Without a map, navigate by the stars. Susan Tweit began learning this lesson as a young woman diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that was predicted to take her life in two to five years. Offered no clear direction for getting well through conventional medicine, Tweit turned to the natural world that was both her solace and her field of study as a plant ecologist. Drawing intuitive connections between the natural processes and cycles she observed and the functions of her body, Tweit not only learned healthier ways of living but also discovered a great truth—love can heal. In this beautifully written, moving memoir, she describes how love of the natural world, of her husband and family, and of life itself literally transformed and saved her own life.
In tracing the arc of her life from young womanhood to middle age, Tweit tells stories about what silence and sagebrush, bird bones and sheep dogs, comets, death, and one crazy Englishman have to teach us about living. She celebrates making healthy choices, the inner voices she learned to hear on days alone in the wilderness, the joys of growing and eating an organic kitchen garden, and the surprising redemption in restoring a once-blighted neighborhood creek. Linking her life lessons to the stories she learned in childhood about the constellations, Tweit shows how qualities such as courage, compassion, and inspiration draw us together and bind us into the community of the land and of all living things.

Walking Nature Home: A Life's Journey

Biographies & Memoirs

Tweit, Susan J.

Community & Culture

University of Texas Press

Seasons on the Pacific Coast: A Naturalist's Notebook

Science & Math

Nature & Ecology

Diane Pub Co.

Bargain Books are non-returnable. Seasons in the Desert is a rare and wonderful combination of lyrical writing, natural history, and fine art. Esteemed nature writer Susan J. Tweit reveals the hidden life thriving in the deserts of the American Southwest, from the tiny fairy shrimp to the regal saguaro cactus. Her witty, factual, and heartfelt reflections combine with Kirk Caldwell's beautiful illustrations to illuminate the ways and mythologies of forty eccentric plants and animals. Sharing the qualities of the works of Terry Tempest Williams, Sue Hubbell, and Gretel Ehrlich, Seasons in the Desert is a wondrous and thoughtful foray into the living world of vast desert spaces.

Seasons in the Desert: A Naturalist's Notebook

Arts & Photography

Photography & Video

Chronicle Books LLC.

Bargain Books are non-returnable. The Pacific Coast, with its hundreds of miles of unspoiled forests, cliffs, fields, and beaches from Mexico to British Columbia, attracts nature lovers from around the world. Naturalist Susan Tweit pays a very special homage to this diverse region in this handsome volume. Forty informative, evocative essays, each illustrated with a color drawing, capture the Coast's vibrant plant and animal life, from sea otters and monarch butterflies to giant bladder kelp and gray whales. Her subjects, both on and off-shore, also include octopus, sturgeon, abalone, redwoods, cobra lilies, and the eccentric sand dollar. The author begins with field notes and then offers delightful observations and commentary. Whether you are sitting in the sand or reading in your favorite armchair, this book is an inspiring companion to the natural world.

Biological Sciences

Appearing barren and most definitely wild, the Chihuahuan Desert of northern Mexico and the southwestern United States may look worthless to some, but for Susan Tweit it is an inspiration. In this collection of seven elegant personal essays, she explores undiscovered facets of this seemingly hostile environment. With eloquence, passion, and insight, she describes and reflects on the relationship between the land, history, and people and makes this underappreciated region less barren for those who would share her journeys.

Barren, Wild, and Worthless: Living in the Chihuahuan Desert

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

University of Arizona Press

It is a high valley edged by serrated peaks, a remote expanse the size of Connecticut lying, as if forgotten, between two mountain ranges. Here, North America’s tallest sand dunes blow against glacier-gouged summits, the Rio Grande begins its long journey from snowflake to saltwater, and vast reaches of desert scrub hide verdant pocket wetlands. Colorado’s San Luis Valley is not a place for the timid. Sizzling hot in summer, frigid cold in winter, this huge landscape is humbling in its openness, a place defined by the rhythms of nature—and by the thrust and parry of male courting female in the ritual dance of sandhill cranes. These majestic birds arrive by the thousands twice a year to feed, rest, and socialize in the valley’s wetlands—invisible except from the air—and their cries temper the constant wind. Susan Tweit lives in the high desert of southern Colorado not far from the valley’s dunes and wetlands. With the precision of a scientist and the passion of a poet, she guides readers through this land of sand dunes and sandhill cranes, describing its natural features and tracing its human history from buffalo hunters and conquistadors to Hispanic farming communities and UFO observatories. And in stunning images, photographer Glenn Oakley brings his intimate feel for light and landscape to portraying not only the subtle beauty of this high-desert sanctuary but also the grandeur of the cranes in flight. As an intimate look at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve and the San Luis Valley, this book reveals a desert place as seductive and sobering as existence itself.

The San Luis Valley: Sand Dunes and Sandhill Cranes (Desert Places)

History

Americas

These seven elegant personal essays explore the Chihuahuan Desert of northern Mexico and the southwestern United States. With eloquence, passion, and insight, the author describes and reflects on the relationship between the land, history, and people of this little-known, underappreciated desert region.

Univ of New Mexico Pr

Discover a land of prairie dogs and prickly pears in this fascinating, easy-to-use guide to the natural history of the great Southwest.

The Great Southwest Nature Factbook: A Guide to the Region's Remarkable Animals, Plants, and Natural Features

Graphic Arts Books

Intriguing facts about the plants, animals, and landscape of the Southwest. Suggested reading and activities engage active minds, young and older.

Meet the Wild Southwest: Land of Hoodoos and Gila Monsters

Children's Books

Literature & Fiction

Alaska Northwest Books

Pieces of Light: A Year on Colorado's Front Range

UNKNO

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Books by Tweit, Susan J.