Here is a list of some of my favorite books and authors. More to come…
Austin, Mary. (1988). The Land of Little Rain.
Erdrich, Louise (2001). The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse. (A novel).
Beers, Terry (Ed) (2000). Unfolding Beauty: Celebrating California’s Landscapes.
Hogan, Linda. (1995). Dwellings: A spiritual history of the living world.
Irvine, Amy. (2008). Trespass:Living at the edge of the promised land. (A daring and evocative memoir of living in, and working to preserve, the red rock country of Southern Utah. Winner of the 2009 Orion Society Award)
Marmon Silko, Leslie (2010). The Turquoise Ledge: A Memoir. (I love this simple and magical book, especially the section on rattle snakes).
Meloy, Ellen. (2002). The anthropology of turquoise: Reflections on desert, sea, stone, and sky. (nominated for a Pulitzer Prize).
Meloy, Ellen. (2005). Eating Stone: Imagination and the Loss of the Wild.
(Actually, anything by Ellen Meloy is worth reading)
Snyder, Gary. (1990). The practice of the wild.
Stegner, Wallace (1971). Angle of Repose (A Pulitzer Prize Winner).
Stegner, Wallace (1998). Marking the Sparrow’s Fall (actually, edited by Page Stegner, Wallace’s son).
Stone, Irving (1987). Men to Match my Mountains.
What a list! I’ve only even heard of one (the Stegner) and that’s pretty unusual.
I own all but two of these. I”m reading Eating Stone for the third time. In my opinion, this is the most poetic prose ever written. (I cried like a baby when Ellen died, she was a dear friend of mine.) I’d like to recommend Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire, also Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer.