Great Gifts for Outdoorsy Types
Say you have an outdoorsy-type person on your holiday shopping list, but no idea what to get them. Hiking boots? A puffy vest? Jars to use for their homemade cleaning products? No, no, no. Books are better. Books are always better. Feast your eyes on all these fabulous books for outdoorsy types, from beautiful photography books to how-to guides on bettering the planet.
Cabin Porn
by Steven Leckart
by Noah Kalina
by Zach Klein
Cabin Porn began as a scrapbook for a group of friends who preserve 55 acres of forest in Upstate New York. But then the collection grew and attracted a following, and now it is a mega-popular website and book! Chock full of gorgeous interior photography and how-to advice on creating your own quiet place, this book will ease the soul with photos of cozy interiors and unique architecture. Breathe deep and enjoy the quiet you can create.
Cabin Porn: Inside
by Zach Klein
by Freda Moon
In this version of Cabin Porn, we get to step inside all those handmade cozy cabins to find the warmth and simplicity humans can create. It's full of tales about how to live sustainably and how the builders have learned how to better their homes.
Ansel Adams' Yosemite
by Ansel Adams
Foreword by Pete Souza
This collectible photograph book holds Ansel Adams's best photos of his best subject: Yosemite National Park. His work began in the 1950s, when he offered eight photos of the national park to visitors as souvenirs, hoping to spur some environmental activism. He spent the following decades continuing to photograph the majestic park, from its rock formations to meadows to waterfalls, and these are the bulk of the photos that make up this beautiful book.
The Grand Canyon and the Southwest
by Ansel Adams
Edited by Andrea G. Stillman
After Yosemite, the Grand Canyon and American Southwest are closest to photographer Ansel Adams's heart. It was there that he decided to make photography his life's work in the 1930s. This collection shares his best, iconic images of the Southwest and all its desert glory.
The Sun Is a Compass
by Caroline Van Hemert
During graduate school, Caroline Van Hemert felt stifled by the lab in which she studied the strange beaks of chickadees. She needed adventure. She needed wildness. So the ornithologist packed up, with her husband, and set off on a 4,000-mile journey from the Pacific rainforest to the Alaskan Arctic. They witnessed the beauty of nature and animals and the joy of survival. And they began to feel whole again. The Sun Is a Compass is a love letter to nature and all the things it inspires in humans.
Learn all about the Scandinavian methods of chopping, stacking, drying, and burning wood with Norwegian Wood. This book is full of advice and how-to guides on the rustic ways of heating, along with anecdotes and facts about humans and their love of fire. It’s the perfect niche book for your outdoorsy friend who wants to get a little closer to living the Norwegian way.
Christine Liu, the sustainable lifestyle blogger and professional, shares all her tips for maintaining a more environmentally friendly home. Sustainable Home goes on a tour through the house, room by room, providing tips like how to make your own toothpaste or reduce your use of plastic. Liu reminds us that the ways to live more sustainably come in all sizes, and any amount of work we do helps make a difference.
When her mother died, and her marriage dissolved, and her whole world seemed to collapse around her, Cheryl Strayed decided to hike the length of the Pacific Crest Trail. Alone. With no experience. Wild is the tale of her spiritual journey against her mind, the elements, feet blisters, and hunger.
Atlas Obscura is a collection of more than 600 natural, strange, and curious wonders of the world. From the baobab tree in South Africa that has a pub inside, to the Baby Jumping Festival in Spain, soak up the magical and weird beauty hidden just out of view. This massive book is full of photos, stories, and maps of all these wondrous places.
Jonathan Safran Foer explores climate change, its realness, and urgency, in a deeply personal way in We Are the Weather. He compels us to work hard, and work together, to eschew the comforts of things like factory-farmed meat and single-use plastics, for the sake of the future of the planet. Because this isn’t something that can be put off any longer.
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Ashley Holstrom is a book person, designing them and writing about them for Book Riot. She lives near Chicago with her cat named after Hemingway and her bookshelves organized by color.