Here are 49 books that A Beautiful Work In Progress fans have personally recommended if you like
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I didn’t really take up hiking until I was in my 30s, but outdoor adventures have become a way of life. I love walking along a trail, marveling at my surroundings and wondering what new delight I’ll discover around the next bend or over the next hill. Upon turning 70, I tackled my most challenging walk yet – trekking over 250 miles along the spectacular South West Coast Path in Cornwall, England. I found the immersion in focusing solely on walking each day to be both meditative and uplifting. The books on this list reflect my love for the outdoors, with some inspiring me to try something new, while others I prefer to experience vicariously.
This fascinating history about hiking the Appalachian Trail spotlights a woman who demonstrated that age and gender aren't barriers to remarkable physical feats. Or should I say "feet"?
Grandma Gatewood was a pioneer, not only for women trekking alone, but for people of any age who set out on a journey others say isn’t possible for them. I was inspired by her story to take on a journey I thought would be marvelous, but beyond my capabilities. And I made it happen!
2014 National Outdoor Book Award Winner in History / Biography
Emma Gatewood told her family she was going on a walk and left her small Ohio hometown with a change of clothes and less than two hundred dollars. The next anybody heard from her, this genteel, farm-reared, sixty-seven-year-old great-grandmother had walked 800 miles along the 2,050-mile Appalachian Trail. By September 1955 she stood atop Maine’s Mount Katahdin, sang “America, the Beautiful,” and proclaimed, “I said I’ll do it, and I’ve done it.”
Driven by a painful marriage, Grandma Gatewood not only hiked the trail alone, she was the first person—man…
The Victorian mansion, Evenmere, is the mechanism that runs the universe.
The lamps must be lit, or the stars die. The clocks must be wound, or Time ceases. The Balance between Order and Chaos must be preserved, or Existence crumbles.
Appointed the Steward of Evenmere, Carter Anderson must learn the…
Jennifer Pharr Davis has covered over 14,000 miles - and explored trails on six different continents - and in all fifty states. In 2011 she set a record on the Appalachian Trail by covering 2,190 mile miles in 46 days (an average of 47 miles per day). Jennifer is a National Geographic Adventurer of the Year and a member of the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition.
Carol Ruckdeschel is one of the foremost naturalists of our time. The majority of her learning did not come from books or classrooms but from tens of thousands of hours spent outdoors studying animals and their environment. A book that leaves you feeling more wild.
Carol Ruckdeschel is the wildest woman in America. She wrestles alligators, eats roadkill, rides horses bareback, and lives in a ramshackle cabin that she built by hand in an island wilderness. A combination of Henry David Thoreau and Jane Goodall, Carol is a self-taught scientist who has become a tireless defender of sea turtles on Cumberland Island, a national park off the coast of Georgia.
Cumberland, the country’s largest and most biologically diverse barrier island, is celebrated for its windswept dunes and feral horses. Steel magnate Thomas Carnegie once owned much of the island, and in recent years, Carnegie heirs…
Outdoors has always been a nourishing place for me, even when I edged into risky or dangerous places, especially solo. When I got rid of my car (for financial reasons), I found my options to reach outdoor adventures limited. Soon after, I began working in transportation, tourism, and recreation and sought ways for everyone to access outdoor recreational opportunities, regardless of their abilities or any limiting barriers. Slow travel is broadly inclusive, enabling anyone to benefit from outdoor experiences and their transformative potential. Slow travel helped me feel less alone, more connected, more balanced emotionally, healthier physically, and more creative; it revealed the path to Love.
This book broadened my understanding of what it means for the outdoors to be a place where everyone feels they are welcome and belong. I felt Whitely’s discomfort and shame at being a tall, overweight woman among slender, fit climbers on Mt. Kilimanjaro.
I celebrated how she transformed shame into motivation. I could also feel the effort of lifting heavy legs at altitude. I appreciated her attention to the world around her, the guides, the camp staff, and the local language. She gave me a picture of the landscape, people, and sound of the place.
Kara knew she could reach the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro. She had done it once before. That's why, when she failed in a second attempt, it brought her so low. As she struggled with food addiction and looked for ways to cope with feelings of failure and shame, Kara's weight shot to more than 300 pounds. Deep in her personal gorge, Kara realized the only way out was up. She resolved to climb the mountain again,and this time, she would reach the summit without waiting for her plus-sized status to disappear. Gorge: My Journey Up Kilimanjaro at 300 Pounds is…
The Guardian of the Palace is the first novel in a modern fantasy series set in a New York City where magic is real—but hidden, suppressed, and dangerous when exposed.
When an ancient magic begins to leak into the world, a small group of unlikely allies is forced to act…
I’m a former indoor kid and big-city girl, and I never imagined I’d wind up spending months of each year pooping in the woods—by choice! But walking all day every day on footpaths through the wilderness has become one of the greatest loves of my life, and I’m so glad to have books by other adventurous folks to keep me company when I’m back at home. I’ve written two of these books myself: How To Be Alone and What We Owe to Ourselves. I also write a weekly newsletter called Wild Letters, where I share honest stories of self-exploration both on and off the trail.
This story of Heather’s record-setting hike on the Appalachian Trail absolutely blew my mind: 2,180 miles in just 54 days!
I was so enthralled by the grit it takes to push yourself to this kind of extreme (through rain, sleep deprivation, physical deterioration, and more), which combined with Heather’s raw honesty about her initial lack of self-belief just made me want to root for her louder and louder.
I’m forever fascinated by chosen suffering—why we often crave hard things and how the pursuit of them changes us—and this no-holds-barred look into the world of competitive hiking was a delight to read.
Despite her success setting a self-supported Fastest Known Time record on the Pacific Crest Trail in 2013, Heather “Anish” Anderson still had such deep-seated insecurities that she became convinced her feat had been a fluke. So two years later she set out again, this time hiking through mud, rocks, and mountain blazes to crush her constant self-doubt and seek the true source of her strength and purpose.
The 2,180 miles of the Appalachian Trail, from Maine to Georgia, did not make it easy. Anderson struggled with its infamous rain, humidity, insects, and steep grades for 54 days. But because she…
Outdoors has always been a nourishing place for me, even when I edged into risky or dangerous places, especially solo. When I got rid of my car (for financial reasons), I found my options to reach outdoor adventures limited. Soon after, I began working in transportation, tourism, and recreation and sought ways for everyone to access outdoor recreational opportunities, regardless of their abilities or any limiting barriers. Slow travel is broadly inclusive, enabling anyone to benefit from outdoor experiences and their transformative potential. Slow travel helped me feel less alone, more connected, more balanced emotionally, healthier physically, and more creative; it revealed the path to Love.
Before reading this book, I thought the most inclusive version of the slow travel principle of micro-travel and mindfulness was going outside and experiencing the weather. But because of a mysterious illness that left her bedridden, Bailey could not go outside nor look out the window. Yet, she wrote about the habits and hijinks of a tiny snail a friend brought her in a pot of violets.
I loved that Bailey found snail “bites” on paper and then explained how a snail’s mouth works and why the hole in the paper was square-shaped. The snail becomes Bailey’s connection to the outdoors (or wildness), where she finds hope and agency. My lesson: a terrarium can be as (or more) therapeutic to someone’s spirit as walking Spain’s Camino de Santiago.
While an illness keeps her bedridden, Elisabeth Bailey watches a wild snail that has taken up residence in a terrarium alongside her bed. She enters the rhythm of life of this mysterious creature, and comes to a greater understanding of her own confined place in the world. In a work that beautifully demonstrates the rewards of closely observing nature, she shares the inspiring and intimate story of her close encounter with Neohelix albolabris - a common woodland snail.
Intrigued by the snail's world - from its strange anatomy to its mysterious courtship activities - she becomes a fascinated and amused…
Outdoors has always been a nourishing place for me, even when I edged into risky or dangerous places, especially solo. When I got rid of my car (for financial reasons), I found my options to reach outdoor adventures limited. Soon after, I began working in transportation, tourism, and recreation and sought ways for everyone to access outdoor recreational opportunities, regardless of their abilities or any limiting barriers. Slow travel is broadly inclusive, enabling anyone to benefit from outdoor experiences and their transformative potential. Slow travel helped me feel less alone, more connected, more balanced emotionally, healthier physically, and more creative; it revealed the path to Love.
I loved the voice and turns of phrase in this book. Signing up for the Mongolian Derby (a ten-day horse race on 25 different semi-wild ponies across 1000km of Mongolia) seemed like a lark for nineteen-year-old Prior-Palmer. Knowing at the outset she won the race kept me turning the page to discover how the hell someone who seemed more squirrel than human accomplished such a feat.
Some of my favorite parts were when she tuned into the ponies she rode and imagined what they had to say. I kept thinking her positivity, humor, care for the ponies, and willingness to embrace Mongolian culture and hospitality were the secret weapons to get her across the finish line.
"Think the next Educated or Wild. Palmer’s memoir of beating the odds to become a horse champion is an inspiring saga of perseverance—and a classic underdog tale." —Entertainment Weekly
At the age of nineteen, Lara Prior–Palmer discovered a website devoted to “the world’s longest, toughest horse race”―an annual competition of endurance and skill that involves dozens of riders racing a series of twenty–five wild ponies across 1,000 kilometers of Mongolian grassland. On a whim, she decided to enter the race. As she boarded a plane to East Asia, she was utterly unprepared for what awaited her.
Aury and Scott travel to the Finger Lakes in New York’s wine country to get to the bottom of the mysterious happenings at the Songscape Winery. Disturbed furniture and curious noises are one thing, but when a customer winds up dead, it’s time to dig into the details and see…
Outdoors has always been a nourishing place for me, even when I edged into risky or dangerous places, especially solo. When I got rid of my car (for financial reasons), I found my options to reach outdoor adventures limited. Soon after, I began working in transportation, tourism, and recreation and sought ways for everyone to access outdoor recreational opportunities, regardless of their abilities or any limiting barriers. Slow travel is broadly inclusive, enabling anyone to benefit from outdoor experiences and their transformative potential. Slow travel helped me feel less alone, more connected, more balanced emotionally, healthier physically, and more creative; it revealed the path to Love.
Yes, give me one woman adventuring on a bike. Yes, have her be a nerd (or a geek or whatever)! Yes, have her teach me fun words about butterfly bugs, like frass, imago, instar, and eclose. Yes, have her take me to a mountain forest in Mexico where butterflies hang from trees like moss. Yes, the journey is the destination.
I applaud Dykman’s awareness of resource use, climate change, and connecting the whole sphere of human influence to ecology and the effect that has on the miraculous migration lifecycle of eastern monarch butterflies. It blows my mind that a little bug somehow knows to fly from Mexico to Canada and back when it takes three to four generations to do so.
Sara Dykman made history when she became the first person to bicycle alongside monarch butterflies on their storied annual migration-a round-trip adventure that included three countries and more than 10,000 miles. Equally remarkable, she did it solo, on a bike cobbled together from used parts.
In Bicycling with Butterflies-praised as "poetic" (Publishers Weekly) and called "a collective cry for climate action" (Booklist)-Dykman recounts her incredible journey. We're beside her as she navigates unmapped roads in foreign countries, checks roadside milkweed for monarch eggs, and shares her passion with eager schoolchildren, skeptical bar patrons, and unimpressed border officials. We also meet…
An internationally recognized endurance athlete and New York Times bestselling author, Dean Karnazes has pushed his body and mind to inconceivable limits. Among his many accomplishments, he has run 350 continuous miles, foregoing sleep for three nights. He's run across Death Valley in 120-degree temperatures, and run a marathon to the South Pole in negative 40 degrees. On ten different occasions, he's run a 200-mile relay race solo, racing alongside teams of twelve. His long list of competitive achievements include winning the world's toughest footrace, the Badwater Ultramarathon, running 135 miles nonstop across Death Valley during the middle of summer. His most recent endeavor was running 50 marathons, in all 50 US states, in 50 consecutive days, finishing with the NYC Marathon, which he ran in three hours flat.
To say Charlie Engle has led a colorful life would be putting things mildly. An addict and alcoholic, after nearly losing his life to a hail of bullets, Charlie turned to running as his savior.
After a decade-long addiction to crack cocaine and alcohol, Charlie Engle hit rock bottom after a near-fatal six-day binge ended in a hail of bullets. Then he found running, and it has helped keep him sober, focused and alive. He began to take on the most extreme endurance races, such as the 155-mile Gobi March, and developed a reputation as an inspirational speaker. However, after he made the documentary Running the Sahara, narrated by Matt Damon, which followed him on a 4500-mile crossing of the desert and helped raise $6 million, he was sent to prison after failing to complete…
When I was a journalist, writing about health and fitness for women’s magazines and national newspapers, I had a strong sense that much of the advice being doled out by personal trainers and other ‘experts’ was dubious, to say the least. I decided to see for myself, embarking on an Exercise and Sport Science degree and training as a running coach. Two decades on, with a handful of running books and a 13-year-strong column in Runner’s World to my name, I still like to delve into the science underpinning physical activity to see if it really stands up, and if so, for who, and under what circumstances?
This must be one of the most widely read running books. For good reason – it’s a great read – exciting story, quirky characters – by an excellent journalist.
But at the heart of it lies one question: ‘Why does my foot hurt?’ McDougall’s quest to find out, his deep dive into the evidence underpinning many accepted aspects of the ‘science’ of running, is what influenced me as a runner, and as a coach.
Why do runners wear built-up shoes? Why do runners only move their bodies in one plane of motion and expect to have all-round fitness? Why do so many people lose the joy in running? Why don’t we eat salad for breakfast? If you read this book, and change nothing about your running, I’ll be surprised.
At the heart of Born to Run lies a mysterious tribe of Mexican Indians, the Tarahumara, who live quietly in canyons and are reputed to be the best distance runners in the world; in 1993, one of them, aged 57, came first in a prestigious 100-mile race wearing a toga and sandals. A small group of the world's top ultra-runners (and the awe-inspiring author) make the treacherous journey into the canyons to try to learn the tribe's secrets and then take them on over a course 50 miles long.
With incredible energy and smart observation, McDougall tells this story while…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
I think that we’re all a Work In Progress whatever our relative levels of success so I’m drawn to people who share that belief, are way out there and are still working on their own stuff. Especially if they’ve managed to do so without becoming a righteous arse in the process.
‘Cos I want reasons to be reminded how incredible it can be to use as much of what we’ve been given and be ALIVE in every sense of the word. I want to keep learning and growing and getting stronger and faster and more bombproof and compassionate and connected as I moved through my fifth decade and beyond. These books really resonate with me – I hope they will for you too.
Britain used to be a hotbed of marathon talent that ruled the world over 26.2 miles decades before Lottery funding. This is a collection of 21 interviews of men and women who left their mark on the sport often by force of will alone. For those of us who grew up watching these people – and I was one - this is the how and why they did it which at the time was the bit that was never really in the spotlight. So it squares the circle for me. And for those of you who came later – welcome to Old School…
After the running boom of the 1980s, British marathon running standards gradually started to decline. This was despite the continued advancements in scientific backup, training methods, equipment, full-time professionalism and sponsorship. As a consequence, in the late 1990s, Gabrielle Collison decided to research the factors as to why this was happening and conducted interviews with some of the top British marathon runners from the previous era. Interviewees include London Marathon winners: Hugh Jones, Mike Gratton, Veronique Marot and Joyce Smith; Olympic bronze medallist, Charlie Spedding; and several other "Big City" marathon winners. The stories about their lifestyles and training make…
