Recommended Reading

Edited by Ada Limón, the twenty-fourth poet laureate of the United States, this anthology showcases fifty never-before-published poems by contemporary award-winning poets. It presents odes to trees, reflections on ancestors, and love and loss within diverse landscapes, all challenging traditional ideas of “nature poetry”—creating a new map of sorts for all who long to be more rooted in the here and now.

Critically acclaimed science writer David Toomey examines the intersections of play, culture, and evolution among animals. As he reports on the range of experimental research—conducted by fascinating characters in their own right—Toomey expertly weaves rigorous journalism with wide-eyed wonder, raising profound questions about life and arguing that play is no mere pastime but is essential.

Cabin is a charmingly illustrated guide that surveys the global history of cabin culture, from Indigenous structures to modern Nordic summer homes. Written by journalist Will Jones, who fulfilled his dream of building a remote cabin in the Canadian wilderness, the book combines personal anecdotes with nuts-and-bolts advice on site selection, tools, and design, making it an inspiring primer for those yearning to create their own retreat.

One of the most anticipated books of 2024, Percival Everett’s James retells the adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the view of Jim, the runaway enslaved man heading down the Mississippi on a raft with Huck, and it is…wow. Jim—or James in this telling—is a man of letters and philosophy who, with his fellow Black folks, speaks through a “slave filter” of patois when he’s around white people, so as not to alarm them with his knowledge. His is a journey with deadly consequences, less a corrective to Mark Twain’s 1884 white perspective than a heart-pounding truth-telling of nineteenth-century America. Twain’s classic is still taught in schools—so, too, should Everett’s masterpiece as its vital companion.

The Great Divide is stuffed with two hundred forty pages of stunning photography and text that chronicle fifty-year-old Tim Voors, a speaker for The North Face, as he walks the Continental Divide Trail from the U.S. border with Mexico and into Canada. With a detailed gear list, three parts organized by the physical, mental, and spiritual aspects of the trek, and notes about the number of hamburgers eaten (fifty) and steps taken (seven million), it’s a practical and inspirational look at an adventure that inspires dreams.

Starting as a competition phenom in the late nineties, Beth Rodden quickly proved herself as one of the world’s top climbers. In 2000, she and then-boyfriend Tommy Caldwell were held hostage in Kyrgyzstan, and her new memoir, A Light Through the Cracks, begins with that disturbing experience, then delves into her journey through the kidnapping’s aftermath as well as the suffocating pressure of being an elite athlete. From her eating disorder to relationships to becoming a mom, Rodden writes from the heart, revealing how shifting one’s life course can be the hardest, most rewarding ascent of all.