Winner of the Nebraska Book Award What’s it like to travel at more than 850 MPH, riding in a supersonic T-38 twin turbojet engine airplane? What happens when the space station toilet breaks? How do astronauts “take out the trash� on a spacewalk, tightly encapsulated in a space suit with just a few layers of fabric and Kevlar between them and the unforgiving vacuum of outer space? The Ordinary Spaceman puts you in the flight suit of U.S. astronaut Clayton C. Anderson and takes you on the journey of this small-town boy from Nebraska who spent 167 days living and working on the International Space Station, including nearly forty hours of space walks. Having applied to NASA fifteen times over fifteen years to become an astronaut before his ultimate selection, Anderson offers a unique perspective on his life as a veteran space flier, one characterized by humility and perseverance.  From the application process to launch aboard the space shuttle Atlantis, from serving as a family escort for the ill-fated Columbia crew in 2003 to his own daily struggles—family separation, competitive battles to win coveted flight assignments, the stress of a highly visible job, and the ever-present risk of having to make the ultimate sacrifice—Anderson shares the full range of his experiences. With a mix of levity and gravitas, Anderson gives an authentic view of the highs and the lows, the triumphs and the tragedies of life as a NASA astronaut.  

The five-week New York Times bestseller, now in paperback.

Running from a proposal of marriage from Sheriff Paul Davidson, Anna Pigeon takes a post as a temporary supervisory ranger on remote Garden Key in Dry Tortugas National Park, a small grouping of tiny islands in a natural harbor seventy miles off Key West. This island paradise has secrets it would keep; not just in the present, but in shadows from its gritty past, when it served as a prison for the Lincoln conspirators during and after the Civil War.

Here, on this last lick of the United States, in a giant crumbling fortress, Anna has little company except for the occasional sunburned tourist or unruly shrimper. When her sister, Molly, sends her a packet of letters from a great-great-aunt who lived at the fort with her husband, a career soldier, Anna's fantasy life is filled with visions of this long-ago time.

When a mysterious boat explosion-and the discovery of unidentifiable body parts-keeps her anchored to the present, Anna finds crimes of past and present closing in on her. A tangled web that was woven before she arrived begins to threaten her sanity and her life. Cut off from the mainland by miles of water, poor phone service, and sketchy radio contact, and aided by one law-enforcement ranger, Anna must find answers or weather a storm to rival the hurricanes for which the islands are famous.

Just days after marrying Sheriff Paul Davidson, Anna Pigeon moves to Colorado to assume her new post as district ranger at Rocky Mountain National Park. When two of three children who'd gone missing from a religious retreat reappear, Anna's investigation brings her face-to-face with a paranoid sect--and with a villain so evil, he'll make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end

Park ranger Anna Pigeon returns, in a mystery that unfolds in and around Lake Superior, in whose chilling depths sunken treasure comes with a deadly price. In her latest mystery, Nevada Barr sends Ranger Pigeon to a new post amid the cold, deserted, and isolated beauty of Isle Royale National Park, a remote island off the coast of Michigan known for fantastic deep-water dives of wrecked sailing vessels. Leaving behind memories of the Texas high desert and the environmental scam she helped uncover, Anna is adjusting to the cool damp of Lake Superior and the spirits and lore of the northern Midwest. But when a routine application for a diving permit reveals a grisly underwater murder, Anna finds herself 260 feet below the forbidding surface of the lake, searching for the connection between a drowned man and an age-old cargo ship. Written with a naturalist's feel for the wilderness and a keen understanding of characters who thrive in extreme conditions, A Superior Death is a passionate, atmospheric page-turner.

It's fall in the Sierra Mountains, and Anna Pigeon is slinging hash in Yosemite National Park's historic Ahwahnee Hotel. Four young people, all seasonal park employees, have disappeared, and two weeks of work by crack search-and-rescue teams have failed to turn up a single clue; investigators are unsure as to whether the four went AWOL for reasons of their own - or died in the park. Needing an out-of-park ranger to work undercover, Anna is detailed to dining room duty; but after a week of waiting tables, she knows the missing employees are only the first indication of a sickness threatening the park. Her twenty-something roommates give up their party-girl ways and panic; her new restaurant colleagues regard her with suspicion and fear. Yet when Anna's life if threatened and her temporary supervisor turns a deaf ear, she follows the scent of evil, taking a solo hike up a snowy trial to the high country, seeking answers. What awaits her is a nightmare of death and greed - and perhaps her final adventure.

As part of the army battling the Jackknife fire in northern California's Lassen Volcanic National Park, Anna, in her capacity as spike camp medic and security officer, tends the injuries and the frayed nerves of the firefighters. When the National Weather Service predicts a cold front followed by snow, promising to all but extinguish the fire, the camp is demobilized, but a last-minute rescue of a firefighter with a broken leg detains Anna and the San Juan crew. Driven on by the erratic thunderstorm of the front, wind shears in the steep canyon, creating the deadly weather conditions for a firestorm. As the ravine explodes in flames propelled by the racing winds, the crew tries desperately to outrun the blaze, ultimately seeking refuge in their individual silver fire shelters wryly referred to as shake 'n' bakes. When the fire finally passes, Anna emerges from her shelter to check on the fate of her companions. The sound of each exhausted voice, the sight of each bruised and blackened figure, is cause for celebration - until one member of the crew is found inside his shelter with a knife in his back. With darkness comes snow, making immediate rescue impossible, and Anna must tend to the physical and emotional wounds of the crew while seeking the identity of the murderer in their midst.

Winner of the Nebraska Book Award What’s it like to travel at more than 850 MPH, riding in a supersonic T-38 twin turbojet engine airplane? What happens when the space station toilet breaks? How do astronauts “take out the trash� on a spacewalk, tightly encapsulated in a space suit with just a few layers of fabric and Kevlar between them and the unforgiving vacuum of outer space? The Ordinary Spaceman puts you in the flight suit of U.S. astronaut Clayton C. Anderson and takes you on the journey of this small-town boy from Nebraska who spent 167 days living and working on the International Space Station, including nearly forty hours of space walks. Having applied to NASA fifteen times over fifteen years to become an astronaut before his ultimate selection, Anderson offers a unique perspective on his life as a veteran space flier, one characterized by humility and perseverance.  From the application process to launch aboard the space shuttle Atlantis, from serving as a family escort for the ill-fated Columbia crew in 2003 to his own daily struggles—family separation, competitive battles to win coveted flight assignments, the stress of a highly visible job, and the ever-present risk of having to make the ultimate sacrifice—Anderson shares the full range of his experiences. With a mix of levity and gravitas, Anderson gives an authentic view of the highs and the lows, the triumphs and the tragedies of life as a NASA astronaut.  

Moving to New York to be with her ill sister, park ranger Anna Pigeon rooms with a fellow ranger on Liberty Island and spends time on nearby Ellis Island. Her fragile peace is shattered when a teenage girl falls to her death from atop the Statue of Liberty. The reason for the girl's fatal plunge is not the only mystery alive on these historic sties.

Bringing you a gripping mystery, Nevada Barr transports you to the wild and dangerous landscapes of America's National Parks and is sure to appeal if you like Sue Grafton and Janet Evanovich. After a summer fighting wildfire, US Park Ranger Anna Pigeon sets off on a camping trip to the Iron Range in upstate Minnesota. With her are four women: Heath, Leah and their two teenage daughters. For Heath, who is paraplegic, it is the chance to test out a new, cutting edge line of outdoor equipment, designed by Leah to make the wilderness more accessible to disabled campers. On their second night, Anna takes a canoe out on the Fox River but when she returns, she finds that a band of kidnappers, armed with rifles, pistols and knives, has taken the group hostage. With limited resources and no access to the outside world, it is up to Anna to track them across the treacherous landscape and rescue her friends before it is too late...

The nineteenth Anna Pigeon mystery is a gripping novel that transports you to the wild and dangerous landscape of Acadia National Park and is sure to appeal to fans of Sue Grafton and Janet Evanovich. Anna Pigeon, in her career as a National Park Service Ranger, has had to deal with all manner of crimes and misdemeanours, but cyber-bulling and stalking is a new one. The target is Elizabeth, the adopted teenage daughter of her friend Heath Jarrod. Elizabeth is driven to despair by the disgusting rumours spreading online and bullying texts. Until, one day, Heath finds her daughter Elizabeth in the midst of an unsuccessful suicide attempt. And then she calls in the cavalry - her aunt Gwen and her friend Anna Pigeon. The three adults decide the best thing to do is to remove Elizabeth from the situation and, since Anna is about to start her new post as Acting Chief Ranger at Acadia National Park in Maine, they join her and stay at a house on the cliff of a small island near the park, Boar Island. But the move doesn't solve the problem. The stalker has followed them. And Heath (a paraplegic) and Elizabeth aren't alone on the otherwise deserted island. At the same time, Anna has barely arrived at Acadia before a brutal murder is committed by a killer uncomfortably close to her.

A refreshingly honest spiritual exploration from the New York Times bestselling author of the Anna Pigeon novels.
Actor, adventuress, seeker of truth, and author of the New York Times bestselling Anna Pigeon mystery series, Nevada Barr beckons readers to share her spiritual search for meaning in life.
Hat by hat, step by step, Barr leads readers down her path to enlightenment by sharing personal episodes, some of them funny and revealing, others painfully honest. Each chapter offers a truth or an answer forged through experience and deep reflection, and a nugget of insight certain to encourage thought and discussion among readers, who may, in turn, find their own spiritual language.

""But down these mean streets must go a man who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished or afraid."" When Raymond Chandler wrote these words in his classic The Simple Art of Murder, he drew a blueprint for the male private eyes who descend from Philip Marlowe to populate the world of crime fiction.
But what if the private eye is a woman? And what if she is not a character in a novel but a real, working investigator testing not only the meanness but the absurdity of life on seamy streets? Who will tell her story?

Enter Manchester's Val McDermid, herself a skilled writer of the P.I. novel but for years a professional journalist. In an effort to plumb the real world of working women--and throw new light on her own craft--she has interviewed women private eyes from both sides of the Atlantic and assembled their stories with an eye for the absurd and a keen grasp of the gritty nuts and bolts of the profession.

As fascinating as fiction, A Suitable Job for a Woman is, in the words of Edgar-winning author Nevada Barr, ""a concise and eye-opening trek through the competence, humor, and humanity of women.""

Award-winning author Nevada Barr reveals another side to her remarkable storytelling prowess with this heart-wrenching yet tender tale of two women whose boundless devotion to each other is continually challenged in nineteenth century America.