Reading List:

Top to bottom:

1. Edible Stories: A Novel in Sixteen Parts, Mark Kurlansky. I just started reading this. It gets mixed reviews, but I'm enjoying it so far. Many of the characters and themes are carried throughout the book and the short story format works really well for bus reading.

2. The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver. My absolute, all-time favorite book. I re-read it about three times yearly. It's a quick and easy read, but I just love it more every time I finish it.

3. Pacific Feast: A Cook's Guide to West Coast Foraging and Cuisine, Jennifer Hahn. This beautiful book was a gift from my love Becca. The guides and recipes cover everything from weedy greens to shellfish to edible trees. I'm quite smitten with it.

4. Take a Walk: 100 Walks Through Natural Places in the Puget Sound Region, Sue Muller Hacking. While this book covers a lot of smaller, more urban parks and trails- it also offers up some really great options for easy day hikes and beaches. I'm excited to use it for new weekend running routes.

5. The Last Fish Tale, Mark Kurlansky.  "...provides a delightful, intimate history and contemporary portrait of the quintessential northeastern coastal fishing town: Gloucester, Mass., on Cape Anne. Illustrated with his own beautifully executed drawings, Kurlansky's book vividly depicts the contemporary tension between the traditional fishing trade and modern commerce..."

6. All That the Rain Promises and More: A Hip Pocket Guide to Western Mushrooms, David Arora.  This guide is eccentric, if not extremely informative. David Arora has a reputation for being a little bit nutty- and while the cover of this book is on the odd side, the full color photographs and serious details within make it well worth checking out.

7. The Blue Bear: A True Story of Friendship and Discovery in the Alaskan Wild, Lynn Schooler. "Schooler, who has worked for many years as a guide in the unpredictable waters of the Alaska Panhandle, has distilled a life of unusual intensity into his first book. The story centers on the renowned nature photographer Michio Hoshino, a client who became a friend, and the two men's ongoing search for the elusive glacier bear, a blue variant of the North American black bear."

 8. Bradt Travel Guide: Iceland, Andrew Evans. Spring of 2012! This guide is the best I've found so far- and does a really great job of covering a lot of what I hope to experience.