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  • American Buffalo

  • In Search of a Lost Icon
  • Written by: Steven Rinella
  • Narrated by: Steven Rinella
  • Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
  • 4.9 out of 5 stars (689 ratings)

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American Buffalo

Written by: Steven Rinella
Narrated by: Steven Rinella
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Publisher's Summary

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

What the critics say

“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)

What listeners say about American Buffalo

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  • JC
  • 2019-12-11

Great True Story!

Steve has an excellent narration voice, and the fact that it's his own work makes it all that more the better. A great tale of adventure and history. I enjoyed how the story jumped back and forth from Steve's quest for the histroy of the buffalo and his hunt for the buffalo.

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Great read.

Informative, educational, enthralling. Cannot wait to read again. Steven Rinella is someone I really look up to.

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A good book made better by the authors narration

I've read this book several times, when I listened to the original audiobook it sounded a bit off, but now with Rinella's narration I find the cadence and story more rich and fun to listen to. I loved it!

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Amazing book!

Amazing book, super informative and interesting. Steve pulls in your attention and makes you want to keep listening.

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Edge of your seat kind of book

I dont know if it's just my passion for hunting and the outdoors but steven rinella seems to just paint these beautiful pictures of his hunts and he explains things in a way that can hold every strand of your attention while talking about things like visiting a lab and watching someone cut a piece of old bone up or providing backstory to a specific instance so when he finally gets to talking about that instance you have a much deeper understanding and appreciation of what you've just heard. Great book, I thought itd be a rambling account of buffalo facts but I was blown away even by the 1st chapter

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Great Book

Great book. I encourage everyone to give it a listen. Awesome the author narrated the book. Lots of history. Will probably listen a couple more times to soak it in.

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Great memoir, just maybe not with kids

Excellent audio book, Steve does a great job and the information is really good.
I only wish there wasn’t the use of language that I don’t want my kids to hear was used.

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5+ listens through and still learning and enjoying

This is hands down the best audiobook ive listened too,
Steve is such a fantastic story teller and put so much work into writing this phenomenal piece of literature. this deep dive into a keystone species of north america is one you may find yourself laughing, crying or so intrigued you to the point you cant focus on anything else but steves knowledgable and passionate voice

Thankyou Steven Rinella, you are a treasure to conservation.

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How an audiobook should be

Engaging, funny and extremely informative. Without a doubt the best audiobook experience I have partaken in.

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Modern Day adventure meets epic history lesson

Steven Rinella’s ability to conjure both imagery and emotion through his writing and narration is absolutely captivating.
For anyone looking for an escape into wilderness adventure, and open to being inundated with the thought provoking and awe inspiring lesson on the inter woven histories of the people of North America, and the “American Buffalo”

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