Book of the Day Roundup: August 18-22, 2025
Parklands
America’s National Parks and Public Lands
Jacob W. Frank
Gibbs Smith
Hardcover $40.00 (240pp)
978-1-4236-6851-0
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop)
Featuring hundreds of stunning images of parks and public land across the US, Jacob W. Frank’s Parklands is an extraordinary book of nature photography that embraces outdoor adventures.
A self-described nomad who has worked at several national parks, Frank braved countless challenges to capture perfect shots in all seasons and weather. It took multiple attempts over seven years to obtain his breathtaking panorama of Cracker Lake from a four-thousand-foot summit in Glacier National Park. He endured temperatures of twenty degrees below zero to capture an atmospheric nighttime shot of steam rising above Old Faithful at Yosemite. A colorful montage of 120 wildflower species in Denali National Park required several backpacking trips through rugged arctic wilderness. Parks including Kane Creek Recreation Area and the Dry Tortugas are also featured.
The dazzling photographs are paired with fascinating text. A synopsis of Earth’s geological history enlivens shots of canyons, mesas, and mountain ranges. An overview of Indigenous communities accompanies pictures of ancient Pueblo sites like Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon. Glittering shots of the aurora borealis come with a discussion of the importance of remote darkness.
Combining spectacular photography with insightful commentary, Parklands is a stirring and timely tribute to the nation’s wild places. Frank’s enthralling perspectives will inspire awe, curiosity, and a commitment to preserve these beautiful sites.
KRISTEN RABE (June 22, 2025)
Tali and the Timeless Time
Mira Z. Amiras
The Collective Book Studio
Hardcover $19.95 (48pp)
978-1-68555-185-8
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop)
Cultures and generations combine to enrich one another in this tender picture book that addresses the anxieties and challenges of caring for an aging relative with grace. Tali loves spending time at her grandma’s house preparing the Shabbat feast, but things have begun to change: her grandma forgets what she was in the middle of doing or calls Tali by the wrong name. Though her time with her grandmother is different, the love the pair shares remains unchanged.
DANIELLE BALLANTYNE (June 22, 2025)
Collateral Stardust
Chasing Warren Beatty and Other Foolish Things
Nikki Nash
Sibylline Press
Softcover $20.00 (300pp)
978-1-960573-42-1
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop)
Nikki Nash’s frank, funny memoir Collateral Stardust is about growing up in an offbeat Los Angeles family.
Nash was the sensitive oldest child in an unconventional family in the 1960s. Her father was a show-business trombonist and her mother was engaged in left-wing politics. Their epic, boozy house parties included Hollywood types and countercultural activists. Her mother was smart but unfulfilled and depressed, and Nash’s understanding and compassion for her developed over the decades.
Nash got into teenage mischief: When the habits shucked by rebellious nuns were left at their house, she and a friend put them on and hit the liquor store. She applied for jobs whose circumstances were sleazier than the postings let on. She drifted through relationships and jobs and ended up working in television production. Drugs and alcohol played a role in her life until she got help to quit and recovered from an eating disorder.
Nash’s adventures in dating and personal growth are covered in a self-aware manner. While others in her generation just dreamed of Warren Beatty, she concocted a plan that led to a real, lasting relationship with him. He is but one among the book’s frequent celebrity cameos, though: Director Robert Altman was a frequent guest at the Nash family’s parties, as were members of the Black Panthers. Once, Nash and her fiancé padded down a hotel hallway in pajamas to watch football with Frank Sinatra. She also met Ann-Margret, whose independence she admired and whose song lyrics are the framework for a chapter.
A cool and entertaining coming-of-age memoir, Collateral Stardust relays good times and hard ones with insight and style.
MEREDITH GRAHL COUNTS (June 22, 2025)
Bear With Me
A Cultural History of Famous Bears in America
Daniel Horowitz
Duke University Press
Softcover $29.95 (288pp)
978-1-4780-2882-6
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop)
The place bears play in American culture is given a scholarly growl in Daniel Horowitz’s Bear With Me, which dissects the nation’s affection for, fear of, and ill-advised anthropomorphization of bears of all varieties.
This is a detailed, entertaining, and informative breakdown of bears in popular culture. From the storied annals of bears used in marketing, as with Smokey Bear, to adventurers and charlatans for whom bears were the catapult to fame, as with Grizzly Adams and Hugh Glass, the book frames the country’s obsession with the ursine with an academic air.
Granular revelations parse out the proliferation of bears as inanimate companions and cartoonish reimaginings. Horowitz demonstrates the true stories behind cultural touchstones like the teddy bear and the origins of Winnie the Pooh. What bears mean in gay communities, the tragedy and psychology of Timothy Treadwell, and polar bears’ rise in visibility thanks to climate-change awareness and Coca-Cola are also covered.
Bear With Me is a revealing cultural history that puts bears in popular culture, including Yogi Bear and Paddington, into greater context.
RYAN PRADO (June 22, 2025)
The Darién Gap
A Reporter’s Journey through the Deadly Crossroads of the Americas
Belén Fernández
Rutgers University Press
Hardcover $29.95 (226pp)
978-1-978842-08-3
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop)
A riveting story set in the hemispheric crossroads between Panama and Colombia, journalist Belén Fernández’s The Darién Gap reports on the inhospitable journey migrants and refuge seekers endure for a chance at a better life in the United States.
A veritable hotbed of illegal activity, the Darién Gap is hostile terrain—and the sole land bridge connecting South and Central America. While the lengthy stretch is only accessible on foot and replete with danger, hundreds of thousands of displaced people have no choice but to contend with its natural and social perils, from raging rivers and decomposing cadavers to covert looters and corrupt officials.
Fernández details her Venezuelan boyfriend Johan’s previous attempts at entering the Gap while performing reconnaissance in preparation for her own self-elected crossing. The story is told through a mix of indirect reportage detailing Johan’s experiences and testimonies from refuge seekers, law enforcement officials at migrant camps and checkpoints, and guides operating as de facto people smugglers. Together, they expose the dangers in and around the dense rainforest that serves as a perilous alternative to the United States’ “insufficient ‘pathways to lawful migration.’”
A wealth of geopolitical history bolsters the book, contextualizing the “fittingly capitalist backdrop” that surrounds the Darién Gap. With a pronounced anti-imperialist stance, it illuminates a clandestine matrix rooted in corruption, extortion, and dehumanization operating on a local and global scale. Pointing to an insidious underworld economy born in the shadow of mass migration, Fernández writes about the role of the United States in the criminalization of migrants and the various entities profiting from the interminable suffering of the world’s most vulnerable demographics.
A travelogue punctuated by bouts of critical analysis, The Darién Gap offers a harrowing glimpse into the reality of a natural phenomenon made criminal.
XENIA DUNFORD (June 22, 2025)
Kathy Young
