dear mr. hemingway’s 2019 holiday books & pairings
Dashing Through the Great Outdoors
The River by Peter Heller (Knopf)
Paddling on a river with your best friend, foraging for berries in the thick of the woods, Lipton tea made with boiled water on an open fire and reading old paperbacks under the stars. Sounds kind of dreamy right?? Throw in a few guns, a woman left for dead and a roaring forest fire and you’ve got yourself a heck of a book. The River by Peter Keller was a suspenseful and atmospheric treat.
From the Publisher: “Wynn and Jack have been best friends since freshman orientation, bonded by their shared love of mountains, books, and fishing. Wynn is a gentle giant, a Vermont kid never happier than when his feet are in the water. Jack is more rugged, raised on a ranch in Colorado where sleeping under the stars and cooking on a fire came as naturally to him as breathing. When they decide to canoe the Maskwa River in northern Canada, they anticipate long days of leisurely paddling and picking blueberries, and nights of stargazing and reading paperback Westerns. But a wildfire making its way across the forest adds unexpected urgency to the journey. When they hear a man and woman arguing on the fog-shrouded riverbank and decide to warn them about the fire, their search for the pair turns up nothing and no one. But: The next day a man appears on the river, paddling alone. Is this the man they heard? And, if he is, where is the woman? From this charged beginning, master storyteller Peter Heller unspools a headlong, heart-pounding story of desperate wilderness survival.”
P.S. Pair this book with a handmade Cowboy Yoyo. Land a standard knot or some of the more complicated ones. Hours of entertainment ANYWHERE you go!
casting into the light: tales of a fishing life by Janet Messineo (Pantheon)
Attention all fishing fans…especially surfcasters. This is your book. Janet Messineo’s true story of becoming one of the greatest women surfcasters. My husband who is an avid fisherman (especially a lover of catching those stripers), thoroughly enjoyed this read.
From the Publisher: Tales of a champion surfcaster: the education of a young woman hell-bent on following her dream and learning the mysterious and profound sport, and art, of surfcasting, on the island of Martha’s Vineyard.
Janet Messineo knew from the get-go that she wanted to become a great fisherman. She knew she was as capable as any man of catching and landing a huge fish. It took years—and many terrifying nights alone on the beach in complete darkness, in search of a huge creature to pull out of the sea—for her to prove to herself and to the male-dominated fishing community that she could make her dream real.
the revenant: a novel of revenge by Michael Punke (Picador)
Yup.…this is a GREAT book. It definitely takes place outdoors and is quite intense if you ask me……..in a good way. Imagine being mauled by a grizzly bear and actually living!!!!!!! Sort of unbelievable. This book was made into a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio (swooooooon). Of course, you should read the book first, but it is still pretty amazing if you read it after.
From the Publisher: “The year is 1823, and the trappers of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company live a brutal frontier life. Hugh Glass is among the company’s finest men, an experienced frontiersman, and an expert tracker. But when a scouting mission puts him face-to-face with a grizzly bear, he is viciously mauled and not expected to survive. Two company men are dispatched to stay behind and tend to Glass before he dies. When the men abandon him instead, Glass is driven to survive by one desire: revenge. With shocking grit and determination, Glass sets out, crawling at first, across hundreds of miles of uncharted American frontier. Based on a true story, The Revenant is a remarkable tale of obsession, the human will stretched to its limits, and the lengths that one man will go to for retribution.”
the history of surfing by Matt
Warshaw (Chronicle Books)
There was no way I could have an outdoor book section and not include something related to surfing. Though I do not surf myself (not yet, that is), my boys sure do. The ocean is a big part of my family’s life. From surfing, to swimming, to fishing, to relaxing, the great big ocean is our happy place. This book is essential to your surfer’s home library.
From the Publisher: “Matt Warshaw knows more about surfing than any other person on the planet. After five years of research and writing, Warshaw has crafted an unprecedented history of the sport and the culture it has spawned. At nearly 500 pages, with 250,000 words and more than 250 rare photographs, The History of Surfing reveals and defines this sport with a voice that is authoritative, funny, and wholly original. The obsessive nature of this endeavor is matched only by the obsessive nature of surfers, who will pore through these pages with passion and opinion. A true category killer,
here is the definitive history of surfing.”
The old man and the sea by Ernest Hemingway
This year my Hemingway Pick is The Old Man and the Sea. Enjoy Santiago and Manolin. This story ages like a fine wine. The older you get, the more you will appreciate the simplicity and depth of this story.
From the Publisher: ” The Old Man and the Sea is one of Hemingway’s most enduring works. Told in language of great simplicity and power, it is the story of an old Cuban fisherman, down on his luck, and his supreme ordeal — a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream.
Here Hemingway recasts, in strikingly contemporary style, the classic theme of courage in the face of defeat, of personal triumph, won from loss. Written in 1952, this hugely successful novella confirmed his power and presence in the literary world and played a large part in his winning the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature.”
P.S. This outdoorsy book should be paired with this rechargeable lantern for all your outside activities.
Dear Mr. Hemingway’s 2019 Holiday Books & Pairings
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