Letters

Reloading the Canon

Thanks for "The Outside Canon" (May). Many of my favorite books in the genre were validated in ways more eloquent than I could have stated, and several of the works with which I was unfamiliar will soon grace my bookshelves (backpack, dry bag, truck seat). I expect you'll receive a number of letters pointing out the omission of your readers' favorites, and I hope mine isn't the only one noting the absence of one of our language's most prolific adventurers, Robert Service.

Kirby Williams
Hot Springs, Arkansas

"The Outside Canon" provided some great suggestions for future reading and confirmed my thoughts on some truly classic books. However, you failed to include any of Colin Fletcher's works. Surely The Complete Walker, The Man Who Walked Through Time, or The Thousand-Mile Summer (Random House Trade) should have made the list. I look forward to "The Outside Canon II."

Jeffrey Bauman
Gibsonia, Pennsylvania

I'd like to recommend Timothy Egan's The Good Rain: Across Time and Terrain in the Pacific Northwest (Random House Trade) for the next edition of "The Outside Canon." It's both a personal journey and a natural history of the Pacific Northwest and should be required reading for everyone living in the region--and highly recommended for all who come to visit.

Joanne Polayes-Wien
Seattle, Washington

You knew it would happen: people like me, wanting to make all sorts of additions to the list of travel tomes found in "The Outside Canon." With all due respect, you missed the boat--so to speak--by not including A Boat in Our Baggage: Around the World with a Kayak, by Maria Coffey (Little, Brown).

Brett Birier
Bristol, Vermont

Sigurd Olson's Wilderness Days (Knopf) would have been a great addition to "The Outside Canon." To my mind, for his images of the outdoor world, Olson has no equal, even among such modern masters as Barry Lopez.

Ken Silver
Oakland, California

The problem with list-making is that there will always be those who will quibble with your selections. Count me among them. I would have included Charles Wilkinson's Crossing the Next Meridian: Land, Water and the Future of the West (Island Press) in your roundup of great books. Every person who cares about the American West should read this book.

Andrew Mergen
Boulder, Colorado

The U.S. army field manual 21-76, Survival, would have worked well in your "How-To Bibles" section. Compiled by Green Berets, it's one of the few field manuals that isn't used to cure insomnia, and it's actually well written.

G. Peek Smith Jr.
Fort Rucker, Alabama

Terrific reading list! but how could you miss Young Men and Fire (University of Chicago Press), Norman Maclean's wonderful reconstruction--more like a reliving--of the deaths of 12 smokejumpers in Montana's 1949 Mann Gulch fire?

Fred Andrews
Scarsdale, New York

The editors reply: We may have missed the boat, but we didn't miss Young Men and Fire. Space constraints forced us to include only one work per writer, and so we opted for Maclean's A River Runs Through It instead. We appreciate all the suggestions we've received and promise to keep them in mind for future editions of "The Outside Canon."

We welcome your comments. address correspondence to the letters editor, Outside, 400 Market St., Santa Fe, NM 87501, or send e-mail (letters@outsidemag.com). please include your full name and address. letters may be edited for clarity and space.