Viking

Gretel Ehrlich's novel set in Wyoming during World War II, when a Japanese American internment camp was built in the shadow of the Absaroka Range. Landscape and injustice, cattle ranches and barbed wire. Ehrlich writes Wyoming the way nobody else can.

Nathaniel Philbrick's account of the Essex, the Nantucket whaling ship rammed and sunk by a sperm whale in 1820 — the event that inspired Moby-Dick. The crew's subsequent ordeal in open boats is one of the most harrowing survival stories in maritime history.

Walking the ancient paths of Britain, Palestine, Spain, and the Himalaya. Each path is a palimpsest — layers of footsteps, centuries deep. Macfarlane at his most lyrical, following routes that were old before roads existed.

A study of endurance athletes — ultra-runners, thru-hikers, long-distance swimmers — and the psychology of pushing past what the body says is possible.

Chatwin's investigation into Aboriginal Australian song-paths — the invisible routes that crisscross the continent, sung into existence by the ancestors. Part travel, part anthropology, part philosophical notebook. Chatwin at his most ambitious and most controversial.

An indictment of how public lands in the West are managed — for ranchers, miners, and developers, not for the land itself. Ketcham names names and doesn't flinch. Angry, documented, and necessary.