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Howdy folks,
Here are my latest Book Recommendations: Catch-Up Edition.
For the past few months, I’ve been devoting my (very limited) brain power to my own writing project– a book proposal I’ve been yapping about for years and just now completed. I made a deal with myself that if I was going to be typing on this silly computer, it had to be for the proposal– not for any of the more-fun things that are not a proposal, such as writing weird book recs.
The few patient, trusted souls who have read the proposal and offered invaluable guidance tell me it’s good/funny, so wish me luck as I wade into the weird world of publishing. In The Geography of Bliss, the author hypothesizes that the secret to happiness is low expectations, so I’ll expect to be blackballed by all agents and publishers– anything better will be a resounding victory.
In the meantime, here are a few of the books I read between rounds of pecking away at my keyboard and trying not to lose my mind:
Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live by Susan Morrison - Most of my middle school weekends revolved around the same routine: Saturday evening, program the VCR to record channel 7 from 11:27 PM - 1:03 AM; Sunday morning, laugh hysterically at SNL skits, while pausing it whenever my parents walked through the room so they wouldn’t hear the crass jokes and make me turn it off. The longer SNL has been on the air, the more I’ve been intrigued by Lorne Michaels– how is it possible to keep a mainstream TV show edgy, funny, and relevant for decades on end? How can a person stay true to their creative vision and have big-time commercial success… without being considered a “sellout?” If you’ve ever wondered these things– or just crave hilarious stories about Will Ferrell– this is your book. At 600+ pages, it’s a big one, but I cranked through effortlessly. [My now-second-favorite SNL book is Live From New York: The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live as Told by Its Stars, Writers, and Guests by Tom Shales. It’s worth reading the entire thing just for the part about Steven Seagal.]
Thirty Below: The Harrowing and Heroic Story of the First All-Women’s Ascent of Denali by Cassidy Randall - Up until Thirty Below, the only Denali-focused story I’d read that accurately captured the intensity and insanity of North America’s highest peak was Jon Krakauer’s Club Denali, which was published in Eiger Dreams. Not only did Thirty Below satiate my desire for more Denali-focused writing, but it filled in an embarrassing gap in my knowledge: The first all-women’s ascent in 1970. To me at least, 1970 doesn’t seem like all that long ago, but the obstacles and archaic ideas that these women had to overcome to simply get to the glacier, much less climb the dang thing, were insane. In many ways, climbing the mountain was the easy part– dealing with all of the arrogant, patronizing blowhards who dismissed them was a feat of world-class endurance. Like any great writer, Cassidy combines meticulous research with engaging characters and top-notch writing, and, more importantly, she brings these long-overlooked women to the forefront of mountaineering history. [To learn about Cassidy’s process for writing the book, check out our fun podcast conversation.]
Uplifted: The Evolution of a Climbing Life by Sonnie Trotter - So many mountain adventure memoirs are written by hardcore athletes who seem to be driven by some sort of darkness– an often anger-fueled desire to push beyond the edge to prove something either to themselves or their naysayers. In the world of rock climbing, Sonnie Trotter is about as hardcore as one can be– yet he’s driven by gratitude, adventure for adventure’s sake, and, dare I say, fun. I get a kick out of stories of brooding souls as much as the next guy, but it was so refreshing to read about a world-class athlete who’s driven by curiosity and optimism. As a bonus, the book is written in a refreshingly user-friendly style– it’s accessible to everyone, from veteran climbers to people like me, whose climbing career equals chaperoning their seven-year-old daughter at the climbing gym. You don’t have to zoom out much to see that, at its core, Uplifted is a book about turning your passion into a vocation– a universal theme that most thoughtful people will connect with. [I chatted with Sonnie about the book, and he was just as friendly and humble in conversation as he is on the page.]
Savage Son by Jack Carr - This is the third book in Carr’s James Reece series, and if I were forced to rank them, I would say Savage Son is my favorite so far. If you watch enough interviews with Carr, you’ll realize pretty quickly that he’s a PhD-level student of the thriller genre. He’s been reading them voraciously since he was a kid and now interviews many thriller authors on his podcast, so he knows what makes for a page turner. Combine his thriller obsession with the discipline he brings to the craft of writing, and you have a Tom Clancy-esque writing empire. Not bad for a guy who didn’t start writing seriously until after retiring from a highly decorated 20-year career in the Navy. As many of y’all know, I don’t read much fiction, but I’ll be reading this entire series. [If you’re interested in Carr's writing process, these two videos (one and two) offer some actionable insights.]
The Farmer’s Wife: My Life in Days by Helen Rebanks - An author friend of mine sent me Helen’s book along with one simple endorsement: “It’ll knock your socks off.” Well, it knocked them off so aggressively that I begged the team at the Old Salt Festival to fly Helen across the ocean so I could interview her on stage at this summer’s event. While I’m not a farmer or a mother or a wife or much of a cook, I connected deeply with Helen’s story. Through beautiful prose, she celebrates the “mundane” parts of life– the chaos of raising children, the stress of trying to keep all the balls in the air, and the often futile attempts to find balance everything professionally, financially, and personally. You know, the regular stuff that actually makes up most of life. Even though, on the surface, our lives and careers are vastly different, I found great solace in Helen’s approach to celebrating both the challenges and the joys of life, of embracing gratitude and giving others grace. When it comes to those ways of thinking, I need all the help I can get! [One-third of Nick Offerman’s Where the Deer and the Antelope Play is devoted to his adventures with Helen and her husband James on their farm in the UK.]
Mark Twain by Ron Chernow - Like The Power Broker, this monster of a biography is taking me a very long time to read. But I’m far enough in to go ahead and give it my full-blown endorsement. Like so many legends of American history, Twain is a fascinating human to learn about, but if I could go back in time, I highly doubt I’d enjoy spending more than a few hours with him in person. I have the utmost respect for how he pulled himself out of poverty and staked his claim as a writer, humorist, and pundit, but, even with Chernow’s masterful explanations, I cannot understand why a person would be so brash, pugilistic, and impulsive. Pick any larger-than-life figure, and the story is so often the same: The personality traits that make them successful are also the most self-destructive thorns in their sides. But thankfully, I’m not looking for a new best friend, I’m looking for a great story– and Chernow nails it. Twain is so complex, ever-evolving, and hypocritical that it takes a full 1,000 pages to fully examine his wild life and personality. I’ll continue to happily chip away at this behemoth between more reasonably sized books. [My favorite book that demonstrates the light and dark sides of larger-than-life personalities is The Last American Man by Elizabeth Gilbert.]
A Worthy Expedition: The History of NOLS by Kate Dernocoeur - Back in 1999, I managed to talk my way into a semester’s worth of college credit in exchange for spending three months learning to climb, backpack, and sail around the Pacific Northwest with the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS). Founded by yet another larger-than-life character, Paul Petzoldt, NOLS unceremoniously began 60 summers ago in Wyoming’s Wind River Range. Since then, it has evolved into the premier outdoor education and leadership school in the world. This book combines hardcore historical research with a fun-to-read writing style and is mandatory reading for anyone who values the outdoors and experiential education. I’m obviously biased, but I feel like this book should be prominently stocked in every REI and mom-and-pop outdoor store in the country. [Another NOLS book that holds a perpetual, arm’s-length spot on my desk is Wilderness Wisdom.]
The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise by Michael Grunwald - I was browsing a local bookstore while visiting the Carolina coast, and this book caught my eye. Having never heard of it, I was instantly convinced to buy it by the glowing blurb from my all-time favorite Florida writer, Carl Hiassen: “The best thing I’ve ever read about the Everglades.” I cannot overstate how much I enjoyed this book. In the style of Hampton Sides or David Grann, Grunwald takes dense, complex history and makes it read like a novel. He’s also surprisingly funny, which is quite an accomplishment when you consider how depressing the destruction of the Everglades has been. As much as I’m intrigued by Florida, what struck me most about this book was how our conquest of the Everglades seemed to become a blueprint for our conquests out West. From the tactics used to eliminate the Indigenous populations, to the obsession with making land “productive,” to the eventual bone-headed development (i.e., destruction) of a fragile ecosystem, the history of the Everglades allowed me to better understand the history of many of our imperiled wild places. [Sara Dant’s Losing Eden is my go-to for learning about the environmental history of the western U.S.]
Grasslands: Painting the American Prairie by James Prosek - James has built a legendary career on his process of becoming fully obsessed with a certain aspect of ecology, relentlessly exploring that idea through art and writing, then producing one-of-a-kind work that communicates his discoveries. I’ve recommended many of his books in these emails, with one of my favorites being Ocean Fishes. In this book, he turns his attention to grasslands and dives into not just specific species of the Great Plains, but into exploring the ideas of what concepts like “native species” even mean. He combines his philosopher’s mind with his artist’s eye, drawing, painting, and sculpting artwork that will make you reconsider your relationship with the land next time you're cruising through wide-open prairies.
The Way Out: A True Story of Survival in the Heart of the Rockies by Devon O'Neil - Mark your calendars, amigos: November 11, 2025. Or forget the calendar and just go ahead and pre-order it now. I just received my advanced copy yesterday, and I’m already plowing through it. So far, it’s giving me Krakauer/Into Thin Air vibes, as it combines unforgiving landscapes, heartbreaking tragedy, big personalities, and fast-paced, highly skilled journalism. I’ll give you my full thoughts in the next email, but I wanted to be the first to put this book on your radar for your fall reading list.
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Thanks again for subscribing to my bimonthly book recommendations. I've discovered most of my all-time favorite books through suggestions from friends like you, so please let me know of any must-read titles.
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Ed
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