Ty's Picks

TyTy grew up reading Louis Lamour on a ranch in Montana, graduated to King Arthur and the nonfiction of Isaac Asimov while living in Denver as a teenager, drank too much wine due to an over-exuberance for Kerouac in his twenties, explored the desert southwest with Edward Abbey and Lao Tzu in his backpack, and all the while was accompanied by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Ben Okri, and Italo Calvino, who lent his wanderings strangeness. John Alcock, Jean Henri Fabre, Niko Tinbergen and Lorus and Marjery Milne caused him to become obsessed with the wild creatures who are gracious enough to share their planet with us, while Paul Hawken, Theo Colborn, E.O. Wilson and Lester Brown helped him to understand the problems we pose as their neighbors.

Ty studied natural history and bees at Hampshire College, and teaches entomology and natural history itinerantly around the Prescott region to curious folk of all ages. He has worked as a field biologist, rodeo lackey, busker, and fire lookout. In addition to running the Peregrine Book Company, Ty oversees the Raven Café, is proprietor of Gray Dog Guitars, and Raven Sound Studios, and is the curator of insects at the Natural History Institute. It is a real possibility that his house may one day collapse from a critical mass of books. He is concerned about it.
Was It Worth It?: A Wilderness Warrior's Long Trail Home By Doug Peacock Cover Image
$27.95
ISBN: 9781952338045
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Patagonia - January 25th, 2022

Lookout By Christine Byl Cover Image
$25.95
ISBN: 9781646052295
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Strange Object - March 14th, 2023

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Further Out Than You Thought: A Novel By Michaela Carter Cover Image
$14.99
ISBN: 9780062292377
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: William Morrow Paperbacks - August 5th, 2014

"Further Out Than You Thought" is a story of searching for that tenuous place where dreams and reality intermingle to create wonder and poetry. It is a joy to read, often funny and sometimes heartwrenching, but always beautiful, even when looking unflinchingly at difficult and dark things. –Ty

Read Ty's complete review of the book in Kudos.


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The Way of Natural History By Thomas Lowe Fleischner (Editor) Cover Image
$8.00
ISBN: 9781595340740
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Trinity University Press - May 1st, 2011

A window into one of the most important and least talked-about scientific fields, this book is an antidote for environmental despair. It reminds us that the natural world is wondrous and ever-present. —Ty

 


One Long River of Song: Notes on Wonder By Brian Doyle, David James Duncan (Introduction by) Cover Image
By Brian Doyle, David James Duncan (Introduction by)
$17.99
ISBN: 9780316492881
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Back Bay Books - December 8th, 2020

A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future By Sir David Attenborough, Jonnie Hughes (With) Cover Image
$17.99
ISBN: 9781538719992
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Grand Central Publishing - September 27th, 2022

The Water Dancer: A Novel By Ta-Nehisi Coates Cover Image
$18.00
ISBN: 9780399590610
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: One World - November 17th, 2020

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind By Yuval Noah Harari Cover Image
$24.99
ISBN: 9780062316110
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Harper Perennial - May 15th, 2018

Simon the Fiddler: A Novel By Paulette Jiles Cover Image
$16.99
ISBN: 9780062966759
Availability: Available from our Warehouse (Not in store currently)
Published: William Morrow Paperbacks - April 6th, 2021

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Half-Earth: Our Planet's Fight for Life By Edward O. Wilson Cover Image
$16.95
ISBN: 9781631492525
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Liveright - April 4th, 2017

Wilson is one of the true giants of our time, who somehow manages to always find a path forward. This is one of the only books in print to suggest a real, ecologically-based solution to the global environmental crisis! —Ty


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Homegoing By Yaa Gyasi Cover Image
$16.95
ISBN: 9781101971062
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Vintage - May 2nd, 2017

An extraordinary exploration of slavery both in US and Africa. Gyasi somehow makes this difficult subject entrancing with wonderful characters and a feeling of hope and even beauty. A unique take on an important subject. 


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City on Fire By Garth Risk Hallberg Cover Image
$20.00
ISBN: 9780804172950
Availability: Available from our Warehouse (Not in store currently)
Published: Vintage - July 26th, 2016

This novel, Hallberg’s first, is stellar. I marveled in the beauty of his sentences, fell in love with his characters, and didn’t want it to end. Well worth the commitment! —Ty


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The Steady Running of the Hour: A Novel By Justin Go Cover Image
$15.99
Unavailable
ISBN: 9781476704593
Published: S&S/ Marysue Rucci Books - April 21st, 2015

An engaging historic epic with a dual storyline- a young man uncovering his past, and his reconstruction of a love affair set in the mountaineering community of the 1920s. A great, diverting, explorational read. —Ty


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The Water Knife By Paolo Bacigalupi Cover Image
$19.00
ISBN: 9780804171533
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Vintage - April 5th, 2016

This is the scariest book I've read in a very long time. In the southwest US in the very near future water has been finally and completely commodified and is the most valuable resource on Earth. Bacigalupi portrays this world in enough detail to change the way you look at water in the west (and maybe everywhere) forever. —Ty


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One Hundred Years of Solitude (Harper Perennial Deluxe Editions) By Gabriel Garcia Marquez Cover Image
$19.99
ISBN: 9780061120091
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Harper Perennial Modern Classics - May 30th, 2006

This is the book that won Garcia Marquez the Nobel Prize in Literature, and single-handedly created the genre of magical realism. And it's one of the best books that there is. Dammit. —Ty


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The Plover: A Novel By Brian Doyle Cover Image
$19.00
ISBN: 9781250062451
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Picador - March 31st, 2015

Brian Doyle is without question my favorite new author, and this is the best of his books. Lyrical, exuberant, transcendant writing that makes the plot almost unnecessary, though the story itself, of four explorers in a small craft on the Pacific Ocean, is wonderful. I can't say enough good about this book. —Ty


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Boy, Snow, Bird: A Novel By Helen Oyeyemi Cover Image
$16.00
ISBN: 9781594633409
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Riverhead Books - March 3rd, 2015

A postmodern fairy tale retelling of Snow White, written brilliantly as an exploration of the meaning of race and identity. Perilous and quietly magical. —Ty


The Snow Queen: A Novel By Michael Cunningham Cover Image
$22.00
ISBN: 9781250067722
Availability: Available from our Warehouse (Not in store currently)
(This book cannot be returned)
Published: Picador - May 5th, 2015

The Snow Queen is a quiet, beautiful, and somewhat neurotic work about four friends living in Brooklyn, piecing together small moments of transcendence into a mosaic of meaning in light of the death of friends and the loss and discovery of love. —Ty

Read Ty's complete review of this book in Kudos


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The Insect World of J. Henri Fabre (Concord Library) By Jean-Henri Fabre Cover Image
$22.00
ISBN: 9780807085134
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Beacon Press - April 30th, 1991

The best nature writing on insects ever, as well as some of the best all-around nature writing. Fabre is the naturalist whose observations most impressed Darwin. Exceptional. –Ty


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Ceremony: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) By Leslie Marmon Silko, Larry McMurtry (Introduction by) Cover Image
By Leslie Marmon Silko, Larry McMurtry (Introduction by)
$18.00
ISBN: 9780143104919
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Penguin Classics - December 26th, 2006

On first read this book is extraordinary, layered with real magic, transformative. By the third read, it just might be one of the best books written. –Ty


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The Golem and the Jinni: A Novel By Helene Wecker Cover Image
$17.99
ISBN: 9780062110848
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Harper Perennial - December 31st, 2013

A thoroughly diverting imaginal novel, and one of the more intriguing combinations of the magical and the profane to be published in the last few years. Chava, a golem created by dark Kabbalistic magic, is awakened on a voyage to America in 1899. In the same moment Ahmad, a Syrian fire-jinn, is accidentally freed by a blacksmith in NYC's Little Syria. They both struggle, separately, for acceptance in the strange, vibrantly painted city, and eventually meet, just as the golem's creator, their mutual enemy, finds them. –Ty


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The Famished Road: Man Booker Prize Winner By Ben Okri Cover Image
$18.00
ISBN: 9780385425131
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Anchor - May 1st, 1993

A truly extraordinary work of hallucinatory magic in the style of Gabriel García Márquez. –Ty


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Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth? By Alan Weisman Cover Image
ISBN: 9780316097741
Published: Back Bay Books - May 6th, 2014

Weisman's remarkable new book discusses population, consumption and the human place on Earth while preserving a real sense of hope. –Ty


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Bellman & Black: A Novel By Diane Setterfield Cover Image
$17.00
ISBN: 9781476711997
Availability: Available from our Warehouse (Not in store currently)
Published: Atria/Emily Bestler Books - June 10th, 2014

When tragedy repeatedly strikes brilliant and hitherto fortunate Will Bellman, he is drawn into a complex reckoning born of a thoughtless childhood act-- the casual slaying of a rook. An alchemical combination of down-to-earth storytelling and compelling magical realism. In brilliantly crafted prose, Setterfield lays out a story not quite mystery, not quite fantasy, but a literary combination of both. –Ty


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Martin Marten: A Novel By Brian Doyle Cover Image
$18.00
ISBN: 9781250081056
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Picador - April 12th, 2016

I love nearly all of Doyle's books, but this is my absolute favorite! Luminous, ecstatic vignettes on the natural world, community, love, joy and wild creatures!


The Naked Don't Fear the Water: An Underground Journey with Afghan Refugees By Matthieu Aikins Cover Image
$18.99
ISBN: 9780063058590
Availability: Available from our Warehouse (Not in store currently)
Published: Harper Perennial - February 14th, 2023

The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life By David Quammen Cover Image
$18.00
ISBN: 9781476776637
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Simon & Schuster - August 6th, 2019

Hoop: A Basketball Life in Ninety-Five Essays By Brian Doyle Cover Image
$19.95
ISBN: 9780820355443
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: University of Georgia Press - March 1st, 2019

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity By David Graeber, David Wengrow Cover Image
$25.00
ISBN: 9781250858801
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Picador - April 4th, 2023

The Unbearable Lightness of Being: A Novel By Milan Kundera Cover Image
$18.99
ISBN: 9780060932138
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Harper Perennial Modern Classics - July 5th, 2005

The Freedom Artist By Ben Okri Cover Image
$30.95
Unavailable
ISBN: 9781617757914
Published: Akashic Books, Ltd. - February 4th, 2020

A Sense of Wonder: The World's Best Writers on the Sacred, the Profane, and the Ordinary By Brian Doyle Cover Image
$20.00
ISBN: 9781626982086
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Orbis Books - August 25th, 2016