Audiobooks by Michael P. Branch

Raising Wild: Dispatches from a Home in the Wilderness

Combining natural history, humor, and personal narrative, Raising Wild is an intimate exploration of Nevada’s Great Basin Desert, the wild and extreme land of high desert caliche and juniper, of pronghorn antelope and mountain lions, where wildfires and snowstorms threaten in equal measure. Michael Branch “earned his whiskers” in the Great Basin Desert of northwestern Nevada, in the wild and extreme landscape where he lives off the grid with his wife and two curious little girls. Shifting between pastoral passages on the beauty found in the desert and humorous tales of the humility of being a father, Raising Wild offers an intimate portrait of a landscape where mountain lions and ground squirrels can threaten in equal measure. With Branch’s distinct lyricism and wit, this exceedingly barren landscape becomes a place resonant with the rattle of snakes, the plod of pronghorn antelope, and the rustle of juniper trees, a place that is teeming with energy, surprise, and an endless web of connections. Part memoir, part homage to an environment all-to-often brushed aside as inhospitable, Raising Wild offers an intergenerational approach to nature, family, and the forgotten language of wildness.

Michael P. Branch (Author), David Marantz (Narrator)

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Rants from the Hill: On Packrats, Bobcats, Wildfires, Curmudgeons, a Drunken Mary Kay Lady, and Othe

Welcome to the land of wildfire, hypothermia, desiccation, and rattlers. The stark and inhospitable high-elevation landscape of Nevada’s Great Basin Desert may not be an obvious (or easy) place to settle down, but for self-professed desert rat Michael Branch it’s home. Of course, living in such an unforgiving landscape gives one many things to rant about. Fortunately for us, Branch—humorist, environmentalist, and author of Raising Wild—is a prodigious ranter. From bees hiving in the walls of his house to owls trying to eat his daughters’s cat—not to mention his eccentric neighbors—adventure, humor, and irreverence abound on Branch’s small slice of the world, which he lovingly calls Ranting Hill.

Michael P. Branch (Author), David Marantz (Narrator)

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How to Cuss in Western: And Other Missives from the High Desert

Where nature writing meets humor—a raucous, hilarious look at life in the high desert of Nevada, from the author of Raising Wild and Rants from the Hill Edward Abbey encouraged his readers to “be loyal to what you love, be true to the Earth, and fight your enemies with passion and laughter.” Here is Michael Branch’s response. Full of clear-eyed explorations of the natural world, witty cultural observations, and heart-warming family connections, How to Cuss in Western is a cranky and hilarious love letter of sorts to the western Great Basin Desert of Nevada.

Michael P. Branch (Author), David Marantz (Narrator)

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