Another reading list sent my way, this time from the cyclist/traveller/writer Kate Harris. Let me know what you think of this lot:
-Teaching a Stone to Talk, Annie Dillard (I LOVE every word Dillard has ever written) [ed note: I would add Pilgrim at Tinker Creek as another fabulous book to remind you to look (really look), and live (really live)]
-Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey
-The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje
-The Snow Leopard, Peter Mathiesson
-Einstein’s Dreams, Alan Lightman
-Arctic Dreams, Barry Lopez
-Walden, Thoreau
Mathiesson’s ‘The Snow Leopard’ is a beautiful inner journey through what must be one of the most moving landscapes in the world. An essential read for any traveler, or even for the sedentary dreamers. A real eye opener.
Mathieson’s ‘The Snow Leopard’ is a record of a rather big (macro) adventure, and yet, it’s also a internal journey as well. In fact, it was the inner landscape he explored that gave the larger one the impact it had on me. Any geographical ‘adventure’ brings with it, automatically, a concurrently mental adventure; just as Mathiesson,s book showed.