What are you reading?

[jdeerfoot]

Just finished The Wager by David Grann (author of Killers of the Flower Moon). The Wager (publ 4/2023) is the story of the shipwreck of the HMS Wager in the 1740’s near bottom of South America. Very readable and a riveting story. It is coming out as a movie soon.

 

[Woodpuppy]

I got about halfway through Another Bend in the River while waiting to be either selected or deselected for jury duty. Just need to finish it now.

 

[Blukanu]

Just started reading this. So far the information doesn’t seem particularly useful. It’s one of those things where you think, “Yeah, I noticed that but never spent time thinking about it”. Guess the purpose to is get you to just be more observant. Theres a reason things are the way they are in nature.

Stumbled across this when looking for books about trees. I realize my knowledge of trees is embarrassingly lacking for someone who claims himself to be an outdoorsman.

 

[ppine]

Trees are my life in some ways. As a retired person I get tremendous satisfaction from wandering in forests and observing tree dynamics and figuring out their history.

 

[Tsuga8]

I highly recommend Tom Wessels' Reading the Forested Landscape for those who enjoy pondering trees, history, and the reason a spot in the woods looks how it does. It's very specific to southern New England, but much of the underlying principles could be applied elsewhere, and some of the specifics would apply across much of 'canoe country' and the northwoods. Themes include disturbance by logging, farming, fire, and beavers. (It may be remedial for the retired foresters among us.)

 

[Tsuga8]

I recently finished The Wide Wide Sea by Hampton Sides. Well written and gripping account balancing modern and historical perspectives on Capt Cook's third and final voyage of exploration. Includes a lot of detail on European interactions with indigenous peoples of the Pacific.

 

[Will Derness]

Just finished reading “Madhouse at the End of the Earth”. Very well researched and written story of the voyage of the Belgica, one of the early explorations of the Antarctic. The Belgica becomes frozen in the sea ice over the winter and endures a very difficult time. Not yet famous, Roald Amundsen is the first mate on this voyage. The book is rich in detail as many of the crew kept diaries and the author used them and the ship’s log to create this well written book.

 

[Halpc]

I just finished "An Unfinished Love Story" by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. It has nothing to do with canoeing, but is a fascinating history of the 1960's, for those (apparently many) of us who were coming of age in that era.

 

[Pseudonym]

I read Peter Heller's The River and immediately followed it up with The Dog Stars. I enjoyed them both. The former is about a tandem canoe trip, undertaken by two young men on the Maskwa River in Canada, that goes awry. The latter is a post-apocalyptic survival story that takes place in Colorado. It's clear that Heller himself is an avid outdoorsmen and his descriptions of the locales do them justice. The Dog Stars is the better book, but the folks on this site will likely appreciate the subject matter of The River more.