Here are 100 books that Song of the Paddle fans have personally recommended if you like
Song of the Paddle.
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As a longtime outdoors editor of a Mississippi newspaper, I actually got paid to paddle local rivers. Over the decades, I expanded my territory to adjacent states, the South, the continent, and other countries. I parlayed my experiences into several books on rivers. As a paddler and writer, I naturally love to read about adventures on the water–not only classics like Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi River and Paul Theroux's Happy Isles of Oceania but also the many less-known but highly praiseworthy books like those listed here.
Scott and I started canoeing together back in the 1980s. Then he ventured into sea kayaking. After discovering how much he loved the vessel and how seaworthy it was, Scott–young and single at the time–decided to kayak across the Caribbean. I accompanied him on a shakedown cruise, but being happily married and gainfully employed, I let him go for the rest alone.
The result, recorded in this book, is a mind-boggling adventure: rammed by sharks, stormbound, stung by Portuguese man-o-war, camping on uninhabited islands, spearfishing, and more. He hitched rides on sailboats for the dangerously long passages but otherwise took his time exploring islands, concluding at a place aptly called Bitter End.
Tourists visit popular islands of the Caribbean by the planeload. What they don't see from their resort hotels are the hundreds of out-of-the-way, uninhabited islands sprinkled along the West Indies from Florida to South America. This alluring archipelago, strung with beaches accessible only by boat but spaced temptingly close together, led Mississippi adventurer Scott B. Williams to embark upon an open-ended quest to see how far south he could go in a seventeen-foot sea kayak. No one was willing to accompany him. He spent months working his way down the west coast of Florida, through the Bahamas, and on to…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
As a longtime outdoors editor of a Mississippi newspaper, I actually got paid to paddle local rivers. Over the decades, I expanded my territory to adjacent states, the South, the continent, and other countries. I parlayed my experiences into several books on rivers. As a paddler and writer, I naturally love to read about adventures on the water–not only classics like Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi River and Paul Theroux's Happy Isles of Oceania but also the many less-known but highly praiseworthy books like those listed here.
Johnny Molloy is surely one of the most prolific outdoor authors ever, with 85 books to his credit so far. Most of those are regional guidebooks, but he has also written a few first-person narratives of his journeys.
This one describes his canoe and kayak trip down the Suwannee River and along Florida's southwest coast to the Everglades. His down-to-earth style really puts you there.
I met Johnny when he was writing a guidebook to Mississippi's hiking trails. After a riverbank lunch of sardines, crackers, and sweet tea, we fired up cigars and swapped yarns. He was just like he sounds in his books–humble and down-to-earth.
Johnny Molloy, author of several best-selling outdoor guides to Florida, is always game for adventure. In his latest, he travels the Sunshine State from north to south along some of its most famous rivers, swamps, salt marshes, and open waters in search of Florida's disappearing history. This personal travelogue of his two-month expedition begins in a canoe at the Okefenokee Swamp, headwaters of Florida's best-known river. Paddling the dark Suwannee, Molloy curves through the scenic and sometimes wild Big Shoals, past sparkling clear springs - Troy and Turtle and Rock Bluff and more - to the Gulf of Mexico, where…
As a longtime outdoors editor of a Mississippi newspaper, I actually got paid to paddle local rivers. Over the decades, I expanded my territory to adjacent states, the South, the continent, and other countries. I parlayed my experiences into several books on rivers. As a paddler and writer, I naturally love to read about adventures on the water–not only classics like Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi River and Paul Theroux's Happy Isles of Oceania but also the many less-known but highly praiseworthy books like those listed here.
I could have selected any of Don Jackson's four books for this list. Each is a collection of essays about his outdoor adventures spanning locations from Arkansas to Alaska to Borneo. Many, if not most, of the places he writes about involve rivers, which is unsurprising since he's a retired fisheries professor.
I met Don when I was researching a river for a newspaper article. We hit it off and made several canoe trips together. While his books reveal his considerable knowledge of biology, hunting, and fishing, what really sets them apart is a strong sense of the spiritual, as the subtitle of this book indicates.
In Deeper Currents, Donald C. Jackson guides us on a journey into the cathedrals of wild and lonely places, those sacred spaces where hunters and fishers connect with the rhythms of the earth and the spirit that resonates within us. Jackson explores hunting and fishing as frameworks - sacraments - for discovering, engaging, and finding meaning. He invites readers to consider connections with wilder realms of being.
Hunting squirrels on an autumn morning, probing the woods, rifle in hand, Jackson reveals an attention to nature too often neglected. Following a bird dog into the damp and mysterious places where woodcock…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
As a longtime outdoors editor of a Mississippi newspaper, I actually got paid to paddle local rivers. Over the decades, I expanded my territory to adjacent states, the South, the continent, and other countries. I parlayed my experiences into several books on rivers. As a paddler and writer, I naturally love to read about adventures on the water–not only classics like Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi River and Paul Theroux's Happy Isles of Oceania but also the many less-known but highly praiseworthy books like those listed here.
I grew up near the Mississippi River, and my father and older brother worked on it for many years, so I was thrilled to run across this in-depth look at the world they inhabited. As the wife of a riverboat pilot, Melody Golding had unparalleled access to the inner workings of river life.
Over the course of a decade, she interviewed more than 100 men and women and let them tell their own stories. An acclaimed photographer, she illustrated this project with fabulous color photos. Thanks to her, I got to ride along the vessels that ply the Mississippi and other waterways, just like my dad and brother once did.
Life Between the Levees is a chronicle of first-person reflections and folklore from pilots who have dedicated their lives to the river. The stories are as diverse as the storytellers themselves, and the volume is full of drama, suspense, and a way of life a "landlubber" could never imagine. Although waterways and ports in the Mississippi corridor move billions of dollars of products throughout the US and foreign markets, in today's world those who live and work on land have little knowledge of the river and the people who work there.
In ten years of interviewing, Melody Golding collected over…
My parents joined an evangelical cult when I was ten years old, and I was taught to fear everything, to truly believe I was an evil child, and that God wanted rule-following, humble servants who cowered before him. When I tried to rebel, I was punished and sent away to a cult camp in Colorado where a creepy pastor exhorted us daily. I finally escaped the cult for good when I was 17, but it took a long, long time to recover. Now, along with writing dark novels, I teach wilderness survival and the neuroscience of survival, and I try to apply my knowledge and skills when writing my characters in theAmerican Afterlife series.
Any Peter Heller novel will work here—The Dog Stars, The Painter, etc.—butThe River is really interesting for a few reasons: Heller pushes his characters into the unknown on a river that serves both as a literal symbol and a propulsive, metaphorical symbol. There’s no way to backtrack on a river, so his two friends can’t go backwards. Then we add in the imminent danger of a forest fire and the creepy people also on the river with them, and the whole entire mix is scary!
ONE OF THE OBSERVER THRILLERS OF THE YEAR: 'GLORIOUS PROSE AND RAZOR-SHARP TENSION'
'LYRICAL AND ACTION-PACKED' Guardian 'I COULDN'T TURN THE PAGES FAST ENOUGH' Clare Mackintosh 'IMPOSSIBLE TO PUT DOWN, OR FORGET' Sunday Mirror 'GLORIOUS DRAMA AND LYRICAL FLAIR Denise Mina, New York Times
Two friends Wynn and Jack have been best friends since their first day of college, brought together by their shared love the great outdoors.
The adventure of a lifetime When they decide to canoe down the Maskwa River in northern Canada, they anticipate the ultimate wilderness experience: no phones, no fellow travellers, no way of going…
I have always been fascinated with stories about women who step outside the norm and accomplish their goals. Books that tell of girls who are shy or insecure, but find inner strength in the face of adversity, inspire me. My mother wasn’t afraid to guide me toward these stories when I was young, and I gave books with this theme to my daughters as well. It doesn’t matter where you start from, it only matters where you think you can go, and I love books that share this idea; especially stories of women who do amazing and unexpected things.
This book is about sixteen-year-old Katherine Mary O’Fallon, who early in the twentieth century, moves to Canada to recover from an extended illness. She falls in love with a six-foot-tall sergeant in the Canadian Mounted Police, Mike Flanigan—a man of courage, kindness, and humor. They marry, and overnight the couple travels for days by dog sled, as Mike is to become a combination of police, doctor, and mayor of a small community in the harsh, unforgiving Canadian Northern Territory.
This story shows life in the untamed Northern Territory through the eyes of Kathy. Even though she is afraid and completely oblivious to the adventures before her, she faces her new life head-on. Through the kindness and calm positivity of her husband, Kathy heals from her illness, learns self-reliance, and finds an inner strength she didn’t know she possessed. The love story is sweet and the descriptions of life…
A classic and wholesome romantic tale that has enchanted millions of readers worldwide, Mrs. Mike brings the fierce, stunning landscape of the Great North to life—and masterfully evokes the tender, touching moments that bring a man and a woman together forever.
Recently arrived in Calgary, Alberta after a long, hard journey from Boston, sixteen-year-old Katherine Mary O’Fallon never imagined that she could lose her heart so easily—or so completely. Standing over six feet tall, with “eyes so blue you could swim in them,” Mike Flannigan is a well-respected sergeant in the Canadian Mounted Police—and a man of great courage, kindness,…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
I am an aficionado of lost objects, lost time, afterlives; of writing which never “fitted” its era. Examples would be that of John Aubrey, Herman Melville, Fernando Pessoa, Djuna Barnes, Elizabeth Hardwick, Ralph Ellison… the list goes on. I look for writing that has stood the test of time, not celebrated for the fame and bling of the moment. I look for the futile products of those who possessed genius, but who never earned enough readers until decades or centuries later, once they were released from the prison-house of genre. I look for the posthumous brilliance of language; the phosphoric glow of its offerings and of the buried treasures found therein.
I just love the way she is so contemptuous of people telling false “stories”. Her writing falls between every genre imaginable, a collage of well-researched facts and the indelible list of the horrors of war. She makes lists as monuments to dead victims; she names names; she calls out nationalism and racism. Wry and ironic, she has composed a battle-hymn against the barbarity of the Yugoslav wars between 1991 and 2001. To my lasting regret, I missed meeting her in Melbourne not long before she died.
Tea Radan, the narrator of the novel Canzone di Guerra, reflects on her own past and in doing so, composes a forgotten mosaic of historical events that she wants to first tear apart and then reassemble with all the missing fragments. In front of the readers eyes, a collage of different genres takes place - from (pseudo) autobiography to documentary material and culinary recipes. With them, the author Dasa Drndic skillfully explores different perspectives on the issue of emigration, the unresolved history of the Second World War, while emphasizing the absurdity of politics of differences between neighboring nations. The narrator…
I’m a writer/artist inspired by a lifetime of reading graphic novels. A visual artist at heart with a BFA in Industrial Design I have worked over a decade in conceptual thinking for research and development in the manufacturing sector. I love the experimentation that breaks the boring norms of industry standards. I wanted to use my talent, experience, and passion to create a sci-fi graphic novel, Bear Serum, and break the medium norms. I wrote and drew it to satiate my own wild ideas in the sci-fi category to push the medium further.
I picked this book up on a whim, I’m glad I did. It was a pleasant surprise with no expectations. A simple, easy-to-read story with art guiding you frame by frame from artist Ann Xu. The smooth art guides you through the effortless story. It shines a light from a different perspective of life. It is soft, warm, and enlightening as we question death around the corner (especially close for the elderly woman in this story who literally vacuums up death). If you are looking for something different from a harsh dystopian/superhero graphic novel, pick up Shadow Life.
I suggest that you read this one on a Sunday morning.
When Kumiko's well-meaning adult daughters place her in an assisted living home the seventy-six-year-old widow gives it a try, but it's not where she wants to be. She goes on the lam and finds a cosy bachelor apartment, keeping the location secret even while communicating online with her eldest daughter. Kumiko revels in the small, daily pleasures: decorating as she pleases, eating what she wants, and swimming in the community pool. But something has followed her from her former residence - Death's shadow.
Kumiko's sweet life is shattered when Death's shadow swoops in to collect her. With her quick mind…
When I first enrolled in college, I expected to be a science major who was also interested in history, but I ended up becoming a history major who was also interested in science. I earned my Ph.D. in history from George Washington University in Washington, DC, after earning my B.A. from Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. My Ph.D. dissertation on the U.S. Army Chemical Warfare Service during WWI and the 1920s became the basis for my book Behind the Gas Mask.
This book provides an answer to a question that historians of arms control have asked since WWII ended: Why had the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield not become widespread in WWII, in the same manner it had in WWI? Focusing on Britain, Canada, and the United States, Holding Their Breath explores Allied reluctance to use chemical weapons and their formulation of a joint policy on chemical warfare. M. Girard Dorsey shows that the potential for chemical warfare in WWII profoundly influenced the course of the war’s events.
Holding Their Breath uncovers just how close Britain, the United States, and Canada came to crossing the red line that restrained chemical weapon use during World War II. Unlike World War I, belligerents did not release poison gas regularly during the Second World War. Yet, the looming threat of chemical warfare significantly affected the actions and attitudes of these three nations as they prepared their populations for war, mediated their diplomatic and military alliances, and attempted to defend their national identities and sovereignty.
The story of chemical weapons and World War II begins in the interwar period as governments and…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I’m a journalist in Edmonton, Canada, who covered former premier Jason Kenney’s rise through Alberta politics, in which he tapped into the populist zeitgeist of Donald Trump and Brexit, and his eventual implosion. I have a newsletter on Substack, "The Orchard," where I cover the intersection of politics, the media, and corporate power. Through my journalism, I’ve developed a keen interest in this age of mass discontent we find ourselves in, with right-wing political and economic elites promising to blow up the entire system they embody while feckless liberal politicians seek to tinker around the edges to make the established order more palatable.
I regard Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as the embodiment of an empty progressive politics that is far more concerned with style over substance.
Martin Lukacs does a great job in The Trudeau Formula of outlining how Trudeau’s combination of soaring rhetoric and tepid reform on issues like economic inequality, Indigenous reconciliation, and the climate crisis works to stave off the more systemic changes needed to address these concerns in a substantive way.
Lukacs aptly demonstrates how Trudeau serves to uphold the status quo while presenting himself as an agent of transformative change.
"The book is not a biography of Justin Trudeau, nor is it a treatment of the minutiae and manoeuvres of party politics. It is an investigation into how the Liberal government governs in the shadow of a silent, multi-decade corporate coup in Ottawa that dares not speak its name. It tells the hidden history of how the Liberal party has served as the most effective vehicle for implementing deeply unpopular neoliberal policies--and how Justin Trudeau continues this agenda today."--
