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Ten Books You Should Have In Your National Park Library

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National Park Week seems like an appropriate time to check your personal library to ensure it's up to snuff when it comes to the national parks. Here, in no particular order, are 10 books you definitely should have in your library:

The Birth of the National Park Service: The Founding Years, 1913-33

This is a book I wish I had read many years ago. Told by Horace M. Albright not long before his death, it’s a recounting of the establishment years of the National Park Service from one of the two men who literally created it and rightfully became legends in its history.

Ed: This book explains the whole "National Park" idea from the get-go.

My First Summer in the Sierra

A century after John Muir published My First Summer in the Sierra, a 100th anniversary edition of the book has been released, one with striking photography.

Ed: Can't have a national park library without at least one book by John Muir.

Uncertain Path: A Search For The Future of National Parks

The challenges facing the National Park Service and its collections of parks are daunting, perhaps more so than ever before due to the implications of climate change. William Tweed examines those challenges in a new book, Uncertain Path: A Search for the Future of National Parks.

Ed: With the current state of affairs, it's wise to look into the future.

10 Best of Everything, National Parks

In a catchall bid to categorize the national parks, the staff at National Geographic has a book for you just in time for National Park Week. 10 Best Everything, National Parks, is a book of lists, with the parks as a backdrop for those lists.

Ed: Who doesn't love books of list? And this is a great one for national parks!

Ansel Adams In The National Parks

Long after his death we continue to celebrate the brilliance of Ansel Adams, who arguably defined landscape photography, often while working in national parks to capture the magnificence of nature.

Ed: Just as you need a Muir in your library, you need an Adams.

Ranger Confidential, Living, Working, and Dying In the National Parks

Television shows love to portray park rangers as fit and polite, beaming dazzling smiles, displaying knowledge that knows no bounds, nerves of steel, and with dashing personalities. And then there are the realities, as Andrea Lankford describes in her book, Ranger Confidential: Living, Working, and Dying in the National Parks.

Ed: A sometimes disconcerting story from inside the system that you should hear.

Preserving Nature in the National Parks: A History

A decade after it first appeared on bookshelves, Preserving Nature in the National Parks: A History is reappearing in an updated version, one that follows the course of the national parks and the National Park Service up through the Bush administration and into the early days of the Obama administration.

Ed: An important read to understand natural resource management in the parks.

The Complete Guide To The National Park Lodges

David and Kay Scott are still traveling the country to stay in as many lodges in the National Park System as possible. The latest edition of their book -- number seven if you're counting -- is ready to take its place in your home library.

Ed: To visit the parks, you need to know where you want to stay! And the latest edition, No. 7, features color photos.

The Soul Of Yosemite: Finding, Defending, And Saving The Valley's Sacred Wild Nature

A new book questions whether the National Park Service has lost its way in protecting and preserving the national park ideal.

Ed: An equally disconcerting companion to Ranger Confidential: Living, Working, and Dying in the National Parks.

No. 10: We'll leave this one up to you, the reader, to add....

Comments

Desert Solitaire, by Edward Abbey


I just LOVE Search and Rescue stories so my nomination for #10 is "Death, Daring and Disaster. Search and Rescue in the National Parks" by Charles R "Butch" Farabee .... I can read the stories over and over.
After I've been to a park, I like to come home and read about the disasters there and pride myself on making it home safely.


Good strategy, Janet!


Kurt -Thanks for offering this list - these are all worthy suggestions. I write to second the nomination of Desert Solitaire. I'm sure many of us were inspired by this book at a time in our lives when we could go on to work in and for the national parks. It changed my life.


Bill, I think next time this subject comes up I should label it along the lines of "Top 25 Books You Should Have....";-)


I would like to nominate Wilderness and the American Mind by Roderick Nash. It is thought-provoking and scholarly, just what you would expect from a professor of environmental history at UC Santa Barbara.

Rick


I would like to humbly submit my own 2011 book, The Making of Yosemite: James Mason Hutchings and the Origin of America's Favorite National Park (UP Kansas). Focusing on the contexts of gold rush, Civil War, and Reconstruction ideology, it offers a somewhat different perspective on the first decades of the national park idea.  Thanks!


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The Essential RVing Guide

The Essential RVing Guide to the National Parks

The National Parks RVing Guide, aka the Essential RVing Guide To The National Parks, is the definitive guide for RVers seeking information on campgrounds in the National Park System where they can park their rigs. It's available for free for both iPhones and Android models.

This app is packed with RVing specific details on more than 250 campgrounds in more than 70 parks.

You'll also find stories about RVing in the parks, some tips if you've just recently turned into an RVer, and some planning suggestions. A bonus that wasn't in the previous eBook or PDF versions of this guide are feeds of Traveler content: you'll find our latest stories as well as our most recent podcasts just a click away.

So whether you have an iPhone or an Android, download this app and start exploring the campgrounds in the National Park System where you can park your rig.