The iconic writer's electrifying first novel is a story of marriage, murder and betrayal that only she could tell with such nuance, sympathy, and suspense—from the bestselling, award-winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking and Let Me Tell You What I Mean. Everett McClellan and his wife, Lily, are the great-grandchildren of pioneers, and what happens to them is a tragic epilogue to the pioneer experience—a haunting portrait of a marriage whose wrong turns and betrayals are at once absolutely idiosyncratic and a razor-sharp commentary on the history of California.

The Green River runs wild, free and vigourous from southern Wyoming to northeastern Utah. Edward Abbey wrote in these pages in 1975 that Anne Zwinger's account of the Green River and its subtle forms of life and nonlife may be taken as authoritative. 'Run, River, Run,' should serve as a standard reference work on this part of the American West for many years to come." —New York Times Book Review

An explosive debut mystery for readers of Christine Carbo and Paul Doiron featuring a newly minted deputy thrust into the cutthroat world of hunting. This waterfowl season, the hunters become the hunted. Newly promoted sheriff's deputy Delia Chavez has worked hard to get where she is. Without any family to speak of, law enforcement is all she has. But just a few days into her new job, Delia finds the body of a hunter washed up on the bank of the Willamette River missing his trigger finger. Soon, more bodies are found--all hunters without their trigger fingers. Waterfowl season often means clashes between hunters and animal rights activists, but could someone be killing to make a statement? Petrified, but invigorated by the opportunity, Delia dives head first into the case. Soon, she catches a whiff of something foul and it's not the dead bodies--man or bird. What starts off looking like a simple case of a ruthless vigilante quickly devolves into something much more complex. Facing evasive killers who stop at nothing to conceal their crimes, Delia must bring the criminals to justice because everyone knows, if you're not the predator, you're prey.

All Freya can remember is her sister, the basement, and the Man Upstairs. She has no memory of the world outside or of being warm or of not feeling hungry. And now her sister is gone. An unlikely ally shows her how to break out of the basement, but on the frozen banks of the Mississippi, Freya quickly discovers things worse than the Man Upstairs. Freya is lucky to find Finn. He has a canoe, some supplies, and a vague idea about a place down south called Norlins. If they can dodge the slavers and avoid starving to death, the two of them might just have a shot at survival.

Growing up near the Sabine, journalist Wes Ferguson, like most East Texans, steered clear of its murky, debris-filled waters, where alligators lived in the backwater sloughs and an occasional body was pulled from some out-of-the-way crossing. The Sabine held a reputation as a haunt for a handful of hunters and loggers, more than a few water moccasins, swarms of mosquitoes, and the occasional black bear lumbering through swamp oak and cypress knees. But when Ferguson set out to do a series of newspaper stories on the upper portion of the river, he and photographer Jacob Croft Botter were entranced by the river’s subtle beauty and the solitude they found there. They came to admire the self-described “river rats” who hunted, fished, and swapped stories along the muddy water—plain folk who love the Sabine as much as Hill Country vacationers love the clear waters of the Guadalupe. Determined to travel the rest of the river, Ferguson and Botter loaded their gear and launched into the stretch of river that charts the line between the states and ends at the Gulf of Mexico. To learn more about The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, sponsors of this book's series, please click here.

Crowded, hot, subject to violent swings in climate, with a government unable or unwilling to face the most vital challenges, the rich and poor increasingly living in worlds apart; for most of the world, this picture is of a possible future. For India, it is the very real present. In this lyrical exploration of life, loss, and survival, Meera Subramanian travels in search of the ordinary people and microenterprises determined to revive India's ravaged natural world: an engineer-turned-farmer brings organic food to Indian plates; villagers resuscitate a river run dry; cook stove designers persist on the quest for a smokeless fire; biologists bring vultures back from the brink of extinction; and in Bihar, one of India's most impoverished states, a bold young woman teaches adolescents the fundamentals of sexual health. While investigating these five environmental challenges, Subramanian discovers the stories that renew hope for a nation with the potential to lead India and the planet into a sustainable and prosperous future.

In a stunning story that “makes history come alive” (Booklist), a boy is sent to Mammoth cave to fight a case of consumption—and ends up fighting for the lives of a secret community of escaped slaves, who are hidden deep underground. Twelve-year-old Elias has consumption, so he is sent to Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave—the biggest cave in America—where the cool vapors are said to be healing. At first, living in a cave sounds like an adventure, but after a few days, Elias feels more sick of boredom than his illness. So he is thrilled when Stephen, one of the slaves who works in the cave, invites him to walk further through its depths. But there are more than just tunnels and stalagmites waiting to be discovered; there are mysteries hiding around every turn. The truths they conceal are far more stunning than anything Elias could ever have imagined, and he finds himself caught in the middle of it all—while he’s supposed to be resting. But how can he focus on saving his own life when so many others are in danger?