Sierra Nevada Natural History
by David Lukas, Tracy I. Storer, Robert L. Usinger
First published forty years ago, this handbook has become an enduring natural history classic, used by thousands to learn more about virtually every aspect of this spectacular mountain range--from its superb flora and fauna to its rugged topography. Comprehensive yet concise and portable, the book describes hundreds of species: trees and shrubs, flowering plants and ferns, fungi and lichens, insects and fish, amphibians and reptiles, and birds and mammals.
Water and Power
by William L. Kahrl
The author covers the politics, personalities, construction, opposition, and events leading up to the present situation in the Owens Valley.
Basin and Range
by John McPhee
This is a complex but fascinating explanation of basin-range geology.
Men to Match My Mountains
by Irving Stone
An engaging history of the West
Geology Underfoot in Yosemite National Park
by Allen F. Glazner and Greg M. Stock
Many of the features that visitors find most tantalizing about Yosemite have unique and compelling geologic stories—tales that continue to unfold today in vivid, often destructive ways. While visiting more than twenty-seven amazing sites, you’ll discover why many of Yosemite’s domes shed rock shells like onion layers, what happens when a volcano erupts under a glacial lake, and why rocks seem to be almost continually tumbling from the region’s cliffs. With a multitude of colorful photos and illustrations, and prose tooled for the lay reader, Geology Underfoot in Yosemite National Park will help you read the landscape the way a geologist does.
Geology Underfoot in Death Valley and Eastern California: Second Edition
by Robert P. Sharp
This volume provides an on-the-ground look at the processes sculpting the terrain of this region of extremes. Illustrated with photographs, maps, and diagrams, each geological vignette weaves the tale of a particular scene, feature, or relationship in the landscape.
Mountains of California
by John Muir
Enjoy these lyrical 1894 vignettes by John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club.
The Yosemite Grant 1864-1906: A Pictorial History
by Hank Johnston
A comprehensive, well-illustrated history of the Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees.
John Muir, Son of the Wilderness
by Linnie Marsh Wolfe
Pulitizer Prize-winning biography of the great naturalist, John Muir
Land of Little Rain
by Mary Austin
This is a 1904 classic about the Eastern Sierra.
Farewell to Manzanar
by Jeanne Wakatsuki
This is a moving account of a family interned in Manzanar during WW II.
Cadillac Desert
by Marc Reisner
In this stunning work of history and investigative journalism, Reisner tells the story of conflicts over water policy in the West and the resulting damage to the land, wildlife and Indians.