My Wilderness

In 1918 painter Rockwell Kent took his nine-year-old son to spend a winter on Alaska’s Fox Island. In My Wilderness, Claudia McGehee recounts this vivid nonfiction tale from Rocky’s point of view. Colorful scratchboard-style illustrations echo the rugged subject matter with whimsy while showcasing the wonder of Alaska from a young boy’s imaginative point of view. Hailed as “a tale to treasure again and again” by School Library Journal (starred review), this gorgeous picture book highlights the beauty and power of the Alaskan landscape seen through a boy’s eyes.

There’s no question that applications like Photoshop have changed the art world forever. Master digital artists already use these tools to create masterpieces that stretch the limits of the imagination—but you don’t have to be a master to create your own digital art. Whether you’re a beginner who’s never picked up a pen or paintbrush, or a traditional artist who wants to explore everything a digital canvas might inspire, digital artist and arts educator Scott Ligon guides you and inspires you with clear instructions and exercises that explore all the visual and technical possibilities. Featuring the work of 40 of the finest digital artists working today, Digital Art Revolution is your primary resource for creating amazing artwork using your computer.

The poems of My Wilderness often take place on the wooded hillside in Oregon where Maxine Scates has lived since the mid-1970s. They chronicle how the woods, which were once a refuge, have turned into a landscape of change where trees once numerous are now threatened by storm and the presence of the humans who live among them. These poems also engage her partner's threatening illness, the death of her closest friend, and the death, at age one hundred, of her mother, an indomitable figure who led Scates through a working-class childhood in Los Angeles fraught with domestic violence. Grounded in the shifting borders of migrations and extinctions plant, animal, and human, of memory and grief, My Wilderness inevitably asks us to consider not only our own mortality but also our impact on the world around us.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK • A timely and important book that challenges everything we think we know about cultivating true belonging in our communities, organizations, and culture, from the #1 bestselling author of Rising Strong, Daring Greatly, and The Gifts of Imperfection Don’t miss the five-part Max docuseries Brené Brown: Atlas of the Heart! “True belonging doesn’t require us to change who we are. It requires us to be who we are.” Social scientist Brené Brown, PhD, MSW, has sparked a global conversation about the experiences that bring meaning to our lives—experiences of courage, vulnerability, love, belonging, shame, and empathy. In Braving the Wilderness, Brown redefines what it means to truly belong in an age of increased polarization. With her trademark mix of research, storytelling, and honesty, Brown will again change the cultural conversation while mapping a clear path to true belonging. Brown argues that we’re experiencing a spiritual crisis of disconnection, and introduces four practices of true belonging that challenge everything we believe about ourselves and each other. She writes, “True belonging requires us to believe in and belong to ourselves so fully that we can find sacredness both in being a part of something and in standing alone when necessary. But in a culture that’s rife with perfectionism and pleasing, and with the erosion of civility, it’s easy to stay quiet, hide in our ideological bunkers, or fit in rather than show up as our true selves and brave the wilderness of uncertainty and criticism. But true belonging is not something we negotiate or accomplish with others; it’s a daily practice that demands integrity and authenticity. It’s a personal commitment that we carry in our hearts.” Brown offers us the clarity and courage we need to find our way back to ourselves and to each other. And that path cuts right through the wilderness. Brown writes, “The wilderness is an untamed, unpredictable place of solitude and searching. It is a place as dangerous as it is breathtaking, a place as sought after as it is feared. But it turns out to be the place of true belonging, and it’s the bravest and most sacred place you will ever stand.”

• The author is a distinguished member of the Explorers Club • The author is an unexpected adventurer, disarmingly positive and companionable • Lively stories of remote treks around the world Way Out There is an account of J. Robert Harris’s extraordinary exploits while backpacking in some of the world’s most tantalizing places―largely alone and unsupported. And after almost fifty years of wilderness travel, “J. R.,” as he’s known, has plenty of tales to tell! His stories are by turns funny, tragic, and uplifting, and are all told in his down‐to‐earth, friendly style. For J. R., it all began in 1966 when, as a young New Yorker, he impulsively drives his VW Beetle across the country to the very end of the northernmost road in Alaska, searching for an answer to a simple question: What is it like to be way out there? How this happened, whom he met, and what he encountered along the way became the foundation for a lifelong attraction to trekking and adventure travel. Subsequent chapters chronologically explore some of his many journeys, revealing an enduring wanderlust honed by his emerging maturity and outdoor skills. Stories of J. R.’s solo treks point to stark contrasts between his urban upbringing and his wilderness wanderings, while tales of adventure with small but diverse groups of friends are enriched by their collective experiences and varying viewpoints about exploration. Way Out There is a lively yet introspective book by a restless soul that will attract countless readers who love to travel, as well as armchair adventurers and communities looking for outdoor role models. The foreword is by the late Dr. Roscoe C. Brown, Jr., one of the famed Tuskegee Airmen fighter pilots during World War I

The last forty years have seen transitions in mainline churches that feel, for many, like a journey into the wilderness. Yet God is calling us in this moment, not to grieve over the changes we have experienced but to hear the call to a new mission, and a new faithfulness. In Journey in the Wilderness, Gil Rendle draws on decades as a pastor and church consultant to point a way into a hopeful future. The key to embracing the wilderness is to learn new skills in leading change, to reach beyond a position of privilege and power to become churches that serve God’s hurting people.

The Wilderness First Aid Handbook is a handy, quick-reference guide easily accessible with basic wilderness first aid knowledge, but it does not require advanced degrees or experience with medicine and prehospital care. Recognizing that certain knowledge and procedures are outside the scope of a layperson’s training, Dr. Grant Lipman limits the use of technical terms and advanced techniques that may be unfamiliar to some readers or beyond their comfort zone. This system-based, easy-to-follow guide assists the first aid provider when encountering most wilderness emergencies, from cold and heat concerns and blister treatments to high altitude illness and lightning injury prevention—and much more. Typically the most challenging decision in the wilderness environment is when to evacuate a sick or potentially sick person, and as such, each section has detailed decision-making steps to inform you of when to be concerned and when to get out. This guidance is based upon the recent evidence-based consensus statement published by the Wilderness Medical Society on the scope of practice of wilderness first aid. Filled with original, full-color artwork illustrating the techniques and procedures described and with internal-spiral binding and waterproof pages handy for travel into extreme environments, The Wilderness First Aid Handbook is a must-have for every back pocket or backpack.