Uncharted: A Couple’s Epic Empty-Nest Adventure Sailing from One Life to Another by Kim Brown Seely. The author and her husband buy a broken down sailboat, fix it up, and sail the inland passage to find the Golden Bear in the Great Bear Rain Forest in the upper reaches of the Canadian coast line. It is truly an adventure as well as a page-turner. The wind, the clouds, the rain, the sun—all play a big part in this story. Sailing with Impunity by Mary Trimble is similar but different—taking place in the ocean from Seattle into the tropics. I highly recommend this book as well.

Passion Below Zero: Essays from Last Chance, Idaho by David Hays. As you can guess from the title, this book says a lot about winter, winter in eastern Idaho near Island Park, but other seasons too. Some of the essay titles: An Echo in the Forest. Winter. Snowspell. A Shadow of Summer. Persephone in Full Bloom. The Long Nights Begin. March Winds. Intrigued? It may not be easy to find, but worth the hunt.

House of Rain: Tracking a Vanished Civilization Across the American Southwest by Craig Childs. When I finished the book, I wanted to go back to the first page and begin reading again, it was that wonderful. The author has spent his life exploring in the Southwest. In this book, he takes the reader to Chaco Canyon, the highlands of Mesa Verde, Antelope Mesa in Arizona, and other desert locations. Lack of rain courses through every page. (Seattle-ites, imagine yourselves in this location on one of your worst rainy days.) Also read Virga and Bone by the same author.

Erosion: Essays of Undoing by Terry Tempest Williams. I am sure TTW is familiar to most of you. Her new book is a deep cry of pain over the potential loss of desert beauty in the assault by the Trump administration, oil and mining companies, and developers, all who want to destroy the Bears Ears National Monument and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, as well as open 2.5 million acres to oil and gas exploration. She reminds us that water can crack stone.

Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country by Pam Houston. The author writes about her purchase of land high in the Colorado Rockies, and how the natural world helps heal her after an abusive childhood. Animals mark the changing seasons. Deep cold, lightning wildfires, and the vagaries of nature and life wind their way through this lovely book.

7003 Days: 21 Years in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness by Jim and Holly Atkenson. The Akensons describe their encounters with wildlife and nature: tracking wolves and cougars, using mules for transportation and ranch work during all seasons in the rugged Salmon River Mountains of Central Idaho.

The Magical Universe of the Ancients: A Desert Journal by Julie Weston and photographs by Gerry Morrison. This book will be forthcoming in June, 2020. We traveled the desert Southwest, mostly in fall and spring to capture good weather in Ancestral Puebloan ruins, deep gulches in Cedar Mesa and national parks and monuments. Like TTW, we want to save this area from being ruined and we hope our stories and photographs will spark people’s interest in saving it, too

The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race Against an Epidemic by Gay and Laney Salisbury. The title describes the book, a great read. (This books seems apropos now, although we are dealing with a pandemic as best we can.)

All of the above are nonfiction. Of course weather also affects stories and characters in fiction:  Try these: To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey, Piano Tide by Kathleen Dean Moore, Moonshadows by Julie Weston, The Highest Tide by Jim Lynch, Industry of Souls by Martin Booth.

All of these books should keep you occupied if you are staying at home because of the coronavirus. We loaded up on books from our local independent bookstore, and I also bought a 1000 piece puzzle. Stay healthy. If you have books to add, please do so in the comments below. I love weather and travel books. Our Magical Universe book is being printed right now in South Korea. It should be available, in hardback and softcover, in early June. If we can travel then, we hope to go through Utah and New Mexico and then into the Northwest at our usual round of wonderful bookstores and libraries. Hope to see you then!

Note: All photos by Gerry Morrison, some of which are in our new book.