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NC Backpacker's Bookclub
When:
Thursday, Jul 31, 2008
For late night reading
Details:
We've kicked off our 2008 book club with recommendations from recent trips. They are not all-inclusive, please provide input as you see fit, providing you've huddled 'round the campfire with us recently.
From our Mt. Rogers winter base camp trip:
"Pillars of Earth" by Ken Follet. A book about building the Cathedral of Kingsbridge in the middle ages. "A seesaw of tension ... impeccable pacing ... action, intrigue, violence and passion ... a novel that entertains, instructs and satisfies on a grand scale!" – Publishers Weekly. This is Follet's most popular book and one of the all time top selling books on the New York Time list, plus in the top 100 books from BBC's "Big Read", ...UK's 2003 celebration of reading (notes from Follet's web site).
From Jerry Weston's Neusiok Trip in December, 2007:
"The Coldest Winter, America and the Korean War" by David Halberstam, 2007...an incredible book, and Halberstam was killed in a car accident this year, so it's his last.
From earlier trips and earlier readings:
"Deep Survival, Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why" by Laurence Gonzales, 2005... A very insightful book about those lost but not given up.
"Comanche Moon, the Second Volume of the Lonesome Dove Saga", Larry McMurtry, 1997... If you have not read McMurtry and like westerns head to the bookstore right now.
"The Orchard Keeper" by Cormac McCarthy, 1965... A true American classic, a true American original. The author of "No Country for Old Men", he's in the press now and you should read his first book about Appalachia, about those "belonging to a former age in communion with nature and stoic independence."
"Desert Solitaire" by Edward Abbey, 1968... "A Forceful Encounter with A Man of Character and Courage" - The New Yorker. A no-brainer, truly a masterpiece of wilderness writing 50 years ahead of it's time.
"Going Light with Backpack or Burro, How to Get Along on Wilderness Trails", The Sierra Club, 1951, with Kern Hildebrand's dad as one of the co-authors. 1950's Zen backpacking: "we knew where in Yosemite we could go, even on a 4th of July weekend, in order not to have our toes stepped on. It was simply a matter of arithmetic. The crowd diminished according to the square of the distance from the highway and according to the cube of the elevation above it."
"The Complete Walker III" by Colin Fletcher, 1968, 1974, 1984 [later edition available]. The more things change, the more they stay the same. And we lost Colin in the last year. This is regarded as the primal book on backpacking by our club, and by this writer, and by anybody who ever lit a Svea 123R.
"The Moon is A Harsh Mistress" by Robert Heinlein, 1967 and Hugo Award winner. A lot of backpackers are Sci-Fi buffs, and this one is a classic about rebellion, albeit a laid back rebellion, and about personal freedom and all that it implies.
"Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome circa 180 BC... A stoic classic "ask of each thing what is it's true nature."... If only our current administration ruled with such integrity and thoughtfulness.
Happy Reading!
Directions:
Head to your local bookstore, turn left, and you know the rest.
Contact Information:
North Carolina Chapter
Chris Plummer
NC Outings Chair
cplummer@nc.rr.com
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