Book Review - An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

Title: An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

Author: Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
My Rating: 👍👍👍👍👍
My Review: This book, much like Howard Zinn's book "A People's History of the United States", attempts to tell the true history of America and specifically how indigenous people were subjugated by white European settlers. I grew up watching cowboy and Indian movies and believed in the myth of manifest destiny that was taught in my early school years. Books like this have helped me come to realize that much of what was taught was false or not the complete truth. Reading this book was quite eye-opening and should be required reading for all Americans.  

Description (Audible): Unflinchingly honest about the brutality of this nation’s founding and its legacy of settler-colonialism and genocide, the impact of Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s 2014 book is profound. This classic is revisited with new material that takes an incisive look at the post-Obama era from the war in Afghanistan to Charlottesville’s white supremacy-fueled rallies, and from the onset of the pandemic to the election of President Biden. Writing from the perspective of the peoples displaced by Europeans and their white descendants, she centers Indigenous voices over the course of four centuries, tracing their perseverance against policies intended to obliterate them.

Today in the United States, there are more than five hundred federally recognized Indigenous nations comprising nearly three million people, descendants of the fifteen million Native people who once inhabited this land. The centuries-long genocidal program of the US settler-colonial regimen has largely been omitted from history. With a new foreword from Raoul Peck and a new introduction from Dunbar Ortiz, this classic bottom-up peoples’ history explodes the silences that have haunted our national narrative.

Book Review - A Walk in the Park

Title: A Walk in the Park
Author: Kevin Fedarko 
My Rating: 👍👍👍👍👍👍
My Review: This is without a doubt one of the best books I've read, ever. In fact, it's so good, I needed to expand my rating system to six👍 This book is extremely well written and has everything I love; nature, adventure, science, history, suspense and much more. I literally couldn't put it down. Needless to say, I highly recommend it!  

Description (Audible): Two friends, zero preparation, one dream. A few years after quitting his job to pursue an ill-advised dream of becoming a whitewater guide on the Colorado River, Kevin Fedarko was approached by his best friend, National Geographic photographer Pete McBride, with a vision as bold as it was harebrained. Together, they would embark on an end-to-end traverse of the Grand Canyon—a journey that, McBride promised, would be “a walk in the park.” Against his better judgment, Fedarko agreed, unaware that the small cluster of experts who had actually completed the crossing billed it as “the toughest hike in the world.”

The ensuing ordeal, which lasted more than a year, revealed a place that was deeper, richer, and far more complex than anything the two men had imagined—and came within a hair’s breadth of killing them both. They struggled to make their way through the all-but impenetrable reaches of the canyon’s truest wilderness, a vertical labyrinth of thousand-foot cliffs and crumbling ledges where water is measured out by the teaspoon and every step is fraught with peril—and where, even today, there is still no trail spanning the length of the country’s best-known and most iconic landmark.

Along the way, veteran long-distance hikers ushered them into secret pockets of enchantment, invisible to the millions of tourists gathered on the rim, that only a handful of humans have ever seen. Members of the canyon’s eleven Native American tribes brought them face-to-face with layers of history that forced them to reconsider myths at the very center of our national parks—and exposed them to the threats of commercial tourism. Even Fedarko’s dying father, who had first pointed him toward the chasm more than forty years earlier but had never set foot there himself, opened him to a new way of seeing the landscape.

And always, there was the great gorge itself: austere and unforgiving, yet suffused with magic, drenched in wonder, and redeemed by its own transcendent beauty. A singular portrait of a sublime place, A Walk in the Park is a deeply moving plea for the preservation of America’s greatest natural treasure.

Book Review - The Nature of Desert Nature: Meditations on the Nature of Deserts

Title: The Nature of Desert Nature: Meditations on the Nature of Deserts

Author: Gary Paul Nabhan
My Rating: 👍👍👍👍
My Review: Gary Paul Nabhan is an amazing author and great ambassador for the desert. I enjoyed how this book combines science and poetry in describing the nature of deserts. Growing up in Southern California gave me lots of opportunities to explore and enjoy different deserts including Mojave, Sonoran and Great Basin deserts. This book awakened many fond memories of those times and has given me some new perspectives on the nature of desert nature.

      

Description (Audible): In this refreshing collection, one of our best writers on desert places, Gary Paul Nabhan, challenges traditional notions of the desert. Beautiful, reflective, and at times humorous, Nabhan's extended essay also called "The Nature of Desert Nature" reveals the complexity of what a desert is and can be. He passionately writes about what it is like to visit a desert and what living in a desert looks like when viewed through a new frame, turning age-old notions of the desert on their heads.

Nabhan invites a prism of voices—friends, colleagues, and advisors from his more than four decades of study of deserts—to bring their own perspectives. Scientists, artists, desert contemplatives, poets, and writers bring the desert into view and investigate why these places compel us to walk through their sands and beneath their cacti and acacia. We observe the spines and spears, stings and songs of the desert anew. Unexpected. Surprising. Enchanting. Like the desert itself, each essay offers renewed vocabulary and thoughtful perceptions.

The desert inspires wonder. Attending to history, culture, science, and spirit, The Nature of Desert Nature celebrates the bounty and the significance of desert places.
 

 

Book Review - The Twilight Forest: An Elegy for Ponderosa in a Changing West

Title: The Twilight Forest: An Elegy for Ponderosa in a Changing West
Author: Gary Ferguson

My Rating: 👍👍👍👍👍
My Review: I have many fond memories of hiking and camping in the Sierra Nevada mountains and Southern California mountains where Ponderosa Pine forests are common. I love their rugged beauty and sweet vanilla smell. This book has been an revelation to me on how human caused climate change, fire, insects, disease, habitat destruction and over harvesting are contributing to the loss of not only Ponderosa Pines but also many other tree species in the United States. According to the author, only a small percent of Ponderosa Pines will remain by mid century. Sadly, considering the current administrations stance on the environment, I would say that's a conservative estimate. 

Description (Audible): With their towering, cinnamon-colored trunks and dusky green canopies, ponderosa pine has long been a charismatic icon of the American West. Yet a quiet unraveling has begun: in the past decade, in a vast area from Santa Fe to the Sierras, more than two hundred million ponderosa have died. While some trees will survive in cooler places, scientists estimate that by mid-century less than five percent of the ponderosa in the American Southwest may remain. As the very character of this vast region shifts, what will be left behind? And how can we come to terms with such profound loss?

In The Twilight Forest, Gary Ferguson brings listeners on an expansive journey through the ponderosa forests of the Southwest both to mourn—and to celebrate—the forests that nurtured him. In warm and luminous storytelling, Ferguson weaves together the human and natural history of ponderosa, from its march across the West more than 10,000 years ago, to centuries of artists inspired by its dazzling stature and shady passageways. Both wildfire and climate change are constant presences on this journey. Fire is necessary for healthy forests but has turned deadly, while climate change stresses even the hardiest beings of the natural world. Yet the story of ponderosa reminds us that loss can be a gateway to connection—to nature and each other.

Gary Ferguson - The Eight Master Lessons of Nature: What Nature Teaches Us About Living Well

Book Review - The Overstory

Title: The Overstory
Author: Richard Powers
My Rating: 👍👍👍👍
My Review: I liked this book but I found it a little hard to follow the different stories and characters. The book jumps around somewhat haphazardly between stories and requires the reader to pay close attention. I love the way it incorporated trees into each story and the way it shows how intertwined trees are to our existence. If you love trees, like I do, then this book is for you. 

Description (Audible): The Overstory unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fable that range from antebellum New York to the late 20th-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond.

An air force loadmaster in the Vietnam War is shot out of the sky, then saved by falling into a banyan. An artist inherits 100 years of photographic portraits, all of the same doomed American chestnut. A hard-partying undergraduate in the late 1980s electrocutes herself, dies, and is sent back into life by creatures of air and light. A hearing- and speech-impaired scientist discovers that trees are communicating with one another.

These and five other strangers, each summoned in different ways by trees, are brought together in a last and violent stand to save the continent's few remaining acres of virgin forest. There is a world alongside ours - vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.

Book Review - A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters

Title: A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters

Author: Andrew H. Knoll
My Rating: 👍👍👍👍👍

My Review: I like science and I really appreciate books like this that distill information and make science more accessible. This book definately does that. However, it did feel a bit like a firehose of information. My favorite chapter was the last one that discussed the impacts humans are having on the planet. Needless to say, humans are not good stewards and our time on earth may end up being less than a blink of the eye.  

Description (Audible): Odds are, where you’re standing was once cooking under a roiling sea of lava, crushed by a towering sheet of ice, rocked by a nearby meteor strike, or perhaps choked by poison gases, drowned beneath ocean, perched atop a mountain range, or roamed by fearsome monsters. Probably most or even all of the above.

The story of our home planet and the organisms spread across its surface is far more spectacular than any Hollywood blockbuster, filled with enough plot twists to rival a bestselling thriller. But only recently have we begun to piece together the whole mystery into a coherent narrative. Drawing on his decades of field research and up-to-the-minute understanding of the latest science, renowned geologist Andrew H. Knoll delivers a rigorous yet accessible biography of Earth, charting our home planet's epic 4.6 billion-year story. Placing twenty first-century climate change in deep context, A Brief History of Earth is an indispensable look at where we’ve been and where we’re going.

Book Review - The Worst Hard Time The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl

Title: The Worst Hard Time The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl

Author: Timothy Egan
My Rating: 👍👍👍👍👍
My Review: Timothy Egan is one of my favorite authors. I've read several of his books and they're all great. This book is one of his best. It tells the tragic story of the 1930s dust bowl and the people who lived through it. This book is especially prescient and shows how easy it is for humans to destroy our environment and how we need to be more aware of how our actions affect the planet. I loved this book. 

Description (Audible): In a tour de force of historical reportage, Timothy Egan’s National Book Award–winning story rescues an iconic chapter of American history from the shadows.

The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since. Following a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, Timothy Egan tells of their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black dust blizzards, crop failure, and the death of loved ones. Brilliantly capturing the terrifying drama of catastrophe, he does equal justice to the human characters who become his heroes, “the stoic, long-suffering men and women whose lives he opens up with urgency and respect” (New York Times). In an era that promises ever-greater natural disasters, The Worst Hard Time is “arguably the best nonfiction book yet” (Austin Statesman Journal) on the greatest environmental disaster ever to be visited upon our land and a powerful reminder about the dangers of trifling with nature.

KU Common Books - Timothy Egan speaks at The University of Kansas about his book "The Worst Hard Time The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl"  (1:14:00)

Oklahoma Horizon TV - Timothy Egan discusses his book and the sense of urgency behind capturing these stories before they are lost to history (6:40)

Book Review - This Land: How Cowboys, Capitalism and Corruption are Ruining the American West

Title: This Land: How Cowboys, Capitalism and Corruption are Ruining the American West 
Author: Christopher Ketcham
My Rating: 👍👍👍👍👍
My Review: Outside magazine described this book as “A big, bold book about public lands . . . The Desert Solitaire of our time.” Based on that review and the fact that Desert Solitaire is one of my all time favorite books, I decided to give it a read. I loved this book but I have to say, it's depressing. It's hard to understand why people are so bad at protecting America's public lands. Public lands and the flora, fauna and things that depend on it are finite and once they're gone, they're gone.  

Description (Audible): The public lands of the western United States comprise some 450 million acres of grassland, steppe land, canyons, forests, and mountains. It's an American commons, and it is under assault as never before.

Journalist Christopher Ketcham has been documenting the confluence of commercial exploitation and governmental misconduct in this region for over a decade. His revelatory book takes the reader on a journey across these last wild places, to see how capitalism is killing our great commons. Ketcham begins in Utah, revealing the environmental destruction caused by unregulated public lands livestock grazing, and exposing rampant malfeasance in the federal land management agencies, who have been compromised by the profit-driven livestock and energy interests they are supposed to regulate. He then turns to the broad effects of those corrupt politics on wildlife. He tracks the Department of Interior's failure to implement and enforce the Endangered Species Act--including its stark betrayal of protections for the grizzly bear and the sage grouse--and investigates the destructive behavior of U.S. Wildlife Services in their shocking mass slaughter of animals that threaten the livestock industry. Along the way, Ketcham talks with ecologists, biologists, botanists, former government employees, whistleblowers, grassroots environmentalists and other citizens who are fighting to protect the public domain for future generations.

This Land is a colorful muckraking journey--part Edward Abbey, part Upton Sinclair--exposing the rot in American politics that is rapidly leading to the sell-out of our national heritage. The book ends with Ketcham's vision of ecological restoration for the American West: freeing the trampled, denuded ecosystems from the effects of grazing, enforcing the laws already in place to defend biodiversity, allowing the native species of the West to recover under a fully implemented Endangered Species Act, and establishing vast stretches of public land where there will be no development at all, not even for recreation.

Description (Smithsonian): Christopher Ketcham’s This Land: How Cowboys, Capitalism and Corruption Are Ruining the American West is a powerful and provocative examination of the forces shaping public lands in the American West. Drawing on years of investigative reporting, Ketcham argues that a combination of political influence, corporate interests, government mismanagement, and entrenched myths about the cowboy lifestyle have contributed to the degradation of some of America’s most treasured landscapes. 

Book Review - Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization

Title: Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization

Author: Bill McKibben
My Rating: 👍👍👍👍👍
My Review: I can't believe I'm saying this but, Bill McKibben and this book give me a SMALL BIT of hope that humanity could potentially mitigate a human-caused climate crisis by replacing fossil fuels with solar, wind and battery power.  I was a little dismayed to learn that China is light-years ahead of the US in the development of solar, wind and battery power and is actually able to daily deploy the equivalent power of one coal-fire power-plant with solar energy. China is also rapidly improving solar, wind and battery technology and becoming the dominant source for alternative energy. By contrast, the Trump administration is doing the exact opposite and even going out its way to prevent development of solar, wind and battery technology. Time is running out and humans need to break their addiction to fossil fuels as soon as possible. Thankfully there is a solution and, according to this book, that solution is solar, wind and battery power. This book is a must read for anyone who cares about climate change. 

      

Description (Audible): Every eighteen hours, the world puts up a nuclear power plant's–worth of solar panels. At the same time, combustion continues to melt our poles, poison our bodies, and drive our global inequality. And it is no longer necessary: For the first time in 700,000 years, we know how to catch the sun’s rays and convert them into energy.

In Here Comes the Sun, world-renowned author Bill McKibben tells the story of our sudden spike in power from the sun and wind. McKibben traces the arrival of plentiful, inexpensive solar energy, which, if it accelerates, gives us a chance not just to limit climate change’s damage, but to reorder the world on saner and more humane grounds. Getting there means overcoming obstacles like Big Oil, but McKibben sees a chance for a new civilization: one that looks up to the sun, every day, as the star that fuels our world.

Democracy Now -Bill McKibben talks about Renewable Energy, “Sun Day” & the “Last Chance” for Climate

Media Santuary Book Club - Bill McKibben talks about the power of solar energy and his book "Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization"

 

Description (ChatGPT): Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization by Bill McKibben is an urgent yet surprisingly hopeful look at the climate crisis and the rapid rise of renewable energy. McKibben argues that while global warming can no longer be fully stopped, the explosive growth of solar and wind power offers humanity a real chance to prevent the worst outcomes and build a fairer, more sustainable civilization. Blending science, politics, and personal storytelling, he makes complex climate issues accessible without losing their seriousness.

What sets the book apart is its balance of realism and optimism. McKibben does not minimize the dangers posed by fossil fuels and political resistance, but he also refuses to accept climate doom as inevitable. The result is an inspiring and thought-provoking call to action that encourages readers to see clean energy not just as a technological shift, but as an opportunity to reshape society for the better.

Poem - Happy Earth Day!

Click for video ☝

Wake up people

It's past the time

To protect the planet

And save humankind

We've gotten spoiled

With all our stuff

Let's take a stand

Enough is enough!

Book Review - Human Nature: Nine Ways to Feel About Our Changing Planet

Title: Human Nature: Nine Ways to Feel About Our Changing Planet
Author: Kate Marvel
My Rating: 👍👍👍👍👍
My Review: I think I may be a wee bit masochistic because I enjoy reading books like this that explain how humans are destroying the planet. It's hard to understand how there are still people who do not believe that humans are the primary cause of climate change. I just wish they would read a book like this that explains in simple, clear language and with scientific evidence how, within just the last 100 years, humans have managed to change the planet so much that even if we were to stop now, it will take thousands of years to reverse the damage.  I loved this book and am grateful for scientists like Kate Marvel who are studying climate change and hopefully waking people up to the reality of climate change before it's too late.  

Kate Marvel interview: Human Nature: Nine Ways to Feel About Our Changing Planet - July 2025

Kate Marvel TED Talk - Can clouds buy us more time to solve climate change? - April 2017

Kate Marvel speech: Inner Climate 2025

Kate Marvel & Friends - Feeling Climate Change - June 2025

Description (Audible): A captivating exploration of climate change that uses nine different emotions to better understand the science, history, and future of our evolving planet

Scientist Kate Marvel has seen the world end before, sometimes several times a day. In the computer models she uses to study climate change, it’s easy to simulate rising temperatures, catastrophic outcomes, and bleak futures. But climate change isn’t just happening in those models. It’s happening here, to the only good planet in the universe. It’s happening to us. And she has feelings about that.

Human Nature is a deeply felt inquiry into our rapidly changing Earth. In each chapter, Marvel uses a different emotion to explore the science and stories behind climate change. As expected, there is anger, fear, and grief—but also wonder, hope, and love. With her singular voice, Marvel takes us on a soaring journey, one filled with mythology, physics, witchcraft, bad movies, volcanoes, Roman emperors, sequoia groves, and the many small miracles of nature we usually take for granted.

Hopeful, heartbreaking, and surprisingly funny, Human Nature is a vital, wondrous exploration of how it feels to live in a changing world.

Description (ChatGPT): Human Nature: Nine Ways to Feel About Our Changing Planet by Kate Marvel is a thoughtful, emotionally intelligent exploration of climate change that goes beyond science into the realm of human feeling. Marvel organizes the book around nine emotions—like wonder, anger, and hope—using each as a lens to better understand our relationship with the planet.

What makes this book stand out is its balance: it’s grounded in clear scientific insight, yet deeply personal and reflective. Marvel doesn’t preach or overwhelm; instead, she invites readers to sit with the complexity of climate change without losing sight of possibility.

Concise, humane, and quietly powerful, Human Nature is a refreshing take on a heavy subject—one that leaves you not just informed, but more connected to both the Earth and your own emotional response to it.

Book Review - A Place Called Yellowstone: The Epic History of the World’s First National Park

Title: A Place Called Yellowstone: The Epic History of the World’s First National Park

Author: Randall K. Wilson
My Rating: 👍👍👍👍👍
My Review: Pending...

Description (Audible): Discover the epic history of the first US national park in this historical adventure for fans of American history, the Wild West, and the hit show. 

It has been called Wonderland, America's Serengeti, the crown jewel of the National Park System, and America's best idea. But how did this faraway landscape evolve into one of the most recognizable places in the world? As the birthplace of the national park system, Yellowstone witnessed the first-ever attempt to protect wildlife, to restore endangered species, and to develop a new industry centered on nature tourism. 

Yellowstone remains a national icon, one of the few entities capable of bridging ideological divides in the United States. Yet the park's history is also filled with episodes of conflict and exclusion, setting precedents for Native American land dispossession, land rights disputes, and prolonged tensions between commercialism and environmental conservation. Yellowstone's legacies are both celebratory and problematic. A Place Called Yellowstone tells the comprehensive story of Yellowstone National Park as the story of the nation itself.

Description (ChatGPT): Randall K. Wilson’s A Place Called Yellowstone is a sweeping, richly told history that brings to life the geological, political, and cultural evolution of America’s first national park. Wilson masterfully weaves together the deep time of Yellowstone’s volcanic origins, the dramatic stories of early explorers and conservationists, and the fraught, ongoing debates around land use, Indigenous rights, and wildlife management. 

One of the book’s greatest strengths is its narrative drive: bureaucratic wrangling, frontier personalities, and the clash between exploitation and preservation become vivid and engaging rather than dry. Wilson doesn’t shy away from the park’s darker legacies, including dispossession of Native American lands and ecological missteps like predator removal—and he shows how these tensions have shaped modern policies and identities. 

Other Reviews - Los Angeles Times 

Hike - Falls Creek Falls

Falls Creek Falls

The hike to Falls Creek Falls is one of my favorite waterfall hikes in the Pacific Northwest. The falls and Falls Creek are spectacular, especially in late winter or spring when the water flow is high. The falls are made up of three tiers starting with an upper tier at 109 feet, a second tier at 135 feet and a final tier at 91 feet that plunges into a narrow amphitheater gorge. At high-water levels, the falls are pretty loud and surrounded by a refreshing cloud of spray.

Falls Creek

The trail to the falls is a relatively easy 1.7-mile hike that parallels Falls Creek and includes two bridges, one of which is a cable suspension bridge that spans a spectacular rock gorge. 

Cable suspension bridge

The road to the falls had a lot of pot holes but was passable. The pit toilet at the trail head was one of the worst I’ve ever experienced. 

Falls Creek from suspension bridge

Falls Creek cable suspension bridge

Book Review -- The Birds That Audubon Missed

Title: The Birds That Audubon Missed - Discovery and Desire in the American Wilderness
Author: Kenn Kaufmann
My Rating: 👍👍👍👍👍

My Review: Pending...

Description (Audible): Renowned naturalist Kenn Kaufman examines the scientific discoveries of John James Audubon and his artistic and ornithologist peers to show how what they saw (and what they missed) reflects how we perceive and understand the natural world.

Description (ChatGPT): The Birds That Audubon Missed: Discovery and Desire in the American Wilderness is a flight through the margins of natural history, where the birds are elusive, the explorers obsessive, and the wilderness wilder than anyone bargained for. It's a tale of what happens when science meets longing—and not all feathers are catalogued.

Hike - Wahclella Falls

Wahclella Falls

Wahclella Falls is one of my all-time favorite hikes in the Columbia River Gorge. It’s a very popular hike and the parking area fills up fast, especially when the weather is nice (Note: overflow parking is available). The hike is relatively easy and follows a 1.8-mile (2.9 km) loop trail that parallels Tanner Creek. The beginning of the trail passes within a couple feet of Munra Falls on a short footbridge. 

Munra Falls

Further along, the trail crosses over Tanner creek on two wooden footbridges. The first footbridge provides a great view of the steep canyon walls. The last footbridge is just below Wahclella Falls and crosses above a huge logjam which is the result of the 2017 Eagle Creek fire.

Logjam

Wahclella Falls are split into an upper and lower segment. The upper falls are somewhat hidden however the lower falls are quite spectacular with water gushing through a narrow basalt gorge into a beautiful plunge pool.

Munra Falls

Wahclella Falls

Footbridge over Tanner Creek

Happy Earth Day! - Limerick

Happy Earth Day!

The Earth is an amazing planet

A home for all life that's on it

But if we abuse it

We will certainly loose it

So protect the planet damn it!

Book Review - Becoming Earth How Our Planet Came to Life

Title: Becoming Earth How Our Planet Came to Life

Author: Ferris Jabr
My Rating: 👍👍👍👍👍
My Review: Pending...

Description (Audible):One of humanity’s oldest beliefs is that our world is alive. Though once ridiculed by some scientists, the idea of Earth as a vast interconnected living system has gained acceptance in recent decades. We, and all living things, are more than inhabitants of Earth—we are Earth, an outgrowth of its structure and an engine of its evolution. Life and its environment have coevolved for billions of years, transforming a lump of orbiting rock into a cosmic oasis—a planet that breathes, metabolizes, and regulates its climate. Humans are one of the most extreme examples of life transforming Earth. Through fossil fuel consumption, agriculture, and pollution, we have altered more layers of the planet in less time than any other species, pushing Earth into a crisis. But we are also uniquely able to understand and protect the planet’s wondrous ecology and self-stabilizing processes. Jabr introduces us to a diverse cast of fascinating people who have devoted themselves to this vital work. Becoming Earth is an exhilarating journey through the hidden workings of our planetary symphony—its players, its instruments, and the music of life that emerges—and an invitation to reexamine our place in it. How well we play our part will determine what kind of Earth our descendants inherit for millennia to come.

Description (ChatGPT): Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life is a thrilling, time-traveling odyssey that zooms from the cosmic chaos of the universe's birth to the quiet drama of Earth's earliest days. With a blend of science and storytelling, it uncovers how our planet went from a swirling mass of rock and gas to the vibrant blue orb we call home — all in the blink of a geological eye. Think of it as Earth’s origin story, told with a wink and a whole lot of science.

Book Review - The Secret History of Bigfoot: Field Notes on a North American Monster

Title: The Secret History of Bigfoot: Field Notes on a North American Monster
Author: John O'Connor

My Rating: 👍👍👍👍👍
My Review: When I saw this book at the local bookstore, my first thought was, COOL! a book about Bigfoot! My second thought was, I hope it’s not one of those poorly written books based on little or no evidence trying to exploit the Bigfoot legend. Thankfully, my second thought was wrong, and the book turned out to be a surprisingly well-written, well-researched book that kept me entertained from start to finish. I was especially surprised at the amount of humor and philosophy the author used and how he tried to make the book relevant to current politics in America. I loved this book and am surprised to admit that it is on the list of my all time favorite books.

Description (Audible): From the shrouded forests of the Pacific Northwest to off-the-wall cryptozoological conventions, one man searches high and low for the answer to the question: real or not, why do we want to believe? Bigfoot is an instantly recognizable figure. Through the decades, this elusive primate has been featured in movies and books, and on coffee mugs, beer koozies, car polish, and CBD oil. Which begs the question: what is it about Bigfoot that's caught hold of our imaginations? Journalist and self-diagnosed skeptic John O'Connor is fascinated by Sasquatch. Curious to learn more, he embarks on a quest through the North American wilds in search of Bigfoot, its myth and meaning. Alongside an eccentric cast of characters, he explores the zany and secretive world of "cryptozoology," tracking Bigfoot through ancient folklore to Harry and the Hendersons, while examining the forces behind our ever-widening belief in the supernatural. As O'Connor treks through the shrouded forests of the Pacific Northwest, listens to firsthand accounts, and attends Bigfoot conventions, he's left wondering—what happens when the lines between myth and reality blur? This heartfelt exploration of a cornerstone of American folklore unpacks why we believe in the things that we do, what that says about us, and how it shapes our world.

Description (ChatGPT): Field Notes on a North American Monster is a quirky, darkly hilarious exploration of the human fascination with the strange and the unknown. Blending folklore, memoir, and a touch of the absurd, the book pulls you into its wild ride through the forests of skepticism and superstition. It's like an anthropology project gone delightfully off the rails—think The X-Files meets a college thesis on cryptozoology, with a wink and a nudge. It’s the kind of book that makes you question everything... and also kind of hope that Bigfoot is real, just for the drama of it all.

Book Review - Otherlands: A Journey Through Earth's Extinct Worlds

Title - Otherlands: A Journey Through Earth's Extinct Worlds
Author: Thomas Halliday
My Rating: 👍👍👍👍
My Review: This is an amazing book full of factual information about evolution, biology, botany, geology and every other kind ology you can think of. I found myself getting a little overwhelmed with the amount of information and I probably only absorbed a small fraction. I think my favorite chapter was the last chapter (epilogue) that discusses humans and our role in what is likely the sixth extinction event in the history of Earth.

Description (Audible): This book is an exploration of the Earth as it used to exist, the changes that have occurred during its history, and the ways that life has found to adapt―or not. It takes us from the savannahs of Pliocene Kenya to watch a python chase a group of australopithecines into an acacia tree; to a cliff overlooking the salt pans of the empty basin of what will be the Mediterranean Sea just as water from the Miocene Atlantic Ocean spills in; into the tropical forests of Eocene Antarctica; and under the shallow pools of Ediacaran Australia, where we glimpse the first microbial life.

Otherlands also offers us a vast perspective on the current state of the planet. The thought that something as vast as the Great Barrier Reef, for example, with all its vibrant diversity, might one day soon be gone sounds improbable. But the fossil record shows us that this sort of wholesale change is not only possible but has repeatedly happened throughout Earth history.

Even as he operates on this broad canvas, Halliday brings us up close to the intricate relationships that defined these lost worlds. In novelistic prose that belies the breadth of his research, he illustrates how ecosystems are formed; how species die out and are replaced; and how species migrate, adapt, and collaborate. It is a breathtaking achievement: a surprisingly emotional narrative about the persistence of life, the fragility of seemingly permanent ecosystems, and the scope of deep time, all of which have something to tell us about our current crisis.

Description (ChatGPT): Otherlands: A Journey Through Earth's Extinct Worlds by Thomas Halliday is a thrilling ride through the planet's prehistoric past, where time travel isn't just possible—it's downright awe-inspiring. Halliday invites readers to explore ancient ecosystems that vanished long before humans existed, from vast forests of towering ferns to deserts teeming with bizarre creatures. His prose is rich, vivid, and laced with just the right amount of humor, making extinct worlds feel both alien and strangely familiar. It’s like Jurassic Park, but with more science and less "run for your life" action. A captivating blend of history, imagination, and pure wonder.

Book Review - Boone: A Biography

Title - Boone: A Biography
Author: Robert Morgan
My Rating: 👍👍👍👍👍
My Review: Daniel Boone was a legend in his own time. I have many fond memories of the old Daniel Boone TV series. I realize the show was not completely accurate. So, it was satisfying to read a historically accurate account of what Daniel Boone was really like. I loved this book and would highly recommend it.     

Description (ChatGPT): "Boone: A Biography" is a compelling and richly detailed account of one of America's most iconic frontiersmen, Daniel Boone. Morgan brings to life the adventurous spirit and rugged determination of Boone, navigating his remarkable journey through the wilderness of the 18th century. The biography is meticulously researched, combining historical fact with evocative storytelling that immerses the reader in the trials and triumphs of Boone’s life. Morgan's narrative skillfully captures both Boone's legendary status as a pioneer and the complexities of his character, including his interactions with Native Americans and settlers. Overall, it is a fascinating exploration of American frontier life, making it a must-read for history buffs and those interested in the stories that shaped the nation.