. and gee, only 1 or 2 not on my shelf (aren’t libraries grand?) I might now add that Janice Bowers and Joseph Wood Krutch also speak to the sense of space that is the west very well. - Nancy McIntyre
So many to choose from…”The Worst Hard Time” by Timothy Egan to remind us of our power & our vulnerability. “PrairyErth” by Wm. Least Heat-Moon for deep sense of place. - Dick Williams
It’s an old one but I’m enjoying reading it to my 106 year old mother – “Chip of the Flying U” written in 1906 and a best seller in its era. By B. M. Bower about life on a Montana ranch just after the turn of the last century. - M.j. Orton
Irving Stone’s, MEN TO MATCH MY MOUNTAINS because it makes history read like a novel and most of all because I read it to my father during his last hours. - Kristie Jacquet
West of Here -Jonathan Evison. Bigfoot, frontier, environmentalism, pnw. Has it all. - Sean Schröeder
Round River, from the journals of Aldo Leopold. His descriptions of canoeing, hunting, and fishing the Colorado delta prior to the damming give us a glimpse of what a ecological wonder it must have been. Reading it gives me hope that our society can get back there someday and let it run free. - Jill Neff
A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains…Isabella Byrd or Doc Susie. These women rock! - Erica Olsen
Gold Fools, by Gilbert Sorrentino. A satire in which every sentence is a question, this novel makes you question all things Western. From the first page: “Was Bud a colorful speaker, in the great tradition of the heartbreakingly beautiful, yet very dry, American West?” - Jenny Joy
The Tainted Desert by Valerie Kuletz. Presents a compellingly well researched examination of the Yucca Mountain controversy. Kuletz really highlights the perspectives an “anecdotal” experiences of Native tribes impacted by nuclear testing - Dana VanVoorhees
Comeback Wolves by Western Writers Craig Childs, Rick Bass and many other Western writers. Why? Because so many in the West today continue to promote the decimation of wolves and it was refreshing to read a collection of essays and poems which give hope for wolves to find their place back in the American West where they lived long before the rancher. - Alan Bowman
“Across the Wide Missouri” (1946) by Bernard DeVoto is responsible for my lifelong interest in the American west. - Steve Swanson
The Living, by Annie Dillard. Through a fictionalized history, she manages to illustrate the extractive, explosive nature of westward expansion, the heartbreak of the decline of the Native ways and the loss of the country as it was, and especially the infinite variety of strength and weakness in all Westerners, original and newcomers. - Mary V Tegel
The Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner. This is the story of a family, particularly a woman, who is a stranger to the west and Boise Valley. When I read the book in 1969, I too was a stranger to the Boise Valley. Her story helped me get the west. And the story of water (irrigation) development tells much about the history and present day west. (I’m thinking of your recent story about the Snake being Idaho’s sewer.) - Nicholas Beauregard
Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey. Having worked as a biologist throughout the southwest, it embodies all the feelings I have about the desert. - Mark Trail
I recently, randomly read Terry Tempest Williams’ “Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place” and thought it was a beautiful braid of family story and Utah landscape. - Nancy Barker
The Light In High Places Joe Hutto I read it over and over. His style of writing and musings remind me of my Great Uncle Aldo’ s style plus I love the topic and the wilderness of Wyoming. - Deirdre Devine
Sacajawea. Gave an illuminating account of the clash of cultures that forced 1st nation peoples to have to give up their way of life. - Lorraine Watson
I’d say the book in my head, but for a real Sara Winnemucca, Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs And Claims, I am enrolled Northern Paiute - Peter John
Lonesome Dove for fiction. It’s just a perfect book. Each chapter is like a story on its own. Nonfiction, Tragedy of Leschi by Ezra Meeker because of its historic value in a little known early Indian war, which the Indians arguably won. - Eric Sierra-Franco
Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner……..because it’s a powerful evocation of the history and geology of the west…………and the tribulations of life in general. - Rose Comstock
The King of California Mark Arax and Rick Wartzman, because we need to know the truth. - Anna Elizabeth Keene
the secret knowledge of water by childs. i read it whenever we have gone months without rain. - Dina Roberts
Wallace Stegner’s “Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs” really made me think about how different the ecology/hydrology is in the West from my upbringing in the East. I think a second favorite is “The Good Rain” by Timothy Egan. - Elijah Housel
Ridiculous… This is like standing on the beach and saying which wave is your favorite. They are all unique and beautiful. Same can be said of books. However, here it goes: The Hopi Survival Kit by Norman E. Mails, Everything written by Gary Snyder, In The Days of Victorio by Eve Ball, and all the Ed Abbey works. Just to name a few - Trenton Harper
The Grizzly Years by Doug Peacock, somehow I read it before Abbey or coming west. Desert Solitaire sure, but I live in Montana with Peacock. - Susan Padgett
I can’t pick one. Cadillac Desert, Rising from the Plains, The Solace of Open Spaces, and Crossing Open Ground are at the top of my list. - Jen Berry Lyman
Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner. This is one of my favorite books because it is a story of adventure (in the West), love, and sorrow. I was sad when I finished the book because I did not want to part with it. - John Meyer
Grizzlies on my Mind by Michael Leach
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