Tracking Lions, Myth, and Wilderness in Samburu

(Paperback)

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KEY SELLING POINTS:

Jon Turk is an established author, with numerous books and dozens of magazine articles under his belt.

Timely and compelling, Jon Turk's new book takes the North American reader out of their current habitat and places them in a more natural environment where we are invited to look at the world with compassion, openness, and mindfulness.

The writing style is an intriguing hybrid of anthropological observations, adventure travel recollections, natural history, and optimistic dreams about the future of human civilization.

The author discusses mountaineering, travel, natural history, environmentalism, shamanism, animism, and cosmology in an engaging, compassionate, and accessible manner.

His focus is on how travels and adventures in remote landscapes teach us about our place as humans in this internet-crazed, oil-soaked, consumer-oriented modern world.

Jon believes that being "tough" and "pushing the limits" is simply not enough to survive in the 21st century. In fact, the old adage "When the going gets tough, the tough get going", is no longer powerful or effective enough.

MARKETING + PROMOTION:

National, regional, and subject-specific print features, excerpts and review coverage

Social media campaigns, blogger outreach, digital collateral for online use

Publicity and promotion in conjunction with author's speaking engagements

Excerpts available

Electronic ARCs

Reviews

Praise for Tracking Lions and Myth in Samburu:

Adventurer and author Jon Turks worldview has been sculpted over the past seven decades by science and shaped by mythology. In this, his proclaimed final book, Jon distills hard-earned lessons learned from his larger-than-life experience into the following: the pursuit of happiness is the root of all unhappiness, and the pursuit of happiness is killing the planet. So, where do we go from here
Pat Morrow, mountaineer, filmmaker, photographer, environmental advocate, coauthor of Searching for Tao Canyon

While tracking lions in Samburu, explorer and lifelong environmentalist Jon Turk is not afraid to ask the Big Questions: if humans have such impressive problem-solving brains, why have we ended up trashing the planet When did our behaviour start to evolve away from the animals and the natural world, and what has been the cost of that Whether he is describing the midnight growl of a leopard outside his tent or interviewing the Earth, Jon Turk is a gifted storyteller, a wise elder and a fun companion.
Marni Jackson, author and editor with the Mountain and Wilderness Writing Program at The Banff Centre

Tracking Lions, Myth, and Wilderness in Samburu is a call to expand our natural wisdom to transform the way we experience life, as individuals and as communities. What I love about Jons message is its simplicity. The fact that stories have both united and separated us for ages is very clear, but what we dont see is that stories are the realm of our think-too-much-know-it-all brains as Jon likes to say. However, he suggests there is another obvious way of experiencing life that recognizes that there is no separation between you, me, and the natural world. This is a must-read book for anyone who is ready to explore the magic of true living!
Valeria Teles, podcaster, blogger, healing coach, author of Inner Peace and Clarity, Fit for Joy and What Is Love

Jon Turk is one of our most articulate and courageous writer-adventurers. On this journey to the Samburu people and the lion-savannahs of Africa, he guides us on an intellectual probing of our deep human past in an attempt to understand our planets future. Bravely curious, he explores the proto-consciousness that grows from living in the moment, on the edge of survival, like our ancestral hunting-and-gathering forebears. Reading Tracking Lions, youll think about human interaction with the natural world in ways you havent before.
Peter Stark, author of At the Mercy of the River: An Exploration of the Last African Wilderness, Young Washington: How Wilderness and War Forged Americas Founding Father, and the New York Times bestseller Astoria

With his trenchant powers of observation, Jon Turk has steered kayaks, skis and climbing rack up and down those far-flung destinations most of us will never visit, from Tierra del Fuego to Kamchatka to the Canadian Arctic, and now, in his latest work, eastern Africa. His books have always transcended the standard adventure narrative in inimitable, no-bullshit prose by taking his readers into the heart of both wilderness and culture. More than just a compelling insight into place and a little-known and olden-day culture, Tracking Lions makes the linkage to what we have lost in our own, troubled, modern society. Jon Turk is as precious as a Samburu warrior.
Jonathan Waterman, author of Atlas of the National Parks, In the Shadow of Denali, Chasing Denali, and Arctic Crossing

Author Bio

Jon Turk grew up on the shores of a wooded lake in Connecticut, attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and then Brown University. He earned a Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 1971 and was nominated by National Geographic as one of the Top Ten Adventurers of the Year in 2012. Between these bookends, he co-authored the first college-level environmental science textbook in North America, followed by more than 30 additional texts in environmental, physical, and Earth sciences. At the same time, Jon kayaked around Cape Horn and across the North Pacific from Japan to Alaska, mountain biked across the northern Gobi in Mongolia, made first climbing ascents of big walls on Baffin Island and first ski descents in the Tien Shan Mountains in Kyrgyzia, and in 2011 circumnavigated Ellesmere Island. He has published numerous magazine articles and four adventure books: Cold Oceans, In the Wake of the Jomon, The Ravens Gift, and Crocodiles and Ice. During extended travel in northeast Siberia, his worldview was altered by Moolynaut, a Siberian shaman. Jon splits his time between Darby, Montana (near the southwestern boundary of Montana and Idaho, along the Continental Divide), and Fernie, British Columbia. For more information, see jonturk.net.