By now you know I'm a horse lover. I also worked on the track for a decade as a groom, and I worked briefly in Ireland with steeplechase horses. They are incredible athletes, but I always held my breath when they ran, because steeplechasing is rough and tumble - literally. Some of those horses fall over jumps.
The Grand National in England is the granddaddy of steeplechases, and pretty much all hell broke loose during the running of the 1967 Grand National when Foinavon won at odds of 100-1.
I'm not giving anything away by telling you who won. The great story is about how he even got to be running in the race, and how that insane race unfolded.
After you read the book, find the race on Youtube and watch it!
It was the upset to end all upsets. On 8 April 1967 at Aintree racecourse in Liverpool, a 100-1 outsider in peculiar blinkers sidestepped chaos extraordinary even by the Grand National's standards and won the world's toughest steeplechase.
The jumps-racing establishment - and Gregory Peck, the Hollywood actor whose much-fancied horse was reduced to the status of an also-ran - took a dim view. But Foinavon, the dogged victor, and Susie, the white nanny goat who accompanied him everywhere, became instant celebrities. Within days, the traffic was being stopped for them in front of Buckingham Palace en route to an…
Besides horses, I love owls. I've done a lot of bird surveys, including spotted owls. I learned to track them down in the northwest forests; I've helped catch them; I've held them for banding. These birds are magical.
The Blakiston's fish owl is the largest owl in the world. It lives in China, Japan, and the Russian far east. It's also highly elusive. Author Jonathan Slaght went on a 5-year quest to find and study these fascinating, endangered owls in Eastern Russia. About the only time you can find them is winter, and you can imagine how cold it gets in Eastern Russia in winter.
This book doesn't read like a research book at all. It's more like a frozen outdoor rugged adventure with some colorful human characters thrown in, mixed with incredible, amazing encounters with a very elusive owl that most of us will never ever see.
A New York Times Notable Book of 2020 Longlisted for the National Book Award Winner of the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award and the Minnesota Book Award for General Nonfiction A Finalist for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year Award Winner of the Peace Corps Worldwide Special Book Award
A Best Book of the Year: NPR, The Wall Street Journal, Smithsonian, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, The Globe and Mail, The BirdBooker Report, Geographical, Open Letter Review Best Nature Book of the Year: The Times (London)
"A terrifically exciting account of [Slaght's] time in the Russian Far East studying Blakiston’s…
Where I live in the West out in cowboy country, sometimes it feels like I’m not so far removed from the days of the Old West.
Dale Walker's book takes me back to those historical events and characters from the Old West, revealing details I'd never learned before and giving some new perspectives on some of the characters. From the battle of the Little Bighorn with Custer to the Mountain Meadows Massacre, from Davy Crockett and the battle at the Alamo to the legend of the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine in Arizona, from outlaws Billy the Kid to Frank Dalton to Black Bart, this book will keep you engrossed till the wee hours of the morning, or saddle up to ride to the nearest saloon to hear the tall tales the old cowboys are telling at the bar.
"All of history is mystery," Dale L. Walker says, and he proves his point in this lively, humorous--and rational--approach to the West's greatest puzzles. Did Davy Crockett, for example, go down swinging Ol' Betsy, defending the ramparts of the Alamo--or was he captured? Who is buried in Jesse James's grave? Was the man Pat Garrett shot that night really Billy the Kid? How did Black Bart, "the gentleman bandit," disappear? Did Sacajawea, the famous "Bird Woman" who scouted for Lewis and Clark, die twice? The possibilities unfold as Walker brings together little-known facts and the elusive connections that shed light…
Winner of Best Book at the 2016 American Horse Publications Equine Media Awards
Every endurance ride has its challenges and difficulties, but the Tevis Cup has 100 miles of it. It's extreme, challenging, relentless, frantic, exhilarating, heart-breaking, exhausting, exasperating, beautiful, treacherous, insane, exciting.
Merri Melde's dramatic story of her unplanned and unforeseen attempt at the Tevis Cup, the world's toughest 100 mile endurance ride, will put you in the saddle, gripping the reins, eating dust, racing the clock on the trail across the Sierra Nevada mountains to cross the finish line in the 24 hour time limit, on a beautiful, gallant gray horse.
