Anthology

Huw Lewis-Jones's collection of fictional islands from literature, cartography, and mythology. Beautiful maps, wild stories, and a reminder that the impulse to imagine places that don't exist is as old as the impulse to explore places that do.

Julie Ellison's profiles of contemporary climbers — the people pushing the sport in new directions. Diverse voices, modern ethics, and climbing as culture rather than conquest.

Jonathan Waterman's profiles of the most influential climbers in North American history. Oral history meets biography, with Waterman's own mountaineering credentials lending authority to the portraits.

A collection of mountaineering writing selected by Peter Potterfield — the moments where courage and misfortune meet on the mountain. Classic accounts from the full range of climbing literature.

Bill Sherwonit's collection of writing about North America's highest peak — from indigenous accounts to modern expeditions. The mountain through many eyes.

Greg Child's selection of Everest writing — the best accounts of the world's highest peak, from Mallory to the modern era. An anthology that captures how the mountain changed, and how it didn't.

Huw Lewis-Jones's collection of field sketches by explorers, naturalists, and adventurers. Darwin's finches, Shackleton's ice, botanical illustrations from the Amazon. The drawings people made before cameras, when seeing meant drawing.

Peter Potterfield's collection of mountaineering writing about expeditions that didn't reach the summit. The failures are often more revealing than the successes — what happens when the mountain says no.

Peter Potterfield's collection of mountaineering survival narratives — the moments when everything goes wrong and the only option is to keep moving. Gripping and well-curated.

The comic side of climbing — collected stories of epic failures, absurd bivouacs, and the moments when the only appropriate response to a mountain is laughter.

An anthology of nature writing by people of color — voices that have been present in the landscape all along but absent from the genre. Essential correction to a tradition that has been overwhelmingly white.

Kolbert curates the best polar writing — from the heroic age to the climate crisis. Nansen, Cherry-Garrard, Lopez, and contemporary scientists, all gathered at the poles.

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.

An anthology of writing about the northern half of the PCT — the essays, fiction, and natural history tied to the trail's Oregon and Washington sections.

Field sketches from centuries of ocean voyaging — navigators, naturalists, and sailors drawing what they saw before cameras existed. Lewis-Jones curates the art of observation at sea.

Maps from fiction, fantasy, and imagination — Tolkien's Middle-earth, Stevenson's Treasure Island, and dozens of others. Lewis-Jones curates the cartography of places that exist only in books.