Bøker av John Muir

The Mountains of California is John Muir''s tribute to the beauties of the Sierra, in the book form. When he came to California and finally settled in San Francisco, John Muir immediately left for a visit to Yosemite, a place he had only read about. Seeing it for the first time, Muir noted that "He was overwhelmed by the landscape, scrambling down steep cliff faces to get a closer look at the waterfalls, whooping and howling at the vistas, jumping tirelessly from flower to flower." He climbed a number of mountains, including Cathedral Peak and Mount Dana, and hiked the old Indian trail down Bloody Canyon to Mono Lake. He vividly described not only his journeys through the mountains, valleys andglaciersof Sierra, but also the nature and geology of the area. John Muir (1838 - 1914) was a Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. His letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, have been read by millions. His activism helped to preserve the Yosemite Valley, Sequoia National Park and other wilderness areas. The Sierra Club, which he founded, is a prominent American conservation organization.

The Mountains of California not only details John Muir's visits to the magnificent mountains along the Sierra Nevada Range, but also the stunning glaciers, forests and wildlife he encounters; the enthusiasm contained within these pages is infectious.

The Story of my Boyhood and Youth is the memoir of the now internationally renowned John Muir, a Scottish-American boy subject to a most unusual upbringing, his transition into adulthood, and the path that led him to petition for the concept of protected national parks.

Travels in Alaska details three of John Muir's trips to Alaska: 1879, 1880 and 1890, each one embedded with stunning metaphors, a dedicated love of Mother Nature and a desire to protect and preserve wildness, this book is an insight not only into Alaska, but into Muir himself.

Steep Trails is a mix of John Muir's essays and adventure narratives. As Terry Gifford writes in the foreword, 'Most of Steep Trails' chapters are dispatches from Muir as travelling correspondent with a mixture of insights into local cultures, criticism of pollution and enthusiasm for everything wild.'

First published in 1901, Our National Parks is possibly the bestselling book of John Muir's wilderness-discovery titles and was certainly the most influential published in his lifetime. Muir's conservationist essays were a first at the time of publication, and are still highly applicable to twenty-first life.

A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf is a classic travelogue by John Muir, charting his journeys through Kentucky, Tennessee, the Deep South, the Florida Keys and Cuba.Muir's journey took place in the late nineteenth century: we hear exquisite detail of the untouched countryside in each of the locales. The hanging mosses of Georgia, towering pines and vast marshes of Florida's Everglades region; the rugged foothills of the Cumberland Mountains; and the leisurely scene of Havana harbor are but a few of the destinations Muir tours and vividly describes. This book contains the original early photographs of the locales described, with specimens of tree and the landscapes depicted together with rivers and settlements. All chapters are presented complete with Muir's original notes, and it is through the author's concise observations that this travelogue retains a unique identity of its own.

A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf is a classic travelogue by John Muir, charting his journeys through Kentucky, Tennessee, the Deep South, the Florida Keys and Cuba.Muir's journey took place in the late nineteenth century: we hear exquisite detail of the untouched countryside in each of the locales. The hanging mosses of Georgia, towering pines and vast marshes of Florida's Everglades region; the rugged foothills of the Cumberland Mountains; and the leisurely scene of Havana harbor are but a few of the destinations Muir tours and vividly describes. This book contains the original early photographs of the locales described, with specimens of tree and the landscapes depicted together with rivers and settlements. All chapters are presented complete with Muir's original notes, and it is through the author's concise observations that this travelogue retains a unique identity of its own.

John Muir inadvertently traps us in his web of enthusiasm for the beauty and significance of Mother Nature. The Yosemite gives us the tools to construct a detailed mental map of the Sierra, and leaves us with the resolution to be more compassionate and environmentally mindful.

In the summer of 1869, John Muir joined a group of shepherds in the foothills of California's Sierra Nevada mountains, that he might study and expand his knowledge of the plants, animals and rocks he found there. My First Summer in the Sierra is the colourful diary he kept while tending sheep and exploring the wilderness.

It is in A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf that we are given clues towards John Muir's future trailblazing movement for environmental conservation, and teaches us as much about Muir himself as it does the ecosystems in the wilderness across those 1,000 miles.

The great advocate for wilderness preservation wrote many letters extolling the wonders of Yosemite. His lyric, vividly written accounts describe sheep-herding, guiding visitors, and studying the region's diverse splendors.

Considered one of the patron saints of twentieth-century environmental activity, John Muir's appeal to modern readers is that he not only explored the American West but also fought for its preservation. My First Summer in the Sierra is Muir's account of his adventures and observations while working as a shepherd in the Yosemite Valley, which later became Yosemite National Park as a direct result of Muir's writings and activism. Muir's heartfelt and often humorous descriptions of his first summer spent in the Sierra will captivate and inspire long-time fans and novice naturalists alike.

The famed naturalist hiked through the rural American South in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, chronicling the Spanish moss, palmettos, magnolias, and other botanical wonders he encountered along the way.

This is a collection of articles written by the pioneering naturalist for the San Francisco Evening Bulletin in 1874 and 1875. . . . In the course of his wanderings we hear Muir grow from a student of the wilderness to its professor and protector."--Sierra Magazine

This volume of John Muir's selected writings chronicles the key turning points in his life and study of the American wilderness.

Our National Parks is a guidebook supreme, an exciting introduction to Yosemite and several other magnificent parks by the man who, more than any other person, helped to create them. After this fast-paced trip with Muir, past visitors to the parks will want to revisit them with new insights, and those who have never wandered these trails will not rest until they have done so. The book, long out of print, was originally published in 1901, its ten essays having previously appeared as articles in the Atlantic Monthly. Muir wrote them with a single purpose--to entice people, by his descriptions, to come to the parks, to see and enjoy them. If enough people did so, reasoned Muir, they would surely love the wilderness as he did, and the parks would be preserved. Muir carried out his public relations mission with remarkable success. Every page of this book carries his unbridled and irresistible enthusiasm. Our National Parks is part reminiscence, part philosophy, and mostly enticing description. It is all vintage Muir. Although the book treats Yellowstone, Sequoia, General Grant, and other national parks of the Western U.S., Muir devotes the bulk of the work to his first love--Yosemite, settled into the heart of the Sierra Nevada. Indeed, six of the book's chapters are devoted to Yosemite, treating the forests, wild gardens, fountains and streams, animals, and birds of the park. The concluding essay is an impassioned plea to save American forests. All visitors to the great western national parks--and all who will one day visit them--will be captivated by Muir's descriptions. The grandeur of this wilderness is reflected in the very spirit of John Muir. Both shine through every page of this remarkable book.