Truman Capote: In Cold Blood

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The Uncoupling Book Club: Week 3

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Author Spotlight: Chuck Klosterman

Chuck Klosterman made me feel smart, and for that reason he will always hold a special place on my bookshelf. He's one of those writers young people (pre-university, early undergrad) tend to flock to, and I think he did a tremendous job of getting me really into the personal essay format. I almost feel defensive whenever I bring his name up, but I wish I didn't. He's an excellent pop-culture writer, and was probably the first person to ever make me care about a sports story.

Do I owe my new-found love of sports narratives to Chuck Klosterman??

Also, I learned a lot about each of these books after watching this hour-long North Dakota public broadcast on YouTube. You should check it out.

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The Uncoupling Book Club: Week 2

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10 Disappointing Book to Movie Adaptations

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The Uncoupling Book Club: Week 1

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Hiking in Hell: From Laughter to Tears on the Fundy Circuit

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Alfred Lansing: Endurance

This was a book I was hunting for ever since I read In the Heart of

the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick. Philbrick mentions over and over again how Ernest Shackleton will always be remembered for his excellent leadership. This is about the same time my obsession with expedition books started to develop, and I was lucky to find this book at a used bookstore in London.

Shackleton’s story isn’t a memoir, like most of the other expedition books I have read. His team’s story is told by Alfred Lansing, a journalist who chronicled the Antarctic disaster in his 1959 book Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage (the name of Shackleton’s ship).

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Cheryl Strayed: Wild

When this post goes up Meg and I will be one day away from

heading into the backcountry of Fundy National Park on a 3 day hike and we are definitely going to die. This hike was the whole reason behind adventure month, and our departure is the perfect week to post about Wild. Let's get serious, Wild is the sole reason we're going on this hike and we're as naive and inexperienced as Lorelei Gilmore suggesting she wanted to "do wild". I've already packed my copy of Adrienne Rich's The Dream of a Common Language. We'll never have the guts to do a longer one, or to do it alone like Strayed, but here we are doing the best we can. 

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Sarah Marquis: Wild by Nature

Ahhhh adventure month on the blog. As I post this, there are only

eight more days until Meg and I venture out into Fundy National Park for a three day, backcountry hike. Sarah Marquis' book's full title is Wild by Nature: From Siberia to Australia, Three years Alone in the Wilderness on Foot. THREE YEARS! I mean if this woman can last three years we can at least last three days ... right? I should say right off the bat that I didn't LOVE this book, but it was still worth reading. I was really, really looking forward to it and after waiting for months for a softcover I decided to just shell out the $27 for the hardcover. Expectations were high.

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10 Books to Get You Excited for an Adventure

how's this for a stock photo?

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Nicholas Sparks: Two by Two

I wrote an entire author spotlight on Nicholas Sparks so it should

be no surprise that I'm still a sappy girl who loves his fiction. He writes a new book every year in time for Christmas and this was on my wish list. I read it in Florida over the course of one day on the beach because it was so good. While I read everything he writes, I don't love all of it. Some of it is super cheesy and dramatic, but this is now my second favourite book of his next to The Wedding, because it's about simple, everyday struggles. 

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