Soul Food

Books that inspired you to get outside!

On this page you’ll find reviews of books that inspired Friends of the Trail to get out into the great outdoors. If you’ve a special book that did just that for you, send us an e-mail on what it was about the book that had that effect on you.

Mandy Oglesby reviews...
Touching the Void by Joe Simpson
1989; 198 pages

Joe Simpson is a master of adventure writing! Touching the Void is a grievous account of Simpson’s and his climbing partner, Simon Yates', intrepid expedition up a 21,000 foot peak nestled deep in the Peruvian Andes. His fluid writing style carries you through their journey into the mountains, up to the peak and into the mouth of tragedy. Atop the summit in the middle of the night, Simpson slips off of an ice ledge and breaks his leg. Yates tries desperately to pull his partner to safety but is unsuccessful when a blizzard slams all sides of the mountain and pushes Simpson further into the icy crevasse. Yates is forced to return to camp without him. Simpson, facing dehydration, starvation, hypothermia and certain death digs deep within himself to save his own life. This is where the true story begins. The issues he faces both internally and externally while trapped in that ice cave will move you to push yourself beyond your own limits. The bravery, courage and vision that Simpson shares with his readers is awesome! This book will challenge you to evaluate your priorities and explore the mystery of what lies beyond your immediate scope. He urges all of us to set aside our excuses and strong arm our dreams. He implores us to “always strive for greatness, because despite tragedy ... life has everything wonderful to offer us." This novel is a fast-paced, page-turning inspiration.

Virginia Haddad reviews...
Sacred Trees by Nathaniel Altman.
Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1994; 244 pages with many b&w illustrations.

This is my favorite nature book because it has so enriched my life. Sacred Trees is the one book that always comes to mind when I am on a wilderness hike or just standing on an urban street graced by trees. It is about the special relationship between trees and people throughout history and in diverse worldwide cultures. Whenever I fall in love with a tree (which I’m prone to after reading this book), or when a particular kind of tree strikes my curiosity, I look it up in the index of Sacred Trees to discover the myths, legends and treatment given to it by some group of people somewhere in the world at some time in human history. However, this is not a reference book per se. On a certain level, reading any of the ten chapters of Sacred Trees is like listening to a sacred composition by J.S. Bach: the experienced is heightened sensing the writer’s profound and contagious belief in his subject. Altman obviously reveres trees and concludes with marvelous hands-on, act-locally strategies to recultivate in modern people a sense of the very special interconnectedness between trees and human beings.

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