"Before Us Like a Land of Dreams follows a disheartened Utah mother traveling an evocative route through the sites of her arid Western ancestry. As her narration fades, the dead speak their stories: a ragged Mormon boy; a hoarder's queer son; descendants of British squatters. They give no answers, but conjure vivid moments set in iconic--and diminishing--American places"--Amazon.

"From the author of Happiness for Beginners comes an unforgettable love story about finding joy even in the darkest of circumstances. Margaret Jacobsen is just about to step into the bright future she's worked for so hard and so long: a new dream job, afiancé she adores, and the promise of a picture perfect life just around the corner. Then, suddenly, on what should have been one of the happiest days of her life, everything she worked for is taken...

"A groundbreaking collection of poems addressing how every kind of love-self, brotherly, romantic, familial, cultural-is birthed, shaped, and complicated by the invisible forces of gender, capitalism, religion, migration, and so on. Written in English and combined with a Spanish translation by poet David Ruano, Promises of Gold explores many forms of love and how "a promise made isn't always a promise kept," as Olivarez grapples with the contradictions...

Across a turbulent history, Black poets created a rich and multifaceted tradition that has been both a reckoning with American realities and an imaginative response to them. One of the great American art forms, African American poetry encompasses many kinds of verse: formal, experimental, vernacular, lyric, and protest. The anthology opens with moving testaments to the power of poetry as a means of self-assertion, as enslaved people voice their passionate...

"Carpenter Spike Carlsen, his wife, and their recently blended family of five kids set out to build a cabin on the north shore of Lake Superior. Part building guide and part memoir, Cabin Lessons tells the funny, wry, and heartwarming story of their eventful journey--from buying land on an eroding cliff to (finally) enjoying the hideaway of their dreams. Learning as they go, and learning about themselves and each other along the way, they find in...

For millennia the location of the Nile River’s headwaters was shrouded in mystery. In the 19th century, there was a frenzy of interest in ancient Egypt. At the same time, European powers sent off waves of explorations intended to map the unknown corners of the globe – and extend their colonial empires.Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke were sent by the Royal Geographical Society to claim the prize for England. Burton spoke twenty-nine...

"When Besha Rodell moved from Australia to the United States with her mother at fourteen, she was a foreigner in a new land, missing her friends, her father, and the food she grew up eating. In the years that followed, Rodell began waitressing and discovered the buzz of the restaurant world, immersing herself in the lifestyle and community while struggling with the industry's shortcomings. As she built a family, Rodell realized her dream, though only...

In 1927, at the age of twenty-three, George Meléndez Wright conceptualized and eventually funded the first wildlife survey of western National Parks, radically changing how the National Park Service (NPS) would manage natural resources under its charge. By the time Wright arrived in Yosemite National Park to work as a ranger naturalist -- the first Hispanic person to occupy a professional position in the NPS -- he had already visited every national...

"Rand Stewart returned to Silver River after receiving word his father had died an accidental death, leaving him the Diamond S. The four years he had served in the Army had brought him a captaincy, given him a tough resilient body, and taught him how to handle dangerous situations. Now he just longed to settle down on his Idaho ranch and find the truth about his father's death -- which many were saying was no accident. No sooner had Rand stepped off...

The Bec Hellouin model for growing food, sequestering carbon, creating jobs, and increasing biodiversity without using fossil fuels. When Charles and Perrine Herve-Gruyer set out to create their farm in an historic Normandy village, they had no idea just how much their lives would change. Neither one had ever farmed before. Charles had been circumnavigating the globe by sail, operating a floating school that taught students about ecology and indigenous...