What makes you who you are? Who were the people, and what were those early influences and experiences that not only molded your character, but helped you know and understand yourself? In A Memoir of Holstein: An Engineer Traces His Origin the author, a retired engineer, applies those questions to himself by chronicling his first 18 years in the small Iowa farming community of Holstein, founded by German immigrants in 1882. Inviting and nostalgic, the wonders of his formative years are examined through the eyes of the boy who lived them with the hindsight of the man who was shaped by them. The...

In "Seven Summers with Peregrines," a retired husband and wife recount the midlife adventures they shared while participating in the historic effort to return then-endangered Peregrine Falcons to their former range. During these summers, the couple camped in mountainous areas of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming for months at a time while caring for and monitoring captive-bred young Peregrines as they learned to hunt for themselves. The authors describe interactions with wildlife, including elk, mule deer, bighorn sheep and myriad bird species, as well as the challenges of primitive camping...