• Happy International Mermaid Day! 🧜🏼‍♀️

What are you reading?

Cabin fever overtook me on the weekend, enough to prompt me to some bookshelf tidying and mystery trunk exploring, and as uncustomary as I am to tidiness I found it quite liberating to shed our home and lives of unwanted stuff. ie Book titles we'll never read or have no intention of ever tripping past page one. But thanks to this squirrely tidiness obsession I do have a new pile of old books by the bedside. One of which has lain undisturbed for at least a couple years nearly forgotten inside a dusty trunk. I should get the tidy bug more often. The title of this book is Tales Of The Canadian Wilderness. A mix of fact and fiction with authors from the turn of the last century including Jack London (1908 To Build A Fire), Leonidas Hubbard (1905 Expedition Diary), Arthur Heming (1902 The Abitibi Fur Brigade), Mina Hubbard (1906 My Exploration in Unknown Labrador), and many others. This should keep cabin fever at bay.
 
It looks like another year of being couped up South of the Border unless things break late in the season. I'm planning on an extended trip down the Allagash to check out some of the less paddled corners of the route. I've been working on "Canoeing Maine's Legendary Allagash" by David Leff and a couple of others in preparation for that paddle.
I also started shedding some of the books I'll never get to/will never read again as I am running out of shelf space
 
"Travels in West Africa", by Mary Kingsley. 1895 solo travels in the Congo (Gabon). Lots of travel up the rivers in dugouts. Great sense of humor.
 
Herb Pohl's The Lure Of Faraway Places edited by James Raffan... after seeing this brief discussion with Kevin Callan. The Herb Pohl bit starts at about the forty minute mark. He liked finding scenic spots in the landscape it seems so combined with the other comments, I placed a hold on it at the library and this time there's only one other reader in front to wait through. Raffan's newest book OTOH about the journeys of a polar bear has a long wait list.

There's a new book on Craig McDonald being written as well, if watching the rest of the vid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XT3hxx3WU0
 
Lyman 50th edition reloading handbook..... got a new to me rifle and ammo are a bit hard to find up here so I decided to start reloading for it!! And plus I will be able to reload for the 30-06’s as well and develop better ammo than factory for less money, ammo ain’t getting cheaper and it is always a bit hard to find what I want up here!!
 
Lyman 50th edition reloading handbook..... got a new to me rifle and ammo are a bit hard to find up here so I decided to start reloading for it!! And plus I will be able to reload for the 30-06’s as well and develop better ammo than factory for less money, ammo ain’t getting cheaper and it is always a bit hard to find what I want up here!!

Down here, we don't even have reloading components--shelves are bare, and online is out, too.
 
"Upwards", by Laurie Apgar Chandler. The story of the first woman to solo thru-paddle the Northern Forest Canoe Trail. I'm halfway through and enjoying it. Well written, interesting and informative.
 
"Upwards", by Laurie Apgar Chandler. The story of the first woman to solo thru-paddle the Northern Forest Canoe Trail. I'm halfway through and enjoying it. Well written, interesting and informative.

It's a great read!
 
Last Christmas nature writer Barry Lopez passed away. I learned about it on Fresh Air and decided to reread his 1986 book Arctic Dreams. It is still a very current and readable book by a great writer. (Travel, natural history, anthropology, ecology)
 
"Two Coots in a Canoe," by Dave Morine. A story of two college buddies, age sixty, getting together for the first time in 20 years to paddle the length of the Connecticut River. It's amusingly written, kind of like Bill Bryson's story of attempting to walk the Appalachian Trail in "A Walk in the Woods." It is not a serious canoeing/camping book. In fact, from the beginning they decide they are too old to camp, so they decide to "rely on the kindness of strangers" along the river to put them up and feed them every night.
 
I’m on my 6th or 7th Bernard Cornwell book over the last 3-4 months. Got addicted to it. First Stormchild, then Stonehenge now about early England and the battles. Already making plans to visit Europe hopefully next year and explore the place.
thanks to Snapper for the recommendation.
 
Franklin, Oops, Mud & Cupcake, by Micheal Pitts.

I won this in the recent fundraiser and have enjoyed the first two chapters, looking forward to the rest of the story.
 
So many books, so little time. I am pretty sure about all my favorites relating to canoeing, adventuring, and natural history, have been mentioned here.

I suppose canoeing is most popular in the boreal forest, I grew up in the eastern temperate rain forest of mostly deciduous trees, so when I first started traveling as an adult, conifer forests were new and exotic. I did not know that evergreens dominate the planet in comparison.

The World of Northern Evergreens, by Pielou, is readable, and not too long, or too technical.. Fascinating, if one is into that sort of thing.
 
I read canoeing books, but not exclusively, and hope folks may also be looking for non-fiction recommendations. If people prefer only canoeing related books be mentioned on this forum let me know and I’ll stick to that more limited genre.

Not site-related, but an enjoyable read - Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World (Simon Winchester)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show...arch=true&from_srp=true&qid=2qiqxFbexR&rank=1

I found Land to be more enjoyable and informative than some of the GoodReads reviews indicate.

Also recommended by Simon Winchwester, Krakatoa, and The Map That Changed the World.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25017.Krakatoa

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show...d?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=Ae6lPoEvOR&rank=1
 
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