Author Guide · Nature Writing
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In August 1968 Barry Lopez, a 23-year-old graduate of Notre Dame, moved to Oregon and settled with his wife on the McKenzie River, about 40 miles east of Eugene. He lived there for more than fifty years and from there travelled to some 80 countries. Nearly five years of travel in the Alaskan and Canadian Arctic went into Arctic Dreams, which won the National Book Award in 1986; Of Wolves and Men had already won the John Burroughs Medal. He also wrote short fiction, a fable for all ages and, at 74, the long travel memoir Horizon. In September 2020 a wildfire destroyed his writing cottage and much of his archive; he died that Christmas Day. This guide covers his 13 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 13 key books · 1976–2022 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Barry Lopez’s best-known books are Arctic Dreams (1986), which won the National Book Award, Of Wolves and Men (1978), Crow and Weasel (1990) and Horizon (2019). Start with Arctic Dreams. He also wrote a trilogy of short fiction, from Desert Notes (1976) to Field Notes (1994), which most readers find after the nonfiction.
Where to Start with Barry Lopez
If you want his defining book
→ Arctic Dreams (1986) — the 1986 National Book Award winner.
If you want natural history and folklore
→ Of Wolves and Men (1978) — wolves in science, myth and history.
If you want something short
→ Crow and Weasel (1990) — an illustrated fable about two young men who travel north.
If you want his life in one book
→ Horizon (2019) — the travel memoir he published at 74.
13 Barry Lopez Books, in Order
Desert Notes
His first book, published in Kansas City by Sheed Andrews and McMeel: short prose pieces set in an American desert, part story and part meditation, about what the place does to the people who travel into it. It is the first part of a trilogy completed by River Notes and Field Notes.
Of Wolves and Men
A study of the wolf and of what people have made of it, drawing on biology, history, folklore, Native American tradition and Lopez’s own time with captive and wild wolves. It argues against the image of the wolf as villain. It was a finalist for the National Book Award; a revised edition with a new afterword on wolf reintroduction appeared for its 25th anniversary.
River Notes
The companion to Desert Notes: memories, stories and dreams set along a river, including a meditation on the thoughts of herons. It is the second part of the Notes trilogy.
Winter Count
A short collection of stories, illustrated with drawings by Ted Lewin, about encounters with people and places in the American West: a bookbinder in remote Wyoming, a white buffalo, the disappearance of the Niobrara River. It received the Distinguished Recognition Award from the Friends of American Writers.
Arctic Dreams
Based on nearly five years of travel in the Alaskan and Canadian Arctic, the book combines the region’s animals, light and ice with the history of its exploration and the lives of the people who live there. It won the 1986 National Book Award for Nonfiction and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Michiko Kakutani wrote in The New York Times that it is about the Arctic in the way Moby-Dick is about whales.
Crossing Open Ground
His first essay collection, published by Scribner: pieces on the bond between people and the land, and on the ways people betray it, from the desert to the Arctic.
Crow and Weasel
A short fable, illustrated by Tom Pohrt, set in a mythic time when people and animals shared a language. Two young men, Crow and Weasel, travel farther north than their people’s stories reach, stay with the Inuit, and on the way home are taught by Badger how to tell a story. It was adapted for the stage by the Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis.
Field Notes
Twelve stories that complete the Notes trilogy. People with failing careers or broken families are guided by the natural world: a man lost in the desert is led to water by a wren’s song, a botanist is led home by wildflowers, and a hunter in Alberta is taught by wolverines.
About This Life
Eighteen essays, published by Knopf. Some are travel pieces, from Antarctica and northern Alaska to Hokkaido; others go back to his own youth in southern California and New York, including his mother’s death.
Light Action in the Caribbean
Thirteen stories, eleven of them previously published, set in places including Oregon, the North Dakota prairie and the California coast. In “Remembering Orchards” a man recalls the stepfather he neglected; in “The Mappist” a geographer spends his life tracking down a mysterious mapmaker.
Resistance
Nine stories, each written as a letter by a writer, artist or activist who has come under the scrutiny of an “Office of Inland Security”. The letters describe how each of them decided to resist fear and indifference. The book has monoprints by Alan Magee.
Horizon
A long autobiographical book of travel, published by Knopf when Lopez was 74, that returns to six regions he had written about, from Cape Foulweather on the Oregon coast and the High Arctic to the Galápagos, Kenya, Australia and Antarctica. It mixes natural and human history, the stories of explorers, and his own memories. It was the last book published in his lifetime.
Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World
Essays published by Random House after his death, with an introduction by Rebecca Solnit. They range from a solitary Pacific walrus and climate disruption to his life in Oregon, and include “Sliver of Sky”, his account of the sexual abuse he suffered as a child.
In What Order to Read Barry Lopez
Only the Notes trilogy is meant to be read in sequence: Desert Notes (1976), River Notes (1979) and Field Notes (1994), which are also available together. Everything else stands alone, so you can read by subject.
Most readers come to him through the nonfiction. Arctic Dreams and Of Wolves and Men show the method at full length; the essay collections are easier to dip into; and Horizon and Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World make more sense once you know the earlier books they look back on.
A reading path
1. Crow and Weasel (1990)
2. Arctic Dreams (1986)
3. Of Wolves and Men (1978)
4. Crossing Open Ground (1988)
5. Horizon (2019)
Everything Else Barry Lopez Published
Beyond the 13 key books: 9 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Other books
6
6 books · 1977–2022
- 1977Giving Birth to Thunder, Sleeping with His Daughterretold Coyote trickster stories; his first manuscript, published second
- 1991The Rediscovery of North Americaan essay on the legacy of conquest, in the Clark Lectures series
- 1997Lessons from the Wolverinea story from Field Notes, illustrated by Tom Pohrt
- 1998Apologiaan essay, with woodcuts by Robin Eschner
- 2014Outsidesix stories with engravings by Barry Moser
- 2022Syntax of the Riverwritten with Julia Martin
Anthologies and edited books
3
3 books · 2004–2007
- 2004Vintage Lopeza selection of his essays and stories
- 2006Home Ground: Language for an American Landscapea dictionary of landscape terms, edited with Debra Gwartney
- 2007The Future of Naturewriting from Orion magazine, selected and introduced by Lopez
The years · 1945–2020
Quick facts about Barry Lopez
- Known for
- Barry Lopez is known for nature writing that joins science, history and the knowledge of Indigenous peoples to ask how people should live with the land, above all in Arctic Dreams.
- 1945
- Born in Port Chester, New York
- 1968
- Moves to the McKenzie River, Oregon
- 1986
- Arctic Dreams
- 2019
- Horizon
- 2020
- Dies in Eugene, Oregon
- Born
- 6 January 1945, Port Chester, New York, as Barry Holstun Brennan; he took his stepfather’s name, Lopez, in 1956
- Grew up
- In the San Fernando Valley in California and, from age 11, in New York City
- Education
- University of Notre Dame, 1966 and 1968
- Home
- The McKenzie River near Finn Rock, Oregon, from 1968
- Married
- Sandra Landers (1967, divorced); the writer Debra Gwartney (2007)
- Honours
- National Book Award (1986); John Burroughs Medal; Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters
- Died
- 25 December 2020, Eugene, Oregon, aged 75
The red mark is 1986: Arctic Dreams, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction.
How Barry Lopez Writes: Paying Attention to Place
Lopez’s nonfiction is built on long fieldwork. Arctic Dreams came out of nearly five years of travel in the Alaskan and Canadian Arctic, and Of Wolves and Men draws on time with captive and wild wolves as well as on libraries. He described the habit to NPR: he made himself pay attention to places where he thought nothing was going on, until the landscape “materialized in a fuller way”.
He rarely writes about one thing at a time. A chapter on an animal moves into the history of exploration, the knowledge of Inuit or Native American people, and then into a moral question about how outsiders treat the land. In his National Book Award speech he spoke of the Japanese idea of kotodama, the spirit in words, and of a writer’s duty to keep language serious.
His fiction, from the Notes trilogy to Resistance, blurs the line with nonfiction: short, lyrical pieces in which a place or an animal changes the course of someone’s life. Robert Macfarlane called him “the most important living writer about wilderness”, and readers of Peter Matthiessen and Annie Dillard often find him next.
Frequently asked questions about Barry Lopez’s books
How many books has Barry Lopez written?
About twenty-two, counting illustrated editions, collaborations and edited books. Thirteen are the key books on this page, from Desert Notes (1976) to Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World (2022); the other nine are listed under Everything Else.
What are Barry Lopez’s books in order?
Desert Notes (1976), Of Wolves and Men (1978), River Notes (1979), Winter Count (1981), Arctic Dreams (1986), Crossing Open Ground (1988), Crow and Weasel (1990), Field Notes (1994), About This Life (1998), Light Action in the Caribbean (2000), Resistance (2004), Horizon (2019) and Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World (2022).
Where should I start with Barry Lopez?
With Arctic Dreams (1986), his best-known book. If you want something much shorter first, try Crow and Weasel (1990) or the essays in Crossing Open Ground (1988).
What is Barry Lopez’s most famous book?
Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape (1986), which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction. Of Wolves and Men (1978) is a close second.
What awards did Barry Lopez win?
The National Book Award for Nonfiction for Arctic Dreams (1986) and the John Burroughs Medal for Of Wolves and Men, which was also a National Book Award finalist. He also received the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Award and the inaugural Writer in the World Prize of the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference.
Is Barry Lopez still alive?
No. He died on 25 December 2020 in Eugene, Oregon, aged 75, of complications from prostate cancer. Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World (2022) was published after his death.
What happened to Barry Lopez’s home in the 2020 fire?
In September 2020 the Holiday Farm Fire burned the land around his home on the McKenzie River. It destroyed his writing cottage and an archive of books, notebooks and letters from fifty years. He and Debra Gwartney moved to Eugene, where he died three months later. His remaining papers are held at Texas Tech University.
What is “Sliver of Sky” about?
An essay in the January 2013 issue of Harper’s Magazine in which Lopez described being sexually abused for several years as a boy in California by a man posing as a doctor. He had kept silent about it for most of his adult life. The essay is collected in Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World.
Did Barry Lopez write fiction?
Yes. Alongside the nonfiction he published the Notes trilogy (Desert Notes, River Notes, Field Notes), Winter Count, Light Action in the Caribbean, Resistance and Outside, as well as the fable Crow and Weasel.
Which Barry Lopez books are in a series?
Only the Notes trilogy: Desert Notes (1976), River Notes (1979) and Field Notes (1994). The first two are also published together in one volume.
Footnotes
- Barry Lopez — Wikipedia
- Barry Holstun Lopez (1945–2020) — Oregon Encyclopedia
- Bibliography — Barry Lopez Foundation
- Barry Lopez, award-winning author of Arctic Dreams, dies at 75 — Anchorage Daily News, 2020
- Barry Lopez, acclaimed author and traveler beyond many horizons, dies at 75 — NPR, 2020
- In Sliver of Sky, Barry Lopez confronts childhood sexual abuse — NPR Fresh Air, 2013
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“I made myself pay attention to places where I thought nothing was going on.”
— Barry Lopez, speaking to NPR about writing Arctic Dreams
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