American Buffalo Audiobook By Steven Rinella cover art

American Buffalo

In Search of a Lost Icon

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American Buffalo

By: Steven Rinella
Narrated by: Steven Rinella
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About this listen

From the host of the Travel Channel’s The Wild Within.

A hunt for the American buffalo - an adventurous, fascinating examination of an animal that has haunted the American imagination.

In 2005, Steven Rinella won a lottery permit to hunt for a wild buffalo, or American bison, in the Alaskan wilderness. Despite the odds - there’s only a two percent chance of drawing the permit, and fewer than 20 percent of those hunters are successful - Rinella managed to kill a buffalo on a snow-covered mountainside and then raft the meat back to civilization while being trailed by grizzly bears and suffering from hypothermia. Throughout these adventures, Rinella found himself contemplating his own place among the 14,000 years’ worth of buffalo hunters in North America, as well as the buffalo’s place in the American experience. At the time of the Revolutionary War, North America was home to approximately 40 million buffalo, the largest herd of big mammals on the planet, but by the mid-1890s only a few hundred remained. Now that the buffalo is on the verge of a dramatic ecological recovery across the West, Americans are faced with the challenge of how, and if, we can dare to share our land with a beast that is the embodiment of the American wilderness.

American Buffalo is a narrative tale of Rinella’s hunt. But beyond that, it is the story of the many ways in which the buffalo has shaped our national identity. Rinella takes us across the continent in search of the buffalo’s past, present, and future: to the Bering Land Bridge, where scientists search for buffalo bones amid artifacts of the New World’s earliest human inhabitants; to buffalo jumps where Native Americans once ran buffalo over cliffs by the thousands; to the Detroit Carbon works, a “bone charcoal” plant that made fortunes in the late 1800s by turning millions of tons of buffalo bones into bone meal, black dye, and fine china; and even to an abattoir turned fashion mecca in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, where a depressed buffalo named Black Diamond met his fate after serving as the model for the American nickel.

Rinella’s erudition and exuberance, combined with his gift for storytelling, make him the perfect guide for a book that combines outdoor adventure with a quirky blend of facts and observations about history, biology, and the natural world. Both a captivating narrative and a book of environmental and historical significance, American Buffalo tells us as much about ourselves as Americans as it does about the creature who perhaps best of all embodies the American ethos.

©2008, 2009 Steven Rinella (P)2019 Random House Audio
Americas Animals Biological Sciences Ecosystems & Habitats Environment Nature & Ecology Outdoors & Nature Science United States Wilderness Outdoor Inspiring Funny Alaska
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Critic reviews

“This is some of the best writing on our great national beast since George Catlin - and that was in 1841. A real triumph.” (Bill McKibben, author The Bill McKibben Reader)

“This is a big-game hunting story like no other: Steven Rinella is in search of an animal, quite literally. But also historically, existentially, and maybe even spiritually. Follow him on this curious armed quest - and, like him, you will quickly find yourself immersed in the fate of our mightiest and most talismanic beast.” (Hampton Sides, author of Blood and Thunder)

“Moving and downright funny...Rinella writes with authority about the process of turning a living creature into steak, and easily renders an enormous amount of historical and scientific information into a thoroughly engaging narrative.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review)

Masterful Storytelling • Layered Narrative • Vivid Descriptions • Educational Content • Captivating Vocal Performance
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As a biologist, a hunter, and an amateur natural historian, this book fills me up inside. Unburdened by the callous and removed nature of academic literature, yet more detailed and factual than some textbooks, Rinella’s writing provides a comfortable means of learning the bison’s multifaceted in North America. The philosophical ponderings scattered throughout the book capture the mindset of the hunting and angling naturalist as well as any other attempts I’ve seen.

Another noteworthy aspect of this audiobook has nothing to do with the writing, but with the narration. So often audiobooks are narrated with the passion and emotion of an actuary spouting off statistics. Rinella does not follow this trend, and brings a feeling of authenticity and sincerity to the reading while still speaking clearly.

I will be recommending this book to anyone and everyone I know that has a passion for the outdoors, natural history, biological understanding, and good campfire stories.

Phenomenal

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A very interesting and informative snapshot of a American Icon. Paints a very visual picture of the past and present. The authors passion is nothing short of a inspiration.

Very captivating

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How is this not a movie by now? It has everything you want in a great movie and more!

Amazing story!

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The best book I’ve listened to in years. Started it over as soon as it finished.

Absolutely beautiful

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This is a detailed account of Man and Bison past and present. The author has provided great amounts of information and details about the Bison habits, habitat and its importance to man. Riddle’s knowledge of Native American tribes provides a depth of understanding to the Bison. He also has an interesting perspective of an outdoorsman. Great story, lots of detail at times your head swims with the information.

Interesting perspective of the relationship of Bison and man

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Great book would definitely recommend to anyone who enjoys non fiction the idealistic history of the American west and the bison that roamed it and the history of the bison and the story of the hunt.

Great book for the outdoorsman naturalist or historian

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I really liked this book. The adventure of a hunt with a great history lesson.

What a way to get a history lesson

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Love the author. Love the story telling. If you love the meat eater podcast and or tv show, you'll love this.

Great listen.

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I listened to it with any free time I had, it consumed my thoughts as I worked and dreamt

great book

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I bought this book with the original narrator, and it was horrible. When I heard that Steven Rinella was
going to rerelease the book and narrate it himself, I had to get it. I'm glad I did. SO MUCH better! I plan to listen to it again, soon.

MUCH better with Steven

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