Sequoia and Kings Canyon are the kind of places that make you feel wonderfully small. The giant trees may be what first draws you in, but they are only part of the experience. Beyond the sequoia groves, you’ll find granite peaks, deep glacial canyons, rushing rivers, and miles of wilderness stretching across California’s southern Sierra Nevada.
Because the two parks sit side by side, it is easy to experience them as one connected landscape. You might spend one day standing beneath the General Sherman Tree and the next driving into Kings Canyon or hiking toward a quiet alpine lake. Each stop reveals a different side of the Sierra and offers another reason to slow down and take it all in.
One of my favorite ways to add meaning to a national park trip is to bring a few books along. Reading about the area can introduce you to its natural history, deepen your appreciation for its landscapes, and make a quiet evening at camp feel like part of the adventure. I’ve compiled this list to help you connect more closely with Sequoia and Kings Canyon, whether you’re planning your visit or simply dreaming of the mountains. You can find the books through Bookshop.org, which supports independent bookstores.
THE READING LIST
01
My First Summer in the Sierra
by John Muir
Start with the book that feels practically required reading for this region, My First Summer in the Sierra. John Muir’s lyrical journal from 1869 reads like a love letter to the mountains. As a shepherd wandering the Sierra, he writes about glaciers, meadows, storms, and the spiritual power of wilderness with contagious joy. It is the perfect book to read in a camp chair beneath towering trees because Muir’s wonder mirrors exactly what you will feel the first time you see a giant sequoia in person.
02
Granite Pathways
by William C. Tweed
Every trail has a story, and Granite Pathways reveals the people and decisions behind the routes that cross Sequoia and Kings Canyon today. Beginning with the region’s Native peoples and continuing through shepherds, miners, mountaineers, conservationists, and government trail crews, Tweed traces how this rugged landscape became more accessible—and eventually protected. It’s a fascinating companion for anyone who has ever wondered who created the path beneath their boots.
03
Hiking Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks
by Laurel Scheidt
Practical, detailed, and made for days on the trail, this guide brings together more than eighty hikes through giant sequoia groves, alpine meadows, river canyons, and rugged mountain country. You’ll find options ranging from easy day walks to challenging backpacking routes, accompanied by maps and useful planning details. It’s the kind of book that quickly fills a quiet itinerary with possibilities.
04
Sequoia National Park
by Ward Eldredge
Filled with historic photographs and stories, Sequoia National Park looks beyond the famous trees to reveal the people and events that shaped the park. Eldredge draws on the park’s archives to illuminate its early development, changing landscapes, and long history of exploration and preservation. Reading it adds a sense of time and place to every winding road, historic building, and ancient grove.
05
Kings Canyon National Park
by Ward Eldredge
Kings Canyon may feel timeless, but its history is filled with explorers, communities, conservationists, and long debates over the future of the land. Through archival photographs and carefully researched stories, Eldredge shows how this dramatic canyon became a national park. It’s an engaging introduction to the human history behind one of the Sierra’s wildest landscapes.
06
Walking Where We Lived
by Gaylen D. Lee
To understand the deeper human history of this landscape, add Walking Where We Lived to your pack. This moving memoir shares the experiences and traditions of a Mono Indian family whose roots in the Sierra Nevada long predate the creation of the national parks. Personal, thoughtful, and deeply connected to place, it offers an essential perspective on the land and the generations who have called it home.
07
King Sequoia
by William C. Tweed
No trip here feels complete without learning about the stars of the show: the trees themselves. King Sequoia explores how the giant sequoia captured the public imagination, inspired conservation, and helped shape the national park system. After reading it, walking among these ancient giants feels less like sightseeing and more like meeting the trees that changed a nation.
08
Conversations with Trees
by Stephanie Kaza
Quiet, reflective, and beautifully attentive, Conversations with Trees invites you to slow down and encounter trees as living presences rather than scenery. Through intimate essays shaped by ecology and contemplative practice, Kaza explores what individual trees can teach us about connection, simplicity, loss, and care. Read beneath a sequoia canopy, it may completely change the way you experience the forest around you.
09
The Overstory
by Richard Powers
You cannot make a forest reading list without The Overstory. This sweeping, Pulitzer Prize–winning novel intertwines human lives with the hidden world of trees, revealing relationships that stretch across decades and generations. Emotional, ambitious, and transformative, it feels especially powerful when read beneath a canopy of sequoias that have stood for thousands of years.
10
The Power of Scenery
by Dennis Drabelle
History lovers will enjoy this fascinating look at Frederick Law Olmsted and the ideas that helped launch the national park movement. The book connects the Sierra to the broader story of how Americans began to value wild landscapes not simply as resources, but as places worthy of protection. It adds important context to the parks we treasure—and the choices required to preserve them.
11
Lassoing the Sun
by Mark Woods
Reflective, personal, and filled with a deep affection for wild places, Lassoing the Sun follows Woods through America’s national parks during their centennial year. Along the way, he considers what these landscapes mean, why they matter, and what it will take to protect them for the future. Reading it in Sequoia or Kings Canyon makes your own visit feel like part of a much larger national story.
12
The Last Season
by Eric Blehm
For a gripping true story, pick up The Last Season. This unforgettable narrative follows backcountry ranger Randy Morgenson, whose mysterious disappearance in the Sierra reveals both the beauty and danger of a life devoted to wilderness. Atmospheric and deeply moving, it is a reminder that these parks are not merely scenic—they are vast, unpredictable, and powerfully wild.
13
Vanishing Edge
by Claire Kells
If you want a page-turner for evenings at the lodge or beside the campfire, pack Vanishing Edge. This suspenseful mystery unfolds inside Sequoia National Park, where an FBI agent investigating a suspicious death discovers secrets hidden deep in the wilderness. It’s the kind of novel that makes every empty trail feel a little more dramatic and every quiet forest a little more mysterious.
Bringing a few books along made my time in Sequoia and Kings Canyon feel even more meaningful. I could spend the day hiking through landscapes carved by glaciers, read about the people who fought to protect them, and then fall asleep beneath the same stars that have inspired generations of writers.
There is something unforgettable about closing a book, looking up at the mountains and giant trees around you, and realizing the place you’re exploring is every bit as extraordinary as the story in your hands.
ONE PAGE AT A TIME
“Striking sapphire blue lakes…while swatches of green erupt like oases from the volcanic and glacially formed grayness.”
ERIC BLEHM, THE LAST SEASON
THOUGHTFULLY RESEARCHED
Written by Jacqueline Miller, founder of Adventurous Ambles. Through firsthand travel, original photography, and detailed route research, Jacqueline creates walking guides, hiking resources, destination reading lists, and travel inspiration for curious travelers. Unless otherwise noted, all content and photography on Adventurous Ambles are original works protected by copyright. Book cover images remain the property of their respective copyright holders and are displayed for identification and review purposes only.
KEEP WANDERING
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