American Adventure Reading Recommendations
Rachel Lawyer, USU Libraries | rachel.lawyer@usu.edu
August is American Adventures Month! This month is all about exploring public lands, celebrating the spirit of adventure, and making outdoor recreation accessible to all. Plan your next adventure or enjoy remarkable stories of outdoor exploration with these reading recommendations. For more information about local outdoor recreational resources, check out our American Adventures research guide or visit our display at the Merrill-Cazier Library.
Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World by Christian Cooper
In Better Living Through Birding, Cooper tells the story of his extraordinary life leading up to the now-infamous encounter in Central Park and shows how a life spent looking up at the birds prepared him, in the most uncanny of ways, to be a gay, Black man in America today. From sharpened senses that work just as well in a protest as in a park, to what a bird like the Common Grackle can teach us about self-acceptance, Better Living Through Birding exults in the pleasures of a life lived in pursuit of the natural world and invites you to discover your own.
Biking Across America by Paul Stutzman
After Paul Stutzman finished hiking the Appalachian Trail, he found himself longing for another challenge, another adventure. Trading his hiking boots for a bicycle, Paul set off to discover more of America. Starting at Neah Bay, Washington, and ending at Key West, Florida, Paul traversed the 5,000-mile distance between the two farthest points in the contiguous United States. Along the way he encountered nearly every kind of terrain and weather the country had to offer--as well as hundreds of fascinating people whose stories readers will love. Through cold and heat, loneliness and exhaustion, abundance and kindness, Paul pedaled on. His reward—and the readers'—is a glimpse of a noble yet humble America that still exists and inspires. Anyone who longs for adventure, who loves travel and stories of travel, and who loves this place called America will enjoy this book.
Your Guide to the National Parks: The Complete Guide to all 58 National Parks by Michael Joseph Oswald and Derek Pankratz
More than 500 color images, 100 easy-to-read maps, and 55 hiking tables make this guide to America's most scenic wilderness areas—all 58 national parks—the most appealing, comprehensive, and indispensable book of its kind. This guide provides step-by-step itineraries, kid-friendly activities, and all the most popular ranger programs to help plan your family vacation. Thousands of hotels, restaurants, and attractions beyond the parks and 11 suggested road trips make it the ultimate dashboard companion. Exhaustive activity information, including hiking tables, easy-to-find trailhead markers, outfitter details, and backpacking essentials, serves as blueprint for an adventure of a lifetime.
Wild Weekends in Utah: An Outdoor Adventure Guide by Lori Lee
Utah is a natural playground of mountains and hoodoos, deserts and rivers, feather-light powder and adrenalin-laced mountain bike trails. This unique guidebook shows adventurous travelers how to explore it all while enjoying a variety of their favorite activities. Hike through one of the world's longest slot canyons, jump into a kayak and discover petroglyphs accessible only by water, or spend the weekend barreling down some of the finest mountain bike trails in the country. This mix of classic Utah activities and little-known destinations includes an excursion to Antelope Island State Park, which offers 15 miles of road biking, nine hiking and biking routes covering 35 miles, and 1,700 square miles of canoeing and kayaking. Wild Weekends in Utah tells travelers when to go, where to stay, and how to make the most of their escapes.
Print copy available from the Quinney Natural Resources Library
Welcome Me to the Kingdom by Mai Nardone
IFor first-time visitors and longtime residents alike, here is Utah's ultimate day-hike companion. Experience the fullness of Utah's magnificent outdoors, on hikes designed to be completed within a few hours. Complete with photographs, descriptions of local flora, fauna, geology, and history, this book is your indispensable guide to it all.
Print copy available from the Quinney Natural Resources Library
Starry Sky Adventures Utah: Hike, Paddle, and Explore Under Night Skies by Crystal Whiteg
Starry Sky Adventures Utah presents the best outdoor adventures to take under the stars. Hike, paddle, and camp under the constellations in the darkest destinations around. This guide highlights astrotourism destinations across Utah, including Dark Sky Places recognized by the International Dark-Sky Association, as well as places with outstanding natural darkness. Guided adventures, including camping, backpacking, hiking, will show readers the way to getting out there, looking up, and getting lost in the stars.
Print copy available from the Quinney Natural Resources Library
When Everything Beyond the Walls Is Wild: Being a Woman Outdoors in America by Lilace Mellin Guignard and M. Jimmie Killingsworth
In When Everything Beyond the Walls Is Wild, Lilace Mellin Guignard draws from emblematic moments and relationships in her own life to explore issues of gender, recreation, and environmental conservation. Born into a suburban family, Guignard wanted to get up close and personal with iconic American landscapes, but social pressures and cautionary tales told her that these spaces were not meant for her as a woman. Reflecting on the ways our culture socializes women to remain indoors, Guignard shares her own struggles with finding her place outdoors. These stories expose how cultural messages about women shape their experiences and interactions when backpacking, paddling, rock climbing, and bicycling. They broaden readers’ notions of what adventure is, what places are considered wild and worth our care, and what types of people enjoy the outdoors. Drawing upon the art of the memoir—and informed by analysis from women’s studies and ecological literature—Guignard makes an impassioned case for why women and marginalized members of society should have the opportunity to experience nature.
Riverman: An American Odyssey by Ben McGrath
The riveting true story of Dick Conant, an American folk hero who, over the course of more than twenty years, canoed solo thousands of miles of American rivers—and then disappeared near the Outer Banks of North Carolina. This book “contains everything: adventure, mystery, travelogue, and unforgettable characters” (David Grann, best-selling author of Killers of the Flower Moon). Riverman is a moving portrait of a complex and fascinating man who was as troubled as he was charismatic, who struggled with mental illness and self-doubt, and was ultimately unable to fashion a stable life for himself; who traveled alone and yet thrived on connection and brought countless people together in his wake. It is also a portrait of an America we rarely see: a nation of unconventional characters, small river towns, and long-forgotten waterways.