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OUTDOOR BOOK REVIEWS HOME PAGE
NEWS & COMMENTARY
WINNERS OF THE NATIONAL OUTDOOR
BOOK AWARDS (NOBA)
NOBA WINNERS BY CATEGORY:
OUTDOOR LITERATURE
NATURAL HISTORY
LITERATURE
HISTORY/BIOGRAPHY
NATURE & ENVIRONMENT
CLASSIC AWARD
DESIGN/ARTISTIC MERIT
CHILDREN'S BOOKS
GUIDES (ADVENTURE)
GUIDES (NATURE)
INSTRUCTIONAL BOOKS
BEST BOOK LISTS:
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
ADVENTURE'S 100 BEST
ADVENTURE BOOKS
CHESSLER'S TOP 100
CLIMBING BOOKS
SIERRA MAGAZINE
READER'S FAVORITE
BOOKS
OUTSIDE'S 25 BEST
BOOKS OF THE LAST
100 YEARS
ASLE'S TOP 12
ENVIRONMENTAL BOOKS
THE REVIEWS 10 MOST
INFLUENTIAL
ENVIRONMENT BOOKS
OUTDOOR EDUCATION
SURVEY: BEST BOOKS
RECOMMENDATIONS:
TRAVEL LITERATURE BY
JEFF TUCKER
OUTDOOR LITERATURE
BY LIAM GUILAR
RIVER LITERATURE BY
LIAM GUILAR
THE OUTDOOR EXPERIENCE READING LIST:
READING LIST FOR AN
OUTDOOR LITERATURE
COURSE
OTHER SUGGESTIONS:
HUMBLE SUGGESTIONS
(A Few of Our Editor's
Own Works)
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Winners
of the History/Biography
Category
National
Outdoor Book Awards (NOBA)
The most important book award
program in the outdoor field is the National
Outdoor Book Awards. Past winners of the History/Biography Category
are listed below:
Winner. Grand Obsession:
Harvey Butchart and the Exploration of the Grand Canyon. By Elias
Butler and Tom Myers. Puma Press, Flagstaff, AZ. ISBN
0970097344.
Harvey Butchart was the legendary hiker and
canyoneer who explored more of the Grand
Canyon than any other person. He was largely known through his sparse and somewhat
cryptic hiking guidebooks. But even more
cryptic was Butchart himself. Who was
this man, and why did his interest in the canyon become an obsession that consumed
his life? You'll find out in this
uncommonly well researched, well-structured and well-written biography.
More Information or Purchase: Amazon.com
 Winner. Fallen Giants:
A History of Himalayan Mountaineering from the Age of Empire to the Age
of Extremes. By
Maurice Isserman and Stewart Weaver. Yale University Press. New Haven. ISBN
9780300115017.
A history tome isn't the type of book that you'd think of
reading from cover to cover, but A
History of Himalayan Mountaineering is the exception. Building upon an impressive body of research
(notes and biographical entries alone occupy over 100 pages), authors Maurice
Isserman and Stewart Weaver effortlessly move the reader from one era to
another -- as easily as an accomplished climber might move from one rock pitch
to another. This is an outstanding reference
work, and if you enjoy mountaineering literature, it's clearly one for your
book shelves.
More Information or Purchase: Amazon.com
 Winner. The Very Hard Way: Bert Loper and the Colorado River. By Brad Dimock. Fretwater Press, Flagstaff,
AZ.
ISBN 9781892327697.
Brad Dimock tackled this book like a tough rapid where
success is uncertain. Not only did he
come through intact as an author, but he produced a marvelous work, certainly registering
among the most creative of outdoor biographies.
The subject of the book is Bert Loper, a legendary Colorado
River boatman who died on the river at 80-years old while oaring
his own boat. Loper, however, wasn't the
easiest subject to write about. He was an
ordinary person, not particularly educated, never quite successful at anything,
even at building a proper river boat. Yet
Dimock artfully combines his own exhaustive research with interviews,
first-person stories, letters, and Loper's own writing to fashion an absorbing portrait
of his life.
More Information or Purchase: Amazon.com
 Winner. Forever on the Mountain: The Truth Behind One of Mountaineering's Most
Controversial and Mysterious Disasters.
By James M. Tabor. W. W. Norton
& Company, New York. ISBN 9780393061741.
In 1967, a storm with winds of unimaginable ferocity caught
seven climbers high on the slopes of Alaska's
Mt. McKinley. When a rescue was finally mounted over a week
later, all seven were dead. What
actually happened and why so many died in one of North America's
worst mountaineering disasters is still debated to this day. James Tabor's Forever on the Mountain sheds a new light on the tragedy. In addition to his extensive investigative
work, Tabor is an outstanding story teller, and once started, this is a book
that is hard to put down.
More Information or Purchase: Amazon.com
 Winner:The
Doing of the Thing: The Brief, Brilliant Whitewater Career of Buzz Holmstrom
By Vince Welch, Cort Conley, and Brad Dimock.
Published by Fretwater Press.
In this well-researched and well-written biography,
western whitewater pioneer Buzz Holmstrom, famous for his 1937 thousand-mile
solo run down the Colorado River, comes to life. Near its conclusion,
the book answers one of the great mysteries of the whitewater world:
how and why did Holmstrom die on the Grand Ronde river in Oregon?
This is a wonderful story about rivers and wooden boats, humility, solitude,
and one man's lone struggle in a difficult and changing world.
 Winner:One
Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey.
By Sam Keith from the journals of Richard Proenneke.
Published by Alaska Northwest Books.
Lots of books have been published about intrepid
souls who head off into the wilderness, build their own cabin, and live
a life removed from civilization. But if you were to pick one which
comes closest to truly describing that experience, this is the book.
Richard Proenneke has a refreshingly simple and wonderful outlook on life,
and like the warmth from a potbelly wood stove, you can't help but be drawn
to him and his engaging story. You'll be there right alongside him
on the shore of Twin Lakes, helping him carve out a masterpiece of a cabin,
and then settling in with him for a full and introspective life in the
Alaskan bush.
 Winner:
The
Wildest Dream: The Biography of George Mallory
By Peter and Leni Gillman. Published by The Mountaineers
Biographies don't get any better than this.
Supremely well researched and documented, erudite, and masterfully written,
this book isn't so much about what happened to Mallory in 1924 when he
and his climbing partner Irvine disappeared in the mists of Mt. Everest,
but rather it seeks the answer to another, almost more fascinating question:
who was this man Mallory? This is the book to read to find the answer.
 Winner:A
River Running West: The Life of John Wesley Powell. By
Donald Worster. Published by Oxford University Press, New York.
For years, people have been waiting for this book:
an authoritative study of Powell—the whitewater world's first river runner
as well as the West's great voice of reason. Thanks to Donald Worster,
we now have one. A superbly written book supported by exhaustive research,
this 673-page book is an expansive view of Powell's life and times—as expansive
as the view across the Colorado Plateau. A River Running West
is a memorable portrait of one of the greats of river history.
Winner:Sunk
Without a Sound: The Tragic Colorado Honeymoon of Glen and Bessie Hyde.
By Brad Dimock. Published by Fretwater Press, Flagstaff, Arizona.
The 1920s was the decade of mysteries for the outdoor world. The
mountaineering world had Mallory dissolving into the mists of Everest,
while the whitewater world had Bessie and Glen Hyde disappearing in the
depths of the Grand Canyon. This fascinating exploration into what
happened to the Hydes is an important contribution to the whitewater genre,
and seasoned Colorado River boater, Brad Dimock, was the perfect person
to write it. Few others would have been able to put the right
amount of heart and soul into an investigation of the mystery; indeed,
Dimock and his wife, Jeri, actually built a replica of the Hydes' wooden
scow and ran the river in much the same manner as the young couple would
have done in the 1920s. Enthralling and compelling, this is a book
that refuses to be put down.
Winner.
Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism.
By Char Miller. Published by Island Press/Shearwater Books, Washington.
ISBN 1559638222.
Gifford Pinchot was the first chief of the Forest Service. To
this day, his influence is still being felt on the policies which guide
the management of lands used by hundreds of thousands of Americans for
hiking, climbing, biking, fishing and other forms of outdoor adventure.
Yet Pinchot is a controversial figure, the bad guy in a bitter battle with
the great conservationist, John Muir. This eminently readable and
erudite biography of Pinchot, the first in over forty years, reveals a
much more complicated man, and sheds new light on Pinchot's contributions
and place in conservation history.
 Honorable
Mention. Arctic Crossing: One Man's 2,200 Mile
Odyssey Among the Inuit. By Jonathan Waterman. Published
by the Lyons Press/Globe Pequot, Guilford, CT. ISBN1585747300.
This is the story of Jonathan Waterman's attempt to cross the Northwest
Passage by kayak, ski, dogsled and sailboat. More than an expedition
narrative, Waterman also writes about the history and his encounters with
the native people of the north country, the Inuit. Backed by solid
research and written in an introspective style, it's an illuminating portrait
of one man and Arctic culture.
 Winner.
Southern Exposure: A Solo Sea
Kayaking Journey Around New Zealand's South Island.
By Chris Duff. Published by Globe Pequot Press, Guilford, CT.
ISBN 0762725958
With this book, Chris Duff solidly establishes
himself as a leading voice in outdoor adventure writing. His previous
work, On Celtic Tides chronicled his circumnavigation of Ireland,
but in Southern Exposure, the stakes are higher. Here, the
waves loom larger, the shoreline more forbidding, and weather more unforgiving.
Duff is up to the task and has created an engrossing and mesmerizing account
that sweeps the reader along.
 Winner. Ways to the Sky: A Historical Guide to North American Mountaineering. By Andy Selters. American Alpine Club Press, Golden, Colorado. ISBN 0930410831
Author Andy Selters and the American Alpine Club deserve a
big round of applause for this new and significant work in the outdoor field. Tackling a subject as broad and diverse as
the history of North American mountaineering is no easy task, easily ranking up
there with making a winter attempt on Denali. But Selters undertook the project and carried it
off with aplomb. Backing up Selters'
painstakingly researched—and very readable text—are a wonderful selection of
historic photos. Rounding off an already
first-rate effort, Ways to the Sky, is
also part guide book, including several mini-chapters which picture and describe
climbing routes dating from the era under discussion.
 Winner.
Journey of a Hope Merchant: From
Apartheid to the Elite World of Solo Yacht Racing. By Neal Petersen with William P. Baldwin and
Patty Fulcher. University
of South Carolina Press, Columbia,
SC.
ISBN 1570035644.
This is the story of Neal Petersen, a black South African
who overcomes physical disability and the humiliation of apartheid to compete
in one of the most dangerous of all sports: solo sailing around the globe. While many of his well-heeled fellow
competitors sail in the latest technological marvels, Petersen builds his own
yacht, scrounging supplies and materials.
Without enough money to install electronic navigation equipment, he
sails off on his first race with a sextant that he hasn't yet learned how to
use. From then on it's all
adventure. His account of approaching Cape
Horn and surviving a vicious night of 150-foot waves and multiple
knockdowns is as thrilling as it gets. Quite
simply, this is a wonderful story of the sea, and one man's hope,
determination, and joy for life.
Winner. The Last Season. By
Eric
Blehm. HarperCollins Publishers, New
York. ISBN
9870060583002
Randy
Morgenson is an experienced backcountry ranger in Kings
Canyon National
Park
of the California Sierras. He leaves on
a routine patrol to an area, which after 28 seasons, he knows as well
as anyone
alive, but Morgenson never returns. An
extensive air and ground search ensues. No
sign of the ranger is found. Was it an
accident? Was it foul play?
Or was it all just a ruse? Could
Morgenson still be alive? In this
outstanding work of investigative journalism,
author Eric Blehm pieces together a fascinating story of an individual
comforted
by his solitary time in the wilderness but who is increasingly troubled
by life
in civilization. Blehm spent eight years
researching this book and it clearly shows. He
sets the stage, draws you in, and slowly unravels the truth of this
absorbing
mystery of the Sierra mountains.
End
of Listing
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