14 Books Exploring America’s National Parks

* Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award in Outdoor Literature * Winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction * Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, Air Mail, Smithsonian Magazine, and Financial Times

“A triumph. Fedarko doesn’t describe awe; he induces it.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Passionate…memorable…life-affirming.” —The Wall Street Journal

This New York Times bestseller from the author of The Emerald Mile is a rollicking and poignant account of an epic 750-mile odyssey, on foot, through the heart of the Grand Canyon.

A heartrending, transformative true story following Brad Ryan and his grandmother Joy Ryan as they embark on a seven-year journey to visit every US National Park.
 

A Barack Obama Summer Reading List Selection

Pulitzer Prize–winning author of G-Man and acclaimed historian Beverly Gage takes the ultimate road trip into the American past.

Finalist for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography

*“We see through this book the immense power of language…to change the minds of lawmakers and tourists alike.” —The New York Times Book Review *“A poignant portrait of an era when mere words could change the world.” —San Francisco Chronicle*

The dramatic and uplifting story of legendary outdoorsman and conservationist John Muir’s journey to save Yosemite is “a rich, enjoyable excursion into a seminal period in environmental history” (The Wall Street Journal).

Explore all the most interesting, important, and awe-inspiring sites in the US National Parks with this guide featuring 100 must-see historical sites, natural landmarks, and other points of interest.
 

Turn those bucket list travel plans into reality with this interactive journal that’s one part planning guides and one part log to help you remember your exciting adventures!
 

From historian and critically acclaimed author of The Three-Cornered War comes the captivating story of how Yellowstone became the world’s first national park in the years after the Civil War, offering “a fresh, provocative study…departing from well-trodden narratives about conservation and public recreation” (Booklist, starred review).
 

New York Times Bestseller • Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award • Winner of the Saroyan International Prize for Writing • Winner of the Pacific Northwest Book Award • “The best outdoors book of the year.” —Sierra Club

From a talent who’s been compared to Annie Dillard, Edward Abbey, David Quammen, and Jared Diamond, On Trails is a wondrous exploration of how trails help us understand the world—from invisible ant trails to hiking paths that span continents, from interstate highways to the Internet.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * “Audacious…Life on the Mississippi sparkles.” —The Wall Street Journal * “A rich mix of history, reporting, and personal introspection.” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch * “Both a travelogue and an engaging history lesson about America’s westward expansion.” —The Christian Science Monitor

The eagerly awaited return of master American storyteller Rinker Buck, Life on the Mississippi is an epic, enchanting blend of history and adventure in which Buck builds a wooden flatboat from the grand “flatboat era” of the 1800s and sails it down the Mississippi River, illuminating the forgotten past of America’s first western frontier.

A distinguished former foreign correspondent embraces retirement by setting out alone on foot for nearly four hundred miles, and explores a side of America nearly as exotic as the locales from which he once filed.

The classic backpacker’s handbook—revised and updated—providing expert guidelines for anyone who loves the outdoors.
 

“Brilliant.” —The Washington Post Book World * “Magnificent.” —The Palm Beach Post * “Rich in history yet urgently relevant to current events.” —The New Republic

The Everglades in southern Florida were once reviled as a liquid wasteland, and Americans dreamed of draining it. Now it is revered as a national treasure, and Americans have launched the largest environmental project in history to try to save it.
 

In the tradition of A Civil Action—this true story of a North Carolina outdoorsman who teams up with his neighbors in a grassroots conservation fight to save treasured land along the Appalachian Trail from being destroyed will “make you want to head for the mountains” (Raleigh News & Observer).
 

In the bestselling tradition of Rinker Buck’s The Oregon Trail and Tony Horwitz’s Confederates in the Attic, The Road That Made America is a lively, epic account of one of the greatest untold stories in our nation’s history—the eight-hundred-mile long Great Wagon Road that 18th-century American settlers forged from Philadelphia to Georgia, which expanded the country dramatically in the decades before we ventured west.