California

Richard Olsen's photographic history of surfing's most creative era — the shortboard revolution, the North Shore, the counterculture years when surfing was both a sport and a philosophy. The images alone justify the book.

Alex Honnold's account of his free solo of El Capitan and other death-defying climbs, co-written with David Roberts. Honnold is the most famous rock climber alive and also one of the most unusual minds — his calm in the face of certain death is either inspiring or terrifying, depending on your relationship with gravity.

McPhee on the plate tectonics that built California — a state assembled from island arcs, ocean floor, and continental fragments smashed together over hundreds of millions of years. Earthquakes are not anomalies; they're the sound of the assembly still in progress.

Kerouac's dark, boozy novel about a crack-up in a cabin on the California coast. Not the Beat celebration people expect — it's a book about a man coming apart, and the Pacific Ocean doesn't care. The descriptions of Big Sur's landscape are some of the most visceral he ever wrote.

Steve Roper's memoir of the golden age of Yosemite climbing — the 1960s and '70s, when Camp 4 was a republic of dirtbags and every big wall was a first ascent. The stories are legendary. The writing is unpretentious and exact.

Daniel Duane's memoir of a year spent surfing in Santa Cruz. Literary, self-aware, and honest about the gap between the surfer he wanted to be and the surfer he was. One of the few surf books that reads as well on land as it does in the water.

Lynn Hill free-climbed the Nose of El Capitan in 1993 — a feat many thought impossible. Her memoir covers that historic ascent and the decades of climbing that led to it, from Yosemite's Camp 4 to limestone cliffs in France. Matter-of-fact about achievements that changed the sport.

Kerouac's novel about mountain climbing, Buddhism, and the search for meaning in postwar America is looser and warmer than On the Road. Based on his friendship with Gary Snyder (thinly disguised as Japhy Ryder), it captures a moment when wilderness and spiritual practice converged in the American imagination.

Chris Dixon's investigation of Cortes Bank — a submerged island 100 miles off San Diego that produces some of the largest waves on earth. Part surf history, part oceanography, part story of the obsessives who chase waves that could kill them.

In Watkins’ poetic and post-apocalyptic debut, a relentless wave of sand called the Amargosa Dune Sea drifts across the southwest, swallowing whole everything in its path—including, if they’re not careful, young lovers Luz and Ray, along with a child they rescued while fleeing Los Angeles. Sure, it’s just a novel, but where people were once drawn west for its titular trio, this dystopian spin on the effects of climate change offers a chilling preview of what might eventually drive us out.

Scott O'Dell's children's novel about a girl stranded alone on an island off the California coast for eighteen years. Based on the true story of the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island. Simple, devastating, and one of the books that made a generation of readers care about wildness.

Peter Heller — who wrote Hell or High Water — learns to surf in his forties. The humility of being a beginner, the ocean's indifference to your credentials, and the joy of catching a wave badly. Warm and self-deprecating.

Yvon Chouinard's business memoir and environmental manifesto. How a blacksmith who made climbing gear in his garage built Patagonia into a billion-dollar company without abandoning his principles. The most influential outdoor business book ever written.

Daniel Duane's memoir of a year spent climbing in Yosemite and exploring the West after college. Young, restless, and hungry for rock. Duane writes about climbing the way he writes about surfing — with literary self-awareness and genuine love for the sport.

John Soennichsen's collection of stories from Death Valley — the people, the history, the extreme environment. A portrait of the hottest, driest, lowest place in North America and the strange attraction it holds.

John Muir's journal of his first summer in the Sierra Nevada in 1869 — the trip that converted him from wanderer to prophet. The ecstasy is genuine. The prose is rapturous. The mountains are still there.

Jordan Fisher Smith spent fourteen years as a ranger in the American River canyons — the land that was supposed to be flooded by Auburn Dam but never was. He write from a place of great knowing about a landscape caught between preservation and neglect, with meth labs, murders, drownings, and wildfire countered by moments of wonder.

Jaimal Yogis caps off a wild and tumultuous youth by running away to Hawaii, where he chases his dreams of living on the beach and riding warm, tropical waves. But his rebellious adventure soon transforms into an inward-facing journey, as he unexpectedly commits to the study of mindfulness and meditation. In his resulting travels from Buddhist monasteries to infamous surf breaks, Yogis explores the parallels between mindfulness and surfing, and he finds equanimity in the whole-hearted pursuit of both.

A surf noir novel set in Huntington Beach — murder, drugs, and waves. Dark, propulsive, and the best fictional treatment of Southern California surf culture ever written.

If you’ve studied outdoor education, you’ve learned about heuristic traps: human factors like leadership trust or summit fever that affect decision-making. Should you make a move in the storm or wait it out? And if you can only choose one, do you eat your friend’s heart, liver, or brains? Hmmm. Many think of the Donner Party as a distant textbook chapter, but historian Michael Wallis brings new life—and death—to the survival saga. As the 1846-47 winter snowdrifts pile up to twenty-two feet in the eastern Sierra, you’ll feel like you’re there, shivering under wool blankets, eating through the rations until it’s live mice on the menu, then shoe leather, then pet dogs, then…Samuel Shoemaker’s arm. Out of the eighty-seven migrants who started, only forty-six survived. Would you have done anything differently? With maps, photos, and diary excerpts, this full-bodied chronicle invites you to jump on the wagon train and consider the question for yourself.

Burkard's photography of surfing the California coast — from the Oregon border to the Mexican border, every break along the way.

Life on the Farallon Islands — 27 miles off San Francisco, surrounded by the densest population of great white sharks on earth. Casey spent time with the researchers who study them, and her account of shark behavior is both terrifying and awe-inducing.

Marc Andreini shapes surfboards in Santa Barbara the way his mentors did — by hand, from foam and fiberglass, one at a time. A collage of stories from a community built around craft and waves.

The story behind the free solo of El Capitan — not just the climb itself but the years of preparation, the community of Yosemite climbers, and the question of what drives someone to attempt something with no margin for error.

A backcountry ranger disappeared in the Sierra Nevada in 1996. This investigation into his life and disappearance is also a portrait of the kind of person who chooses to live alone in the mountains — brilliant, difficult, and drawn to places where the maps end.

Lest you think Cheryl Strayed holds some sort of monopoly on waxing poetic about the Pacific Crest Trail, this anthology will disavow you of that notion. A mix of historical interludes, short stories by esteemed nature writers like Mary Austin and Barry Lopez, and journal-esque musings from regular ol’ hikerfolk, this collection proves that while a trail can be defined as a simple dirt path between Points A and B, its truer meaning can be found within the people who choose to walk its length.

Ever wonder what it’s like to be Alex Honnold’s mom? According to Wolownick, who began climbing in her mid-50s as a way to spend time with her famous rockhound son, it’s not as scary as you’d think. In fact, it ends up kind of inspiring you to achieve the unthinkable, like becoming the oldest woman (at age 66) to summit Yosemite’s iconic El Capitan. Turns out that when your kid is a poster child for fearlessness, you might just adopt that mentality yourself.

Fletcher's first long walk — from the Mexican border to Mount Whitney, through the desert and up into the Sierra. The book that proved a man could walk a thousand miles and write about it without boring you.

Dana shipped out of Boston as a common sailor in 1834 and wrote the most vivid account of seafaring life in the age of sail. The California coast before the gold rush, described by a Harvard man doing manual labor.

A memoir of regenerative ranching, wildness, and the rewilding of a life. Markegard raises livestock in partnership with the land — predators included.