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Trail Posts: A Literary Exploration of Californias State Parks
A lively introduction to California’s natural and literary heritage.
Two college students leap among the branches of a coastal redwood canopy, with no safety equipment other than their sense of balance. A woman gives her testimonio of the day in 1846 when boisterous men in coyote skins raised a hand-painted bear flag above her home. A beginning surfer—derogatorily termed a “kook”—ponders the grassroots activism in the surfing community that saved an estuarine beach from development. Freewheeling Beat writers drink wine and meditate on the slopes of Mount Tamalpais. James Marshall tells us in his own words what it was like to come upon the nugget of gold that sent the world rushing into California.
Wallace Stegner wrote that “no place, not even a wild place, is a place until it has had that human attention that at its highest reach we call poetry.” Writings by explorers, poets, and novelists confirm that our parks are indeed a great convergence of landscape and the human spirit. Trail Posts gives a new appreciation for the abundance and vitality of the land, and our artistic engagement with it.
Trail Posts includes writings by Isabel Allende, Joan Didion, Jack London, John Steinbeck, and Mark Twain, as well as writers you will be glad to meet for the first time.
Two college students leap among the branches of a coastal redwood canopy, with no safety equipment other than their sense of balance. A woman gives her testimonio of the day in 1846 when boisterous men in coyote skins raised a hand-painted bear flag above her home. A beginning surfer—derogatorily termed a “kook”—ponders the grassroots activism in the surfing community that saved an estuarine beach from development. Freewheeling Beat writers drink wine and meditate on the slopes of Mount Tamalpais. James Marshall tells us in his own words what it was like to come upon the nugget of gold that sent the world rushing into California.
Wallace Stegner wrote that “no place, not even a wild place, is a place until it has had that human attention that at its highest reach we call poetry.” Writings by explorers, poets, and novelists confirm that our parks are indeed a great convergence of landscape and the human spirit. Trail Posts gives a new appreciation for the abundance and vitality of the land, and our artistic engagement with it.
Trail Posts includes writings by Isabel Allende, Joan Didion, Jack London, John Steinbeck, and Mark Twain, as well as writers you will be glad to meet for the first time.
312 pages, Paperback
First published August 15, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 16, 2020
This book contains beautiful poetry but also a bunch of random stories - one of which includes a vivid description of what happens when a human falls on their head. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ idk how to feel
January 23, 2016
I truly enjoyed this collection of experiences in California State Parks by some of our best writers. I have enjoyed many of the parks myself, and hope to get to many more. Jack London’s novel the Valley of the Moon about a young couple’s journey up the coast to settle in Glen Ellen is one of my favorite stories. It inspired me to go to his historical ranch and hike the many trails there. Mark Twain shared, with not a hint of shame, the fact that he set the woods on fire in Lake Tahoe. The First Lady of Hollywood, Louella Parsons, a regular guest of Randolph Hearst at his castle in the Central Coast, by Samantha Barbas is chock full of cinema secrets. If you love California and enjoy learning its history, you will love the insights shared in this charming anthology.
August 28, 2016
A lovely collection of excerpts from many sources, all in celebration of California's history and natural beauty. Eye-witnesses' reminiscences, literary giants' magical prose, naturalists' essays, and gems by known and unknown poets, all aglow with pain of searing experience or love of place and/or time, this assemblage accomplishes its purpose of increasing the chances that I'll stop at the next hidden gem of a state park that I see along the road.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews