| OUT OF THE NOÖSPHERE Adventure, Sports, Travel, and the Environment: The Best of Outside Magazine Compiled by the editors New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992 (Fireside edition 1998) |
Rating: 5.0 High |
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| ISBN 0-684-85233-0 | 480p. | SC | $15.00 | |
On a hike, if you're packing books, your first choices should be practical: perhaps the guide put together by the staff of Backpacker magazine. But, if you have mastered those techniques and just want something to relax with while perched on some sun-washed crag, this lightweight collection of essays is ideal.
When I say lightweight, I'm referring to the book's effect on your back, not on your mind — for there is nothing dumb or frivolous about this collection. It includes work by some of the best writers in the field: Edward Abbey, William Kittredge, Jon Krakauer, David Quammen, to mention half the names featured on the front cover. The stories range widely, in locale and in subject matter: from a profile of energy expert Amory Lovins (High Priest of the Low-Flow Shower Heads) to a Boy Scout troop (Outfoxing the Radish Patrol); from Prince William Sound to the Gulf Coast to the South Pacific.
There is the story of Redmond O'Hanlon, one of the world's best travel writers — described as a sort of anti-Gallagher1 character: drunk and disorganized at home; sober and solid when engaged in his globe-girdling adventures. You'll read about a dog that jumps out of a second-story screened window to kill an invading pit bull, and a man who runs 23 marathons in a row.2 There are harrowing stories as well, about mountaineering, rock-climbing and white-water rafting, and about the pain of ferret-legging. There are serious topics like the wreck of the Exxon Valdez on Bligh Reef. And there are tales of wild things: wolves, porcupines, grizzlies.
The only thing these stories have in common is cracking good writing. Highly recommended.
To contact Chris Winter, send email to this address.