Most of the year you're not likely to find yourself in a national park, but that doesn't mean you can't explore and enjoy the parks through a well-stocked library. Here are some titles Traveler writers reviewed in 2016 that you might want to consider.

Treasured Lands: A Photographic Odyssey Through America's National Parks

Treasured Lands is a book that celebrates the National Park Service centennial, but it goes much beyond that anniversary. It captures the 59 "national parks" in their various moods in all seasons of the year, and is certain to lead you to add mightily to your to-do list in the parks. -- Kurt Repanshek

Death In Glacier National Park: Stories Of Accidents And Foolhardiness In The Crown Of The Continent

With visitation to the National Park System this centennial year at an all-time high, it’s no surprise I suppose that more and more people get in trouble, and some of those pay the ultimate price. Every year Glacier National Park in Montana lures hikers, anglers, employees, and climbers to the park’s high peaks, deep lakes, and raging rivers…and some to their own demise. -- Patrick Cone

100 Classic Hikes Utah: National Parks And Monuments, National Wilderness And Recreation Areas, State Parks, Uintas, Wasatch

Utah is one of the largest outdoor playgrounds in the world, with incredible canyon country, lofty mountains, deep forests, and high desert all waiting to be explored. So it's no surprise that Julie Trevelyan took all of this immense landscape into account when she set out to write a hiking guide to the Beehive State. -- Kurt Repanshek

Landscapes For The People: George Alexander Grant, First Chief Photographer Of The National Park Service

George Grant, the first chief photographer for the National Park Service, was one of the many little known people who contributed to the flourishing of the NPS and the National Park System in its early decades. -- John Miles

Losing Eden: An Environmental History Of The American West

The Western landscape is in flux. Populations are swelling, sprawl is expanding population centers, water is becoming more precious as a result of drought and diversions, land-management philosophies and practices are generating political frictions. In her latest book, Sara Dant brings perspective to these changes by examining the factors that precipitated them. -- Kurt Repanshek

Clyde Butcher Captures National Parks In Black And White

With a technique that resembles, and at times mirrors, Ansel Adams' approach to capturing the majestic landscapes of the National Park System, Mr. Butcher has assembled a portfolio that dazzles the eye in black-and-white by the way he captures the light and plays with the angle of his lens. -- Kurt Repanshek

Between Two Fires: A Fire History Of Contemporary America

No one knows more about the history of wildland fire in the United States than Stephen Pyne, a prodigious scholar, prolific writer, and former wildland firefighter who spent 15 years on the ground with the North Rim Hotshots. His encyclopedic knowledge and personal experience of wildland fire are exceptional credentials for writing this book, which traces the history of wildfire in America over the past half century. -- John Miles

A Sense Of Yosemite

There are literally hundreds of books on Yosemite National Park, including the iconic Ansel Adams black and white homage and John Muir’s The Yosemite, and it’s no wonder: it’s 1,200 square miles of mountains and canyons and valleys like nowhere else on Earth, and means so much to so many. And here is another must-have for your library, a rare combination of beautiful images coupled with heartfelt words by two masters of their crafts. -- Patrick Cone

A Walk In The Woods

Roaming the gift shop in Yellowstone National Park in search of a book to fill any idle hours I might encounter after the sun went down, I spied a paperback edition of Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods, and figured that now, almost two decades after it came out, was as good a time as any to add his Appalachian Trail odyssey to my library. I wasn't disappointed. -- Kurt Repanshek

Exceptional Mountains: A Cultural History Of The Pacific Northwest Volcanoes

One reviewer described this book, as, “…why and how we have sanctified these high-altitude mountains.” However O. Alan Weltzien’s fine effort also casts some wonderful light on aspects of the national parks and National Park Service that are very pertinent to this, the Park Service’s centennial year. -- Kurt Repanshek

Presidents And The American Environment: An Election Primer For 2016

Who will be our next president, and of special relevance, will he or she be concerned about the environment? It’s a crapshoot, we are left to gather. To be sure, little more than half of our modern presidents, Graham concludes, have boldly set aside portions of the public lands, let alone determined to protect the total environment. -- Alfred Runte

Lassoing The Sun: A Year In America’s National Parks

Many times we find ourselves in a national park just to marvel at the beauty, explore the wondrous sights, or simply kick back and relax without the pressures the rest of the world weighs on us. But there are times when the parks help us in other ways, holding memories that comfort us. -- Kurt Repanshek

Rhythm Of The Wild: A Life Inspired By Alaska’s Denali National Park

Kim Heacox has a long history with Denali National Park, beginning in 1981 when he was a rookie interpretive ranger. Rhythm of the Wild is a memoir, describing how Denali National Park has influenced him over three decades during which he experienced the park as a ranger, as a visitor, and as a writer-in-residence. -- John Miles

Wrecked In Yellowstone: Greed, Obsession, And The Untold Story Of Yellowstone's Most Infamous Shipwreck

A few years back, Editor Kurt Repanshek and I had an opportunity to tag along on a research boat headed across Yellowstone Lake. I remember it vividly, because on the way back an afternoon mountain storm whipped up some foamy whitecaps and our boat started to look pretty small for such a big lake (it covers 136 square miles, at an altitude of 7,700 feet). -- Patrick Cone

A Week In Yellowstone's Thorofare: A Journey Through The Remotest Place

Mike Yochim, through his two previous books, Yellowstone and the Snowmobile and Protecting Yellowstone has established himself as a legitimate voice and scholar of national park history. Now supplemented by a third book, A Week in Yellowstone’s Thorofare, Yochim has transitioned to something vastly more personal and far less academic. -- Jeff Pappas

Coyote America: A Natural And Supernatural History

Coyotes are everywhere in the continental United States despite nearly a century and half of determined efforts to destroy them. The more concerted the effort to trap, shoot, and poison them, the greater their range and their numbers. Next to the wolf, environmental historian Dan Flores writes, the coyote has been and is the most hated, persecuted, and misunderstood member of America’s wildlife community. It has not always been so. -- John Miles

King Sequoia: The Tree That Inspired A Nation, Created Our National Park System, And Changed The Way We Think About Nature

One of my favorite spots in California, just a few miles away from the congestion of the Mariposa Grove in Yosemite National Park, is a little known forest glen: Nelder Grove. A century ago this was a logging site, formerly named Fresno Grove, where the towering Sequoias crashed to the ground, to be cut up for grape stakes and fence posts. Massive stumps dot the quiet, verdant hillside, and some giants yet still stand. I always asked myself why, and how, this grove fell, while others went untouched, and were protected. -- Patrick Cone

The Hour Of Land: A Personal Topography Of America’s National Parks

Anyone who has heard Terry Tempest Williams speak or who has read her writing knows how personal her approach is to her subject, thus the “personal topography” of the subtitle of this book. Visits to 12 units of the National Park System, including seven national parks, two national monuments, a national military park, national seashore, and national recreation area, provide grist for her exploration of this topography and a sampling of different elements of the system. -- John Miles

Yellowstone Ranger

There are more than a few new books out this year revolving around national parks, and the one that has provided the most wonderment and joy tied to rangering has been Yellowstone Ranger by Jerry Mernin, who spent more than three decades patrolling the front and backcountry of Yellowstone National Park and left us with insights, hardships, humor, and great satisfaction from a career that left him wishing he could have had "another 32 years to work in Yellowstone." -- Kurt Repanshek

Creating Acadia National Park: The Biography Of George Bucknam Dorr

While George Bucknam Dorr had the wherewithal to travel extensively about the world and do anything with his life, he came to cherish the landscape of Mount Desert Island along coastal Maine. It was a lifelong connection spurred by childhood vacations on the island, one that spawned a tireless, and selfless, campaign to both conserve the island’s landscape and, more importantly, see it included within the National Park System. -- Kurt Repanshek

Engineering Eden: The True Story Of A Violent Death, A Trial, And The Fight Over Controlling Nature

A grizzly bear attack is a frightful, horrible thing. Long claws raking the body, the cracking of bones, dragging off the victim to consume, then burying it under a thin layer of forest duff. -- Kurt Repanshek

The Wild Gardens Of Acadia

The problem with this book...is that it's too small. -- Kurt Repanshek

Sea Of Sand, A History Of Great Sand Dunes National Park And Preserve

There is an inland sea of sand that relatively few people realize exists. While the sand dunes of Death Valley National Park are fairly well-known, and most people are aware of the sand dunes at our national seashores, the towering dunes of Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve in Colorado are unknown to most. -- Kurt Repanshek

Forests, Alligators, Battlefields: My Journey Through The National Parks Of The South

For Danny Bernstein, retirement is best enjoyed by following a path through the woods, or a tour through a unit of the National Park System. Whether the park is focused on history, or culture, or natural beauty doesn't matter. For Ms. Bernstein, being in the park system and enjoying and learning from it is what matters. -- Kurt Repanshek

A Weird And Wild Beauty: The Story Of Yellowstone, The World's First National Park

Erin Peabody has crafted a book on Yellowstone National Park that follows a common path in telling the story of how the world's first national park came about, but which through her deep research and colorful writing rises as an entertaining and informative work that deserves a space on every park lover's bookshelf. -- Kurt Repanshek

Prophets And Moguls, Rangers And Rogues, Bison And Bears: 100 Years Of The National Park Service

This new book on America's national park system will enlighten, educate, and entertain you. -- Patrick Cone

Our Perfect Wild: Ray And Barbara Bane's Journeys And The Fate Of The Far North

Ray and Barbara Bane went to Alaska on a lark, a whim to spend a year teaching school in the bush. They stayed for a lifetime. -- Kurt Repanshek

The Wonder Of It All: 100 Stories From The National Park Service

Here are 100 stories from our national parks, written by the people who work there. -- Patrick Cone