Recent Books

Wilderness Regained - The Story of the Virginia Barrier Islands || SECOND EDITION

This is the new, updated and expanded Second Edition. The barrier islands of Virginia’s Eastern Shore represent the last of the coastal wilderness on the Atlantic seaboard. Although the islands are wild and remote today, that hasn’t always been the case. Years ago, the islands were home to villages, hotels, gunning clubs, life-saving stations, and lavish private residences. Wilderness Regained tells the story of the many ways in which human lives touched the islands, and how, ultimately, the islands became protected as one of America’s unique coastal preserves. The updated second edition includes a large section on the necks of the Eastern Shore, the real story of how Broadwater Island came to be, the story of the son of slaves who became the oyster king of New York, and much more.

A Culinary History of Delmarva - From the Bay to the Sea

For centuries, dating back to the time of the Native Americans, the fertile soils and the bountiful bays and salt marshes of the Delmarva Peninsula have fed its people well. Over the generations, its food culture has become intertwined with the history of the people who call this land home. Food determined where people lived, how they traveled, how their economy functioned, and how they celebrated and shared the products of soil and salt water. Curtis J. Badger narrates this history with recipes based on seasonal bounty.

Bellevue Farm - Exploring Virginia’s Coastal Countryside

Bellevue Farm was a colonial era plantation owned by the Parramore family, who played a prominent role in the early development of the Eastern Shore. The Parramores also owned the island that bears their name, which lies east of Bellevue Farm and the town of Wachapreague. Writer and naturalist Curtis J. Badger spent more than a year exploring Bellevue, studying not only the natural history of this seaside farm, but pondering the interplay between the landscape and the lives of the people who were part of it.

To purchase, contact The Book Bin in Onley, VA.
Phone: 757-787-7866
http://www.bookbinva.com/

Letters Home - of Gold Fields and Lost Ships

Brothers Thomas and John Badger left their home on the Eastern Shore in 1849 to seek their fortunes in the California Gold Rush. Along the way, they survived a voyage around Cape Horn and the sinking of the ship Central America when it went down loaded with gold off the South Carolina coast in 1857. Letters Home is a collection of letters written to relatives back home from Captain Thomas Badger, and later from his nephew, covering a period from 1863 to 1953.

Salt Tide - Currents of Nature and Life on the Virginia Coast

Author Curtis J. Badger calls this book “a personal natural history.” Salt Tide tells the story of the islands, bays, saltmarshes, and tidal flats of the Virginia coast, but it also examines how the landscape over generations has become part of the Badger family history. A rail hunt in a flooded saltmarsh, for example, forges a bond between father and son that lasts a lifetime.