Next week, the Wenatchee Public Library is featuring two terrific Washington authors, Robert Michael Pyle and Jack Nisbet.  Both are regionally and nationally acclaimed natural historians, gifted writers of award-winning non-fiction books, and engaging speakers. Pyle speaks about his new book, Magdalena Mountain on Tuesday Dec. 4 at 6:30pm and Nisbet presents his newest book, The Dreamer and the Doctor on Thurs. Dec. 6 at 6:30pm at the Wenatchee Public Library.

Publisher, Counterpoint Press describes Magdalena Mountain:  In Magdalena Mountain, Robert Michael Pyle’s first and long-awaited novel, the award-winning naturalist proves he is as at home in an imagined landscape as he is in the natural one. At the center of this story of majesty and high mountain magic are three Magdalenas—Mary, a woman whose uncertain journey opens the book; Magdalena Mountain, shrouded in mystery and menace; and the all-black Magdalena alpine butterfly, the most elusive of several rare and beautiful species found on the mountain.

Pyle took his PhD in butterfly ecology at Yale University and has worked as a conservation biologist in Papua New Guinea, Oregon, and Cambridge. He has written full-time for many years with 22 published books:  Wintergreen earned a John Burroughs Medal, Where Bigfoot Walks won a Guggenheim Fellowship, and Sky Time in Gray’s River received a National Outdoor Book Award.  Pyle helped found the Portland-based Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation

 

Publisher Sasquatch Books, describes The Doctor and the Dreamer: In the turn-of-the-twentieth-century Northwest, the lives and passions of an American physician and her Swedish naturalist husband helped shape a territory on the cusp of change.  Dr. Carrie Leiberg, a pioneer physician, fought hard for public health while nurturing both a troubled son and a fruit orchard. Her husband, John Leiberg, was a Swedish immigrant and self-taught naturalist who transformed himself from pickax Idaho prospector to special field agent for the US Forest Commission and warned Washington DC of ecological devastation of public lands. The Leiberg story opens a window into the human and natural landscape of a century past that reflects all the thorny issues of our present time.

Jack Nesbit is a Spokane-based naturalist and writer  whose books explore the human and natural history of the Pacific Northwest.  Much of his work focuses on explorer David Thompson and botanist David Douglas and reveals their extensive travels through our region.  His book, The Collector: David Douglas and the Natural History of the Northwest, was named as one 2019 Books of the Year by the  Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association.  His essay book Visible Bones won awards from the Washington State Library Association and the Seattle Times.