This guidebook is the first of three regional volumes that invite residents and out-of-state visitors to explore North Carolina while reading literature from our state's finest writers. Organized geographically through a series of eighteen half-day and day-long tours in the western part of the state, the book directs curious travelers to the historic sites where Tar Heel authors have lived and worked. Along the way, travelers can read outstanding excerpts from the writers, evoking the places, customs, colloquialisms, and characters that figure prominently in their poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and plays. More than 170 writers from the past and present are featured in this volume, including Sequoyah, Elizabeth Spencer, Fred Chappell, Charles Frazier, Kathryn Stripling Byer, Robert Morgan, William Bartram, Gail Godwin, O. Henry, Thomas Wolfe, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Anne Tyler, Lillian Jackson Braun, Nina Simone, and Romulus Linney. Each tour provides information about the libraries, museums, colleges, bookstores, and other venues open to the public where writers regularly present their work or are represented in exhibits, events, performances, and festivals.

This pocket-sized gift and souvenir photo book captures the beauty of America's quintessential wilderness hiking trail. From desert California to the Washington-Canada border, the compelling photography of Bart Smith brings the entire 2,650-mile trail to life. This beautifully illustrated book, officially published with the Pacific Crest Trail Association in a pocket-sized gift and souvenir format, highlights this legendary footpath with more than 170 spectacular contemporary images taken by the foremost hiking photographer in America. Readers can experience the trail as if their boots were on the path--passing by the trail blazes, taking in the surrounding wilderness at scenic overlooks, meeting other hikers at lean-tos or shelters, and freezing at the sight of bear, elk, or other majestic wildlife. Designated as one of the first two national scenic trails in 1968, the Pacific Crest Trail is a continuous footpath of more than 2,650 miles--from the Mexican to the Canadian border. It is often called the "wilderness trail" because roughly half of it runs through federal wilderness--25 national forests, six national parks, five state parks, three national monuments, and 48 federal wilderness areas. The trail symbolizes everything there is to love--and protect--in the western United States. This book is perfect for anyone interested in conservation, outdoor recreation, or American history, or for those who dream of one day becoming thru-hikers themselves.

An acclaimed historian’s “compellingly told” year-by-year account of the pioneering efforts to conquer the American West in the mid-nineteenth century (The Guardian). In all the sagas of human migration, few can top the drama of the journey by Midwestern farmers to Oregon and California from 1840 to 1849—between the era of the fur trappers and the beginning of the gold rush. Even with mountain men as guides, these pioneers literally plunged into the unknown, braving all manner of danger, including hunger, thirst, disease, and drowning. Employing numerous illustrations and extensive primary sources, including original diaries and memoirs, McLynn underscores the incredible heroism and dangerous folly on the overland trails. His authoritative narrative investigates the events leading up to the opening of the trails, the wagons and animals used, the roles of women, relations with Native Americans, and much else. The climax arrives in McLynn’s expertly re-created tale of the dreadful Donner party, and he closes with Brigham Young and the Mormons beginning communities of their own. Full of high drama, tragedy, and triumph, “rarely has a book so wonderfully brought to life the riveting tales of Americans’ trek to the Pacific” (Publishers Weekly).