A Wilderness of Stars

A Wilderness of Stars
Author: Shea Ernshaw
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2022-11-29
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 1665900261

In this magical romance from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Long Live the Pumpkin Queen, an illness cursing the land forces a teen girl astronomer to venture across the wilderness in search of the stars’ message that will, hopefully, save them all. When all is lost, look to the stars. Vega has lived in the valley her whole life—forbidden by her mother to leave the safety of its borders because of the unknown threats waiting for her in the wilds beyond. But when Vega sees an omen in the sky—one she cannot ignore—she is forced to leave the protective boundaries of the valley. Yet the outside world is much more terrifying than Vega could have ever imagined. People are gravely sick—they lose their eyesight and their hearing, just before they lose their lives. But Vega has a secret: she is the Last Astronomer—a title carried from generation to generation—and she is the only one who understands the knowledge of the stars. Knowledge that could hold the key to a cure. So when locals spot the tattoo on Vega’s neck in the shape of a constellation—the mark of an astronomer—chaos erupts. Fearing for her life, Vega is rescued by a girl named Cricket who leads her to Noah, a boy marked by his own mysterious tattoos. On the run from the men hunting her, Vega sets out across the plains with Cricket and Noah, in search of a fabled cure kept secret by the astronomers. But as the line between friends and protectors begins to blur, Vega must decide whether to safeguard the sacred knowledge of the astronomers…or if she will risk everything to try to save them all.

The Sky, the Stars, the Wilderness

The Sky, the Stars, the Wilderness
Author: Rick Bass
Publisher: HMH
Total Pages: 203
Release: 1998-09-30
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0547346816

“Two appealing short stories and an exquisite novella” about the relationship between humans and the natural world around them (Kirkus Reviews). This is a “wondrous” (GQ) collection of short fiction exploring the subtle interplay between predator and prey, from “a literary titan” (The New York Times Book Review). In the title story, a woman has returned to live on the west Texas ranch that has been in her family since Texas was a republic. Her mother, who died when she was a child, is buried there; the three men who raised her—her father, grandfather, and Old Chubb, a Mexican ranch hand—are gone; and her brother, like herself, is childless. Soon, all that will be left of the family is the land: “I suppose the land is all we will leave behind,” she reflects. “In that way it is both our parents and our children.” Land is central to the other tales here as well. In The Myths of Bears, a man tracks his wife through a winter wilderness as she both lures and eludes him. And in Where the Sea Used to Be, an ancient ocean buried in the foothills of the Appalachians becomes a battleground for a young wildcat oilman and his aging mentor. “Rick Bass is a force of nature. [This book] is a force of language. As a reader, a third thing comes to mind: gratitude for a good story that allows us to ponder what is above and what is below.” —Terry Tempest Williams “What’s exhilarating about Rick Bass’s stories is that they show every hallmark of ‘the natural’—that lucid, free-flowing, particularly American talent whose voice we can hear in Twain, Fitzgerald, and Hemingway.” —Chicago Tribune

Shouting at the Sky

Shouting at the Sky
Author: Gary Ferguson
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 278
Release: 1999-03-15
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9780312200084

Gary Ferguson recounts the experiences he had while spending two months in the Utah wilderness with a group of troubled teens.

Fire Along the Sky

Fire Along the Sky
Author: Sara Donati
Publisher: Bantam
Total Pages: 719
Release: 2004-08-31
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0553900641

With epic sweep and breathtaking adventure, Sara Donati’s bestselling saga of an Early American family’s struggle for survival in the Northeast wilderness continues with the story of an indomitable woman and an unforgettable journey of redemption across a young nation threatened by the flames of war. The year is 1812 and Hannah Bonner has returned to her family’s mountain cabin in Paradise. But Nathaniel and Elizabeth Bonner can see that Hannah is not the same woman as when she left. For their daughter has come home without her husband and without her son…and with a story of loss and tragedy that she can’t bear to tell. Yet as Hannah resumes her duties as a gifted healer among the sick and needy, she finds that she is also slowly healing herself. Little does she realize that she is about to be called away to face her greatest challenge ever. As autumn approaches, news of the latest conflict with Britain finds the young men of Paradise—including eighteen-year-old Daniel Bonner—eager to take up arms. Against their better judgment, Nathaniel and Elizabeth must let him go, just as they must let his twin sister Lily, a stubborn beauty, pursue her independence in Montreal. But on the eve of the War of 1812, an unexpected guest arrives from Scotland: It is the Bonners’ distant cousin, the newly widowed Jennet Scott of Carryckcastle. Far from home, Lily and Jennet will each learn the price of pursuing their dreams and the possibility of true love. But it’s Hannah herself who must risk everything once more—this time to save Daniel, who’s been taken prisoner by the British. As the distant thunder of war threatens Paradise, Hannah may learn to live—and maybe love—again in one final act of courage, duty, and sacrifice. A gifted writer, a master storyteller, and a first-rate historian, Sara Donati has written a powerful, poignant, and movingly romantic novel that chronicles the lives and adventures of a family as compelling and unforgettable as any in American fiction.

In the Loyal Mountains

In the Loyal Mountains
Author: Rick Bass
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 180
Release: 1995
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780395877470

Ten stories on people and nature. Fires is on a woman long-distance runner, The Legend of Pig-Eye is on a boxer in training, and The Valley is on a man's love for a valley. By the author of Platte River.

Where The Sea Used To Be

Where The Sea Used To Be
Author: Rick Bass
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 461
Release: 2014-06-03
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0544341570

“Ambitious and often captivatingly beautiful . . . an extended meditation on the prickly, necessary interrelationship of man and the natural world.” —Kirkus Reviews The first full-length novel by one of our finest fiction writers, Where the Sea Used to Be tells the story of a struggle between a father and his daughter for the souls of two men, Matthew and Wallis—his protégés, her lovers. Old Dudley is a Texan whose religion is oil, and in his fifty years of searching for it in Swan Valley he has destroyed a dozen geologists. Matthew is Dudley’s most recent victim, but Wallis begins to uncover the dark mystery of Dudley’s life. Each character, the wildlife, and the land itself are rendered with the vivid poetry that is that hallmark of Rick Bass’s writing. “Sometimes, reading this book, I wished I could step into its pages and physically inhabit the world Rick Bass creates. At its best, Where the Sea Used to Be is that powerful, that seductive.” —The Washington Post “In the beauty of his language and the grandeur of his story’s scope, Bass has created both powerful fiction and a parable for the situation in which the human race finds itself . . . Read it to discover anew the power good fiction can have.” —SFGate “One of the country’s premier sources of poetic, nature-oriented short fiction . . . The particular pleasure of reading a Rick Bass novel is the total immersion you feel in the hypnotic lyricism of his prose . . . a novel of inestimable beauty.” —The Austin Chronicle

Into the Wilderness

Into the Wilderness
Author: Sara Donati
Publisher: Bantam
Total Pages: 898
Release: 2010-09-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0440338077

Weaving a tapestry of fact and fiction, Sara Donati’s epic novel sweeps us into another time and place . . . and into a breathtaking story of love and survival in a land of savage beauty. It is December of 1792. Elizabeth Middleton leaves her comfortable English estate to join her family in a remote New York mountain village. It is a place unlike any she has ever experienced. And she meets a man unlike any she has ever encountered—a white man dressed like a Native American: Nathaniel Bonner, known to the Mohawk people as Between-Two-Lives. Determined to provide schooling for all the children of the village, Elizabeth soon finds herself locked in conflict with the local slave owners as well as with her own family. Interweaving the fate of the Mohawk Nation with the destiny of two lovers, Sara Donati’s compelling novel creates a complex, profound, passionate portait of an emerging America. Praise for Into the Wilderness “My favorite kind of book is the sort you live in, rather than read. Into the Wilderness is one of those rare stories that let you breathe the air of another time, and leave your footprints on the snow of a wild, strange place. I can think of no better adventure than to explore the wilderness in the company of such engaging and independent lovers as Elizabeth and her Nathaniel.”—Diana Gabaldon “Each time you open a book you hope to discover a story that will make your spirit of adventure and romance sing. This book delivers on that promise.”—Amanda Quick “A beautiful tale of both romance and survival…Here is the beauty as well as the savagery of the wilderness and, at the core of it all, the compelling story of the love of a man and a woman, both for the untamed land and for one another.”—Allan W. Eckert “Lushly written . . . Exemplary historical fiction.”—Kirkus Reviews “Epic in scope, emotionally intense.”—BookPage

Through the Night Sky

Through the Night Sky
Author: DK
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 98
Release: 2020-09-08
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 0744035708

A beautifully illustrated collection of nonfiction stories featuring the many wonders that exist in the night sky. Beginning with a sunset and ending at dawn, Through the Night Sky shines a light on the magical events taking place in the darkness above. Unlike an astronomy book that focuses on eye-popping facts and figures about the universe, Through the Night Sky features a series of incredible stories that take place in the sky at night. Track a colony of bats as they fly through the twilight to pollinate the flowers of the mysterious baobab tree, follow a family into the wilderness to gaze at the constellations, watch whales swimming through chilly Arctic waters under the gentle glow of the Northern Lights, then chart the journey of a ship navigating by the stars. Through the Night Sky is a beautiful book that spans a wide range of subjects, including everything from nocturnal animals or revelers watching fireworks illuminate the night, to celestial objects such as the moon, planets, stars, and meteor showers--all under the vast night sky.

Winter

Winter
Author: Rick Bass
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 180
Release: 1991
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780395611500

Describes winter in a remote valley of inhabitants, the last valley in Montana without electricity.

The Natural Navigator

The Natural Navigator
Author: Tristan Gooley
Publisher: The Experiment
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2012-06-05
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1615191550

From the New York Times-bestselling author of The Secret World of Weather and The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs, learn to tap into nature and notice the hidden clues all around you Before GPS, before the compass, and even before cartography, humankind was navigating. Now this singular guide helps us rediscover what our ancestors long understood—that a windswept tree, the depth of a puddle, or a trill of birdsong can help us find our way, if we know what to look and listen for. Adventurer and navigation expert Tristan Gooley unlocks the directional clues hidden in the sun, moon, stars, clouds, weather patterns, lengthening shadows, changing tides, plant growth, and the habits of wildlife. Rich with navigational anecdotes collected across ages, continents, and cultures, The Natural Navigator will help keep you on course and open your eyes to the wonders, large and small, of the natural world.