Prime Arctic predator and nomad of the sea ice and tundra, the polar bear endures as a source of wonder, terror, and fascination. Humans have seen it as spirit guide and fanged enemy, as trade good and moral metaphor, as food source and symbol of ecological crisis. Eight thousand years of artifacts attest to its charisma, and to the fraught relationships between our two species. In the White Bear, we acknowledge the magic of wildness: it is both genuinely itself and a screen for our imagination. Ice Bear traces and illuminates this intertwined history. From Inuit shamans to Jean Harlow lounging on a bearskin rug, from the cubs trained to pull sleds toward the North Pole to cuddly superstar Knut, it all comes to life in these pages. With meticulous research and more than 160 illustrations, the author brings into focus this powerful and elusive animal. Doing so, he delves into the stories we tell about Nature-and about ourselves-hoping for a future in which such tales still matter.

Inspired by a year of hiking 120 desert canyons, "Where the Rain Children Sleep" is nature writing in the best tradition of Edward Abbey, Ellen Meloy, and Craig Childs. Much more than one man's memoir of his time in these canyons, it is an eclectic, well-informed, critical, and in-depth collection punctuated by flashes of humor and whimsy. The vivid thread connecting these essays is the Navajo concept of a "sacred geography." Michael Engelhard has traveled and explored the Southwest for close to twenty years. His heartfelt portrayal of this region straddles the fences normally separating natural history, ethnography, personal reflection, and travel narrative. These essays spring from a growing concern that the song of the land, the stories of these places, and the voices of their nonhuman and indigenous inhabitants might not be heard against the din of bulldozers, powerboats, turbines, and four-wheelers.

As the old adage goes, "if you can't say it in a few pages, you won't in a hundred." The selections in "Cold Flashes--"very short prose and black-and-white photographs--embody perfectly this transparency, thrift, and restraint. Found here are highly polished micro-narratives, both fiction and nonfiction, and a series of eloquent and artistic halftones that capture their sizeable subjects in a nutshell. By minimizing the exposition, the selections stimulate the imagination to reflect on the rich diversity of people and places that make up Alaska. To be savored piecemeal at coffee shops, on the bus, or while waiting in line, the images and text in "Cold Flashes" will resonate with both the reader and each other, fusing into something profound yet elusive.""

The Western horse has transcended divisions of race, culture, gender, and age to become an American icon. Without it--and the stories it inspires--the West would be impoverished. While much has been written about cowboys and the West, no other anthology exists that focuses exclusively on the animal itself.
Unbridled assembles some of the best Western horse stories ever written. The Western horse is seen and described from a variety of perspectives. These are the stories of ranchers, cowboys, soldiers, hunters, trappers, Plains Indians, vaqueros, pioneer women, and even a president. Many of them are well known; some are waiting to be discovered. The unifying sentiment is their respect for and admiration of this most remarkable animal.
A long line of commercial successes--from "Black Beauty, "The Horse Whisperer, and "All the Pretty Horses, to "Seabiscuit, and the newly released "Hidalgo--proves that the "personalized horse story" is more than a fluke. It also demonstrates that the circle of aficionados encompasses more than just Quarter Horse owners or rodeo fans. While the success of some of these stories may in part be due to their human characters, horses play an important role in all of them.
This anthology includes thirty-two selections, spanning the traditional short story, reminiscence, folk tale, journalistic and historical sketch, and mythology. They speak of an entire landscape, of a way of life now almost obsolete. Writers include such well-known luminaries as Mark Twain, Sir Thomas Seton, Theodore Roosevelt, and Zane Grey, along with the modern Western voices of Thomas McGuane, Mark Spragg, and Gretel Ehrlich.

"The history of my people and the history of this land are one and the same. Nobody can remember us without remembering this land. We are forever connected." -Anonymous Pueblo Indian
Inspired by a year of hiking 120 desert canyons, Where the Rain Children Sleep, is nature writing in the best tradition of Edward Abbey, Ann Zwinger, and Terry Tempest Williams. Much more than one man's memoir of his time in these canyons, this collection is well-informed, critical, and in-depth, with flashes of humor, and whimsy thrown in. The vivid thread tying this collection together is the Navajo concept of a "sacred geography." A cultural anthropologist, an instructor with Outward Bound, and a member of the Wild Rockies Field Institute, Michael Engelhard has traveled and explored the Southwest for close to twenty years. His story of this region straddles the fences normally separating natural history, ethnography, personal reflection, and travel narrative. Engelhard offers up his perspective on spatial intelligence; bears; the outdoors industry; places of power; motorized transportation; endangered species; a sense of place; overgrazing; John Wesley Powell; place names; catastrophic events; fish; the nature of beauty and the beauty of nature; dams; and wind.
The essays spring from a growing concern that the song of the land, and the stories and voices of these places and their non-human and indigenous inhabitants might not be heard against the din of bulldozers, powerboats, turbines, and four-wheelers. Engelhard's passion and keen eye offer finely tuned observations, and his essays are small gestures of gratitude, of remembering what has been given to him.