Mark Kenyon Books In Order

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Mark Kenyon
Mark Kenyon is a lifelong outdoorsman, a nationally published outdoor writer, and is one of the fishing and hunting community’s most prominent voices through Wired to Hunt, his podcast. He is also a conservationist.

He is a contributor to MeatEater, Inc., which is a lifestyle company.

He runs Wired to Hunt, which is a whitetail focused website that he started back in 2008 during his time as an undergraduate at Michigan State University earning his degree in business. He later got himself a job at Google working as an account manager for the company in California before he eventually moved back to his home state of Michigan. He spent his days working for the tech company, and nights and weekends were spent working on Wired to Hunt.

He’d go home and watch every single deer hunting video he could find. Mark would also write a blog almost everyday. He wanted to immerse himself in it. Some nights he’d stay up until 3 in the morning working on the site.

He decided to roll the dice in 2013, quit his job at Google, and start working on Wired to Hunt full time. The traffic on the site had grown steadily and a few sponsors had already jumped on board, however progress plateaued. He remembers getting into his truck after quitting and thinking to himself how crazy it was to have quit Google without any income.

Since, he cranked up the content on the site and gets a million visitors each year. He makes a living from the site, running social media for the National Deer Alliance, and freelance writing. The freelance writing he does mainly to get his name out there and learn from other whitetail experts.

He’s an enthusiastic and likable kid from the Midwest with whom his viewers can relate. He doesn’t hunt with guides, does his own scouting, and doesn’t hold out for B&C deer.

“Moments With Six Shooter: My Hunt For A Once In A Lifetime Buck and the Moments in Between” is a non-fiction book that was released in 2014. Hunting stories have been told for thousands of years, in hundreds of different languages, and in locations that are as diverse as a fire-lit cave in Africa to a pickup’s tailgate, basked in headlight glow. These most primal and ancient of stories often follow a similar script; walking into the woods, a long wait, and then taking a shot.

Ultimately, however, anybody that has stepped off the grid and out into the great unknown of the wild knows that there is so much more that goes into a hunt. There are moments of thrill, fear, shock, and joy. There are memories made for a lifetime, victories and mistakes, and lessons learned. And so many times, the story of the hunt is not relegated to only the woods. Often times, the hunt returns along with us back home and home comes along with us back to the hunt. Hunting stories are so much more than merely adventures into the woods. They are tales of life, and adventures into the souls and hearts of those that long for a much deeper connection with our ancestors, our earth, and ourselves, in the end.

Mark regales a deer hunting story which goes far beyond the walk, the woods, and the shot. Over the course of three years, Mark hunted this one specific whitetail deer that was known as “Six Shooter”, in Michigan. And over this time, he came to know this deer and himself in ways that he’d never imagined were possible. This vulnerable, yet triumphant story of growth, struggle, and reverence for the wild strikes this tone which is sure to resonate with nature lovers and hunters alike.

A first encounter and the wonder of beauty that’s found in a single individual whitetail deer, the internal wrestling found inside of a hunter when confronting the reality of love for the same animals that he hunts, the despair he feels after missed opportunities, and the emotional challenges of balancing a love of the hunt with the responsibilities of a home life and a family. Each of these themes and so much more are touched on in this story of a hunting life.

In this book, Mark uses a collection of short stories to further illustrated that after that first step out the door, but before that inevitable shot, there are a lot of moments in between. There are moments which make the story what it was and that molded the hunter that told it.

This is Mark’s three year hunt for a once in a lifetime buck, and the moments in between. There’s sure to be a story within the story, of growth and hardship, of despair, thrill, and possibly sorrow. The true story, the one not often told, lies in these moments in between, these brief flickers of reality, which can sometimes take hold for an eternity.

“That Wild Country: An Epic Journey Through the Past, Present, and Future of America’s Public Lands” is a non-fiction book that was released in 2019. From prominent nature writer and outdoorsman comes this engrossing reflection on the past and future battles over some of our most revered landscapes: America’s public lands.

Every American is a public land owner, inheritor to the biggest public-land trust in the entire world. These vast expanses provide a home to wildlife populations, this crucial source of clean water and air, and is a haven for recreation.

Since its inception, though, America’s public land system has been embroiled in controversy, caught in the push and pull between the desire to develop the valuable resources that the land holds or conserve them. Alarmed by rising tensions over the use of these lands, Mark Kenyon (angler, hunter, and outdoor enthusiast) set off to explore the spaces used involved in this heated debate, and learn firsthand just how they came to be and what their future might hold.

Part historical examination and travelogue, this book invites the reader on an intimate tour of the wondrous public and wild which are a uniquely profound and endangered part of the American landscape.

This was a Goodreads nominee for Best Science & Technology in 2020.