"In February 2004, when her American husband, a recently ordained Zen monk, leaves home to train for a year at a centuries-old Buddhist monastery, Tracy Franz embarks on her own year of Zen. An Alaskan alone-and lonely-in Japan, she begins to pay attention. My Year of Dirt and Water is a record of that journey. Allowed only occasional and formal visits to see her cloistered husband, Tracy teaches English, studies Japanese, and devotes herself to making...

"Katie Yamasaki's newest picture book celebrates the life of her grandfather, the acclaimed Japanese American architect Minoru Yamasaki. Minoru Yamasaki described the feeling he sought to create in his buildings as "serenity, surprise, and delight." Here, Katie Yamasaki charts his life and work: his childhood in Seattle's Japanese immigrant community, paying his way through college working in Alaska's notorious salmon canneries, his success in architectural...

Documents the biologist adventurer's treks in the vast wilderness region spanning the Pacific rainforest through the Alaskan Arctic, where she and her husband tested their physical boundaries while making profound natural-world connections. For fans of Cheryl Strayed, the gripping story of a biologist's human-powered journey from the Pacific Northwest to the Arctic to rediscover her love of birds, nature, and adventure. During graduate school, as...

"From the 1950s through the 1970s, blue-collar Filipino Americans, or Pinoys, lived a hardscrabble existence. Immigrant parents endured blatant racism, sporadic violence, and poverty while their US-born children faced more subtle forms of racism, such as the low expectations of teachers and counselors in the public school system. In this collection of autobiographical essays, acclaimed novelist and short-story writer Peter Bacho centers the experiences...

"In June of 1889 in San Francisco, John Muir-iconic environmentalist, writer, and philosopher-meets face-to-face for the first time with his longtime editor Robert Underwood Johnson, an elegant and influential figure at The Century magazine. Before long, the pair, opposites in many ways, decide to venture to Yosemite Valley, the magnificent site where twenty years earlier, Muir experienced a personal and spiritual awakening that would set the course...

"These 15 women fly outside the lines. Soar beside Black Hawk helicopter pilot turned politician Tammy Duckworth, hot air balloonist Edgora McEwan, or medevac pilot Dede Murawsky. Higher up, meet commercial and military aviators such as the Coast Guard's Ronaqua Russell, the first African American female to receive the prestigious Air Medal for her rescue efforts during Hurricane Harvey. Next, ride along with Tammie Jo Shults, whose story includes...

The author shares how, in the years following her beloved father's death, she denied her suffering and lived with the constant fear of loss that left her terrified of love and intimacy until she set out on a journey to confront the grief she'd been avoiding for so long. "Laurel Braitman spent her childhood learning how to outfish grown men, keep bees, and fix carburetors from her larger-than-life dad. Diagnosed with terminal cancer, he went to spectacular...

"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 park...

"A world-famous bow hunter who defies the stereotype that hunting is a man's game, Eva Shockey is a real-life Katniss Everdeen--a TV and social media star at the forefront of a new wave of women and girls in outdoor sports. Eva Shockey grew up aspiring to be a dancer, like her glamorous mother. But something about spending family vacations RV-ing across North America and going on hunts with her dad sparked in her an unduring passion for a different...

"Through tales that span from his childhood in Newfoundland to his early years on the high seas aboard commercial fishing trawlers, from pioneering new forms of ocean farming to surfing the frontiers of the food movement, Smith introduces the world of sea-based agriculture, and advocates getting ocean vegetables onto American plates (there are thousands of edible varieties in the sea!). Here he shows how we can transform our food system while enjoying...