WILD WONDERS: The Untamed and Enigmatic Animals that Inhabit Yellowstone National Park, gorgeous photo essay

WILD WONDERS: The Untamed and Enigmatic Animals that Inhabit Yellowstone National Park
JULIA COOK
Epic Ink (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$35.00 all editions, available now

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: Wild Wonders is an awe-inspiring, photographic tour of the wildlife of Yellowstone National Park, featuring fascinating facts about the creatures and details about where they can be found in the park.

Embark on a captivating journey through the lens of a young and talented woman photographer as she unveils the untamed creatures of Yellowstone National Park.

This stunning collection of wildlife photography is not just a visual feast but an informative guide to the 67 incredible creatures that call Yellowstone home. From the awe-inspiring battles of bighorn sheep to the social dynamics of a wolf pack, Wild Wonders provides you with a comprehensive understanding of, and deeper appreciation for, the wildlife you encounter.

Planning a visit to Yellowstone? This book is your ultimate companion, providing insights into where and when to find these animals within the park. Whether it’s the Lamar Valley, Hayden Valley, or the shores of Yellowstone Lake, you’ll be equipped to witness these incredible moments.

In addition to having a diversity of small animals, Yellowstone is notable for its predator–prey complex of large mammals, including eight ungulate species and seven large predators. Immerse yourself in the the world of Yellowstone with breathtaking photographs of animals like:

Bighorn sheep

Bison

Elk

Moose

Mountain goats

Mule deer

Black and grizzly bears

Red foxes

Coyotes

Pika

Beavers

And more!

Take in the stunning images any time you need to reconnect with nature and experience the beauty of the great outdoors. Or, share the magic of Yellowstone’s wildlife with friends and family—Wild Wonders is a perfect gift for nature lovers, adventure seekers, and national parks enthusiasts.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: It's astounding to me this book is not topping the sales charts as we get to the Yule gift-giving orgy. It is beautiful; it is timely, being about nature's glories that climate change has out under threat; it is by a talented young woman on a mission. Here is her bio, as provided by the publisher:

Julia Cook is a wildlife photographer and conservationist based in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem of Wyoming. Growing up in Cody, Wyoming, less than an hour from Yellowstone National Park, Julia developed a love for nature at an early age, eventually leading her to pick up wildlife photography as a creative outlet. Julia graduated from the University of Wyoming in 2023 with a B.S. in Environment and Natural Resources and a B.A. in History, with human wildlife conflicts and the history of conservation practices in Yellowstone being a particular area of focus throughout her studies. Now working full-time as a wildlife photographer, Julia spends most of her free time in the field photographing various species of wildlife, though grizzly bears are a favorite. Other hobbies include drawing, hiking, fishing, and camping. Julia’s overall goal in photography is to capture impactful images of native wildlife to promote wildlife conservation while inspiring others to spend meaningful time in nature. Julia is also dedicated to ethical wildlife photography to keep wildlife wild and allow them to behave naturally without interference.

What are you waiting for? Go get one! Put it on your coffee table, gift it to your camping/outdoorsy giftee, give it to the grandkid/nibling/teen girl looking for a way to get into STEM fields...nothing like seeing what someone like you has already done to get you moving yourownself.

You want to see some pretty pictures?

grizzly bears are a.maz.ing animals

wolves, otters, beaver, and moose are as well

That's just *one* of Yellowstone's biomes she's put in this book. I'm eager for everyone to go look at this beautiful object, and put it in the hands of someone who will love and delight in it. Like I do, and I think you will.

This image is the one I fell hardest for:

Bison, majestic, gloriously hardy animals we almost exterminated; bringing them back has made me proud to be human, again.

BEARTOOTH, Callan Wink's latest Great Outdoors tale of morally questionable choices

BEARTOOTH
CALLAN WINK
Spiegel & Grau (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$9.99 ebook, available now

The Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers: Fiction For the week ending April 19, 2026

Rating: 3.25* of five

The Publisher Says: Two brothers in dire straits, living on the edge of Yellowstone, agree to a desperate act of survival.

In an aging timber house hand-built into the Absaroka-Beartooth mountains, two brothers are struggling to keep up with their debts. They live off the grid on the fringe of Yellowstone, surviving after the death of their father. Thad, the elder, is more capable of engaging with things like the truck registration and the medical bills from their father’s fatal illness and the tax lien on the cabin their grandfather built, while Hazen is... different, more instinctual, deeply attuned to the natural world. Desperate for money, they are approached by a shadowy out-of-towner with a proposition and agree to attempt a heist of natural resources from Yellowstone, a federal crime.

Beartooth is a fast-paced tale set in the grandeur of the American West.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: All y'all seem to be lovin' you some Western-set crime shows, like Costner's Yellowstone that lasted six years in a media landscape full of disposable shows. There are other series reads in this setting (eg C.J. Box's Joe Pickett books, Craig Johnson's five-year TV run for Longmire TV show and ongoing novel series) but all of those are borderline copaganda in their focus on police procedural plots, and valorization of the settler-colonial worldview endemic in the men of this family. The brothers in this story, coming as they do into control of valuable natural resouces after their father's expensive death that threatens their grandfather's stolen homestead.

It was pretty hard for me to work up much sympathy for Thad, the brother whose show of privilege leads them into the nightmare of property loss, which they agree to solve, and to restore their stolen "birthright" homestead, by doing things so far beyond the pale of acceptability that I had a lot of trouble pushing through the details to get to the ending.

Animal abuse is rife.

I'm impressed by Wink's ability to evoke the Montana setting with near-hallucinatory clarity. I could feel the unique quality of Yellowstone's air, see the special way light limns the edges of distant objects; I was a lot less excited when the poaching scenes were also evoked as clearly. Hazen, the more nature-oriented brother, still finds it in himself to commit acts I find reprehensible for short-term gain. It's almost always the case that criminals are simply bad at planning and lack foresight; that fits these brothers to a T. They're led into criminality to solve a problem they created with no shred of common sense to their behavior.

What happens is a drawn-out reckoning for the past and against the future. Their long-fled mother, Sacajawea, shows up to add her dose of unpleasantness. I expected to be more led along by the strands of family dissolution and reckoning. Their criminality, the means and motivation for it, led me to finish this short (under 300pp) tale of men acting like kids who need a spanking, in over a week.

I seldom take more than three days to finish 256pp, more often two.

Wink can write. His plotting is logical, his pace is chosen carefully to immerse the reader not whiz past anything. I wish I'd loved it by the end as much as I started out loving it.

Animal lovers are cautioned...the awful things done to them aren't valorized, but still happen with no sense on my part they were being condemned, either.