Favorite Outdoors Books

[Paddleman]

Maybe a little different from most of the books mentioned here is one I read last year. Being a book about sailing around the world, it was a real page-turner. A Voyage for Madmen by Peter Nichols is well written with plenty of edge of your seat moments. It's one of those I may read twice.

[seano]

If you enjoy sailing books, Joshua Slocum's Sailing Alone Around the World is another good read, with everything from suicidal flying fish to Patagonian cannibals.

[restless soul]

John Muir and Jack London are probably my favorite authors who can so eloquently capture the beauty of the great outdoors.  If you've never read it, spend 20 minutes reading London's short story To Build a Fire. I just recently picked up The Old Ways by Robert Macfarlene which I'm looking forward to reading.  And just as someone else mentioned, Walden is a book that is bookmarked on the shelf that I'll pick up quite often. I've enjoyed reading this thread to add some more books to the pile so thanks for all of the suggestions. 

[morty]

On 3/4/2016 at 11:58 AM, Aaron said:

I have a lot, but after a quick look at the bookshelf Desert Solitaire and the page turning action of The Monkey Wrench Gang, both of course by Edward Abbey are a couple favorites. Walden...haven't read it in a while but it will always occupy a spot on the shelf...and when I was younger many Louis L'Amour novels (which at least include a substantial dose of the outdoors) occupied my time. More recently, I also thought @Disco's I Hike was a great read. 

Last of the Breed by Louis L'Amour was a great read.

http://www.louislamour.com/novels/lastofbreed.htm

[ppine]

I have worked on Black Mesa on the Navajo Res, one of the famous locations where the Monkey Wrench Gang wrecked millions of dollars worth of equipment.  I have never liked Abbey. He lost me when he killed a rabbit and then was too weak to eat it and just buried it.  He was a lunatic in a lot of ways.  I had a career as an environmental consultant, and never liked his politics.

[Korey]

I did another book review on my blog, this time about A Walk in the Woods and some of the thoughts it provoked about the fragility of wilderness: A Walk in the Woods Review

[HikerJen]

You can add another book to my list of favorites -  Lost on the Appalachian Trail by Kyle Rohrig.  Kyle writes about his experiences thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail - it has lots of humorous and interesting stories about the other hikers he meets along the way, hardships (weather-related as well as self-inflicted) that he endured, some trail descriptions here and there, and how he coped with it all.  He even brought his dog along for the adventure which I thought was really cool.  I thought it was very good and entertaining read - and maybe a little more relevant than that other book that became a movie.  Just my opinion...

[ppine]

As a retired environmental consultant, I don't really get the concept of wilderness being "fragile."   Wilderness is mostly a land use designation.

We are actually still having RARE II lands and WSAs turned into new wilderness areas in the West.  The old roads are being reclaimed and the old historic buildings are still being burnt to the ground.

[lonerock]

On 4/12/2016 at 10:49 AM, Korey said:

I did another book review on my blog, this time about A Walk in the Woods and some of the thoughts it provorked about the fragility of wilderness: A Walk in the Woods Review

Great Review and commentary

I really enjoyed A Walk in the Woods and was eagerly anticipating the movie but was a bit disappointed. I like Robert Redford and Nicke Nolte but felt they were miscast for the younger versions in the book which made it all less plausable.

I remember when the book came out there were quite a few people who wrote in to Backpacker Mag. complaining because they didn't really hike the whole trail but seemed to miss the whole point that the book was basically a humorous look at two unlikely guys attempting a really big undertaking.

Your commmentary about human impact on the environment was very insightful.  I've seen many changes over several decades of my life and when it comes to human interaction with nature it's been mostly a tragic story.Efforts to try and manipulate nature for our needs and poorly designed efforts to recreate nature to fit some image we have has met mostly with failure. Most people have become so far removed from nature that they no longer have a real concept of how nature works in the absence of humans. I honestly don't have a lot of hope for the future of this planet. Our economic system is set up in a way that demands increased population growth and increasing demands for goods in order to function. This model results in an ever increasing assault on nature to meet those increasing needs. I once attended a lecture by the noted environmentalist David Brower and he noted that several studies had shown that the maximum sustainable population in the United States was about 140 million people. We've far exceeded that number and that's now reflected in the sad state of nature and that which sustains humans.

Edited April 14, 2016 by lonerock
wording

[Korey]

I feel that I'm in the minority of people when it comes to A Walk in the Woods in that I enjoyed both the book and movie immensely. They are certainly different, but I've rarely expected movies to accurately represent the book, so I've usually gone into them with the mindset that what I'm about to view is related to, but not the same as what I read.