It’s time again to review the park related books I’ve read this year. I’ve previously cataloged NPS books in 2019 , 2020 , 2021 and 2022. I completed my Goodreads challenge of 100 books read for the year, and then some.

Have you ever read a book about, or set in a National Park? Would you recommend it? Here are the ones I read this year, in no particular order:

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The Road to Paradise by Karen Barnett

I received The Road to Paradise from my Goodreads secret Santa last year. This is a light love story that takes place in Mount Rainer National Park in the 1920s.

Margie, a religious park naturalist, clashes with faithless Chief Ranger Ford Brayden until they must join forces to combat the evil machinations of Margie’s ex fiancé. The ex wants to pave Paradise so the unlikely duo must climb a mountain to stop him. I appreciated the setting, but the love story was silly and the religious overtones heavy-handed.

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Nature Noir by Jordan Fisher Smith

Subtitled A Park Ranger’s Patrol in the Sierra, this is a memoir of a State Park law enforcement ranger in California. It reads like a montage of Cops episodes interspersed with the history of the park agencies in California.

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The Wartime Sisters by Lynda Cohen Loigman

I read this novel in preparation for a visit to the Springfield Armory in Massachusetts. I’m glad I did because it gave the site more significance when I was there. It would have just been a collection of guns and crumbling buildings without The Wartime Sisters.

To estranged sisters from Brooklyn are reunited at the armory during WWII. One is the wife of an officer stationed there. The other is a war widow who takes a job assembling weapons when she has nowhere else to go. Their lives are intertwined with the real life dramatic events that took place there in the 1940s.

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Feral by Emily Pennington

Subtitled Losing Myself and Finding My Way in America’s National Parks, this book is garbage. We follow the author on her journey to visit 62 National parks during the pandemic, whilst in the midst of a break-up with her boyfriend. In its self-indulgent, angst-filled pages, we learn more about the failure of the author’s relationship than about what she took away from her park experiences. I got the book free as an Amazon fist read.

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Dear Bob and Sue by Matt Smith & Karen Smith

The Smiths’ journey to 59 parks is told through a series of e-mails to their friends Bob and Sue. I found this book to be laugh-out-loud funny. A lot of reviewers didn’t like the style of humor as it is often Matt and Karen taking shots at each other. But like a lot of old married couples I know in real life, they seem to work well together in spite of the silly bickering. Like the Odd Couple…you know Felix and Oscar have each other’s backs at the end of the day, but they’ll keep you laughing.

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The Enigma Strain by Nick Thacker

Fast paced thriller in which Yellowstone ranger Harvey Bennet must work with CDC agent Juliette to foil a terrorist plot to blow the super volcano and spread a deadly virus.

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The First Ladies by Marie Benedict & Victoria Christopher Murray

This is the second novel I’ve read by this author duo. They team up to provide a well-researched, historical fiction about the friendship between Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McLeod Bethune. Both women have their own historic sites in the National Park Service. I’ve not visited Bethune’s yet, but this book taught me a lot about who she was. I look forward to visiting the site next time I’m in DC.

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Happy New Year!