When I bought My First Summer in the Sierra by John Muir at the Muir Woods National Monument, I also purchased a second book of his: The Yosemite. It seemed smart to pick up a copy, since I was on my way to Yosemite National Park. Reading what Muir thought of the valley was definitely important to me, since I was trying to learn more about the man, but what I found in the pages was nothing close to what I expected.

The Yosemite by John Muir isn't so much a story of his time spent in the ...

Since I toured my first national park years ago, I've thought of becoming a National Park Service ranger. I toyed with the idea even so far as to go online and look at job openings and descriptions. I may have never applied, but I certainly gave it strong consideration. I mean, what would be so wrong with being outdoors all day, surrounded by beauty and wildlife, and occasionally giving directions to tourists excited to see where you live? Well, before I went any further, I'm glad I read An...

It's not often I get overly excited about a book and want to tell everyone how much I enjoyed it. Normally that only happens with Bill Bryson books. Sure, I write about a lot of books here, but not all of them make me want to do cartwheels. I find myself content at the end of most of the books I write about here, no longer bothering to mention those I dislike, and smile as I place them on the shelf next to the others I've finished. But, when I cracked the binding of Peter Matthiessen's The ...

I was capitvated with this book the moment I saw the cover on a book stand at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. I was nearing the completion of another book, so I picked it up and threw it in my pack to read as soon as I returned to Denver. And then Ian Baker's The Heart of the World: A Journey to Tibet's Lost Paradise sat on my home bookshelf for a couple of years for a reason I can't really explain. I picked it up a couple of weeks ago, at the start of my Christmas break, an...

I had plenty of time to read with a week off for a holiday break. I definitely kept busy running around doing various family things, but was able to easily find time to read around the madness that encompassed my time off. One of the books I read, A Course Called Ireland: A Long Walk in Search of a Country, a Pint, and the Next Tee by Tom Coyne, was recommended to me by a friend over a couple of pints at the pub one night. Since high school I haven't been much of a golfer, but he assured me...

I've spent the better part of fifteen or sixteen months researching and writing a travel memoir, and now it's all on two little USB sticks on my desk. I still have a lot of editing to do, and things to change, but the better part of my first book is done and I couldn't be more happy. I'm pleased with the way the trip that I'm writing about went, as well as how I'm incorporating past travels into the story, and how it has come into being electronically. But now the hard part of fine tuning ...

A number of friends have told me that I need to write a book about my travels. They remind me of all the places I've seen, and encourage me to write a book about it all. So, after hearing enough of it, I've finally got the ball rolling and am about halfway through the story - something I've found to be much more difficult than I had initially anticipated.

I knew writing a book would be a lot of work, but you just pour so much of yourself into it that it's difficult not to fuss over every...