The best books featuring heroes journeys set in the outdoors and wilderness

In the Summer of 1932, the orphan Odie O’Banion commits a terrible crime and is forced to flee the terrible institution where he is, in a very real sense, a prisoner. He and three of his young companions steel away in the night and begin to search for a new, better way of life.

This book has everything: an epic tale well told, a heroic journey, a paddle down a wild river, poignant adventure, and the growth of the soul. Think The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Odyssey.

I loved it from the very first page and could not put this book down.

This book is an American classic.

It tells the story of young Huckleberry Finn and the slave Jim (and many, many others) as they flee the law and escape down the mighty Mississippi, one of the world’s greatest rivers. It is an epic journey that changes the lives of everyone the river (and those who live beside it) touches.

Since it is one of the first novels told in the vernacular of its time and place, Ernest Hemingway believed all books that were written after owed a debt of gratitude to Mark Twain and this book. Regardless, once I began reading (and rereading) this book, I often laughed out loud and was never able to put it down. 

Every once in a long while a book comes along that dramatically changes the way you think about things.

My number two book is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Written during a time when slavery was endemic in America, Twain’s book is written from Huck’s perspective, which is a very different perspective than my number 3 pick, James. 

This book is based on Huck’s story, but told from the perspective of Jim (or James), the slave who’s on the raft with Huck, heading downriver. In Twain’s book, Jim is definitely human and Huck is human for how both are treated, and how Huck treats Jim.

In James the man is entirely different—growing up a slave in a white man’s world, James needs to be careful. He’s intelligent, wily, incredibly human, and by the end of the book, free. 

Full disclosure: I love Minnesota’s North Shore (of Lake Superior). I visit there often. It’s rugged and beautiful and passionate.

Peter Geye’s latest book is an epic set on Minnesota’s North Shore early in the last century. But it features two tortured souls. One who cannot let himself be known. The other who is making the best of her incredibly limited options. One of the two rises to become the human she was intended to be. The other suffers a fate by his own misstep. 

Also full disclosure: I took Peter Geye’s year-long novel writing class the first year it was offered (2018). He was a phenomenal teacher, and clearly, as he demonstrates with his latest book, he’s a phenomenal writer.

There is so much excellent writing in this book, you’ll be stunned by much of it. Give it a try; you won’t be sorry. 

I love fiction and nonfiction and part of the reason I’ve included one of Krakauer’s books is because he’s an excellent author of nonfiction.

I feel like I needed to include a nonfiction book, and I’ve thought much about Krakauer’s book since reading it a decade ago.

This book has it all: a compelling story, murder, the history of a myth (the Mormon religion), the reasons for religious extremism, and more. It’s a great story, well told, within the kind of context you look for in a nonfiction book. And, like the other books on this list, it opened my eyes about many different perspectives.