The East Bay Regional Parks abound in wonderments: animals, plants, sounds, geological formations, histories, and languages that stimulate our curiosity and expand our capacity for awe. In exquisite, lyrical essays, Sylvia Linsteadt and Malcolm Margolin—with help from their friends—revel in these wonderments.

• Vernal pools burst into bloom in springtime, transforming cracked earth into wetlands crowded with wildflowers and fairy shrimp.
• Marsh wrens trill reedy tunes from their 200-song repertoire.
• Stretches of rock wall span the hills, perplexing any who endeavor to explain their purpose.
• A volcano lies toppled just a few miles from the core of downtown Oakland.
• And more…

Drawing from scientific fact, human history, photography, and literature, this exploration of natural areas of San Francisco’s East Bay gently situates us in the area’s “magnificent and fleeting tangle of life.” The authors assure us that Wonderments of the East Bay will be as much fun to read as it was for them to write.

Wallace Stegner once wrote, “No place, not even a wild place, is a place until it has had that human attention that at its highest reach we call poetry.” Wonderments of the East Bay pays homage to the curiosities, miracles, and mysteries hidden in plain sight in the East Bay Regional Parks. Trail guides are for the feet. This is a book for the heart.