In 2005, Rebecca Norris Webb set out to photograph her home state of South Dakota, a sparsely populated frontier state on the Great Plains with more buffalo, pronghorn, mule deer and prairie dogs than people. South Dakota is a land of powwows and rodeos, corn palaces and buffalo roundups; a harsh and beautiful landscape dominated by space, silence, brutal wind and extreme weather. The next year, however, everything changed for Norris Webb, when her brother died unexpectedly of heart failure. "For months," she writes in the introduction to this volume, "one of the few things that eased my unsettled heart was the landscape of South Dakota. For each of us, does loss have its own geography?" My Dakota is a small intimate book about the west and its weathers, and an elegy for a lost brother.

"I've known about Ike Blasingame all my life, knew many of his fellow punchers, white and Indian. Ike was certainly a salty representative of the Texas bronc twister when he came North with that most romantic of cow outfits, the British-owned Matador. . . . [He] takes the reader across the treacherous Missouri River as the spring-softened ice goes out under the horses' feet, into the still wild cow towns, through the round-ups, the prairie fires. . . . There is the authentic smell and feel of the Northern cow country of fifty years ago in the story Ike Blasingame tells."-Mari Sandoz"Here is one of the most gripping Western tales since Andy Adams' The Log of a Cowboy was published in 1903. The telling is considerably like Adams'-warm, human, flavorful. The author, a one-time Matador ranch cowboy, . . . lived his story, and he tells it straight in the language of the cow country without contrivance."-New York Times"Many of the cowboys who have written about their experiences never really looked at any wider segment of the cattle business than was visible between their horses' ears, but Ike Blasingame did. He paints a big picture without omitting details."-New York Herald-Tribune

A child of a typical 1950s suburb unearths her mother's hidden heritage, launching a rich and magical exploration of her own identity and her family's powerful Native American past.

“A deeply spiritual, deeply moving book” about life on the Great Plains, by the New York Times–bestselling author of The Cloister Walk (The New York Times Book Review). “With humor and lyrical grace,” Kathleen Norris meditates on a place in the American landscape that is at once desolate and sublime, harsh and forgiving, steeped in history and myth (San Francisco Chronicle). A combination of reporting and reflection, Dakota reminds us that wherever we go, we chart our own spiritual geography.

A tale of a lifelong passion for a WWII aircraft that changed the author’s life: “It is almost like an adventure novel except it is true” (Air Classics). This book tells the story of a Dutch boy who grew up during the 1950s in postwar Borneo, where he had frequent encounters with an airplane, the Douglas DC-3, a.k.a. the C-47 Skytrain or Dakota, of World War II fame. For a young boy living in a remote jungle community, the aircraft reached the proportions of a romantic icon as the essential lifeline to a bigger world for him, the beginning of a special bond. In 1957, his family left the island and all its residual wreckage of World War II, and he attended college in The Hague. After graduation, he started a career as a corporate executive—and met the aircraft again during business trips to the Americas. His childhood passion for the Dakota flared up anew, and the fascination pulled like a magnet. As if predestined, or maybe just looking for an excuse to come closer, he began a business to salvage and convert Dakota parts, which meant first of all finding them. As the demand for these war relic parts and cockpits soared, he began to travel the world to track down surplus, crashed, or derelict Dakotas. He ventured deeper and deeper into remote mountains, jungles, savannas, and the seas where the planes are found, usually as ghostly wrecks but sometimes still in full commercial operation. In hunting the mythical Dakota, he often encountered intimidating or dicey situations in countries plagued by wars or revolts, others by arms and narcotics trafficking, warlords, and conmen. The stories of these expeditions take the reader to some of the remotest spots in the world, but once there, one is often greeted by the comfort of what was once the West’s apex in transportation—however now haunted by the courageous airmen of the past.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER “The Way Forward will help every reader master their own challenges—this is a must-read book!” —Admiral Bill McRaven, U.S. Navy (Retired) and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Make Your Bed American Sniper meets Make Your Bed in these life lessons from decorated United States service members and New York Times bestselling authors Robert O’Neill and Dakota Meyer—an in-depth, fearless, and ultimately redemptive account of what it takes to survive and thrive on battlefields from Afghanistan and Iraq to our daily lives, and how the perils of war help us hold onto our humanity. Rob O’Neill and Dakota Meyer are two of the most decorated and recognized US service members: O’Neill killed the world’s most wanted man, Osama bin Laden, and Meyer was the first living Marine to receive the Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War. But beyond their actions and courage in combat, O’Neill and Meyer also have much in common in civilian life: they are both sought-after public speakers, advocates for veterans, and share a non-PC sense of humor. Combining the best of military memoirs and straight-talking self-help, The Way Forward alternates between O’Neill’s and Meyer’s perspectives, looking back with humor at even the darkest war stories, and sharing lessons they learned along the way. The Way Forward presents O’Neill and Meyer’s philosophy in combat and life. This isn’t a book about the glory of war and combat, but one about facing your enemies, some who are flesh and blood and some that are not: Your thoughts. Your doubts. Your boredom and your regrets. From Rob’s dogged repetition at the free throw line of his childhood basketball court to Dakota’s pursuit of EMT and firefighter credentials to aid accident victims, these two American heroes turn their experiences into valuable lessons for every reader. Gritty and down-to-earth, O’Neill and Meyer tell their stories with candor and vulnerability to help readers handle stress, tackle their biggest obstacles, and exceed their expectations of themselves, while keeping life’s battles in perspective with a sense of humor.