Tales from the dyke side

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G. William Jolley

"ALMOST THERE takes the reader on a journey of the heart, mind and body of G. William Jolley, who in the late summer and early fall of 2012, and at seventy years of age, solo hiked the Washington Section of the Pacific Crest Trail. Page by page, the reader experiences the PCT with its challenges and beauty, and is invited into an honest and vulnerable look at one man's reflections on life: relationships, influences, and meaningful moments. Beginning at the trailhead just yards north of the Columbia River Gorge, the journey covers hundreds of miles, crossing pristine creeks and rivers, trudging up switchbacks to high mountain passes, sloshing across snowfields, and meandering through lush meadows. And along the way Jolley encounters Trail Angels and other PCT hikers, while reflecting with candor, humor, and gratitude. ALMOST THERE will inspire the reader to rethink whether a person is ever too old to go into the wilderness. Indeed, "Old men and women ought to be explorers."

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Christopher Ford

In this humorous take on the Odyssey, Zozimos, banished from his country by his evil stepmother, has many adventures as he prepares to return home to reclaim the throne that is rightfully his.

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Norman Henderson

"The North American Plains is one of the world's great landscapes - perhaps the signature landscape of the continent. Today, the most intimate experience most of us have of the great grasslands is from behind the window of a car or train. It was not always so. In the earliest days, Plains Indians traveled on foot across the vastness, with only the fierce, wolflike Plains dogs as companions. Later, with the arrival of the Europeans, horses and canoes appeared on the Plains. In Rediscovering the Great Plains, Norman Henderson, a leading scholar of the world's great temperate grasslands, revives these traditional modes of travel, journeying along two hundred miles of Canada's Qu'Appelle Valley by dog and travois (the wooden rack pulled by dogs and horses used by Native Americans to transport goods), then by canoe, and finally by horse and travois.". "Henderson interweaves his own adventures with the exploits of earlier Plains travelers, such as Lewis and Clark, Francisco Coronado, La Verendrye, and Alexander Henry. Lesser-known experiences of the fur traders and others who struggled to cross this strange and forbidding landscapes also illuminate the story, while Henderson's often humorous description of his attempts to find and train old Plains breeds of dogs and horses highlight the difficulties involved in re-creating traditional travel methods. He also draws on the history of the world's other great temperate grasslands: the South American Pampas and the Eurasian Steppes. Recalling the work of Ian Frazier and Jonathan Raban, Henderson's captivating account of his three journeys of exploration will foster a better appreciation for, and deeper understanding of, the natural and human history of the North American Plains."--BOOK JACKET.

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Pete Davies

Welcome to the great Plains--where tornadoes convert barns to matchsticks in seconds and generations of work can be destroyed in a single day. Two years ago, English novelist Pete Davies decided to search for the soul of America's heartland. Storm Country is the result--written with the same black humor that made his Last Election and Dollarville cult favorites.