[at-l] Book list for the holidays.....

[baltimorejack@hotmail.com (Jack Tarlin)]

To William Neal---

   Tou asked for some trekking/walking books.  Here are a few ideas, a few 
things I've been reading recently.  Some of 'em have been mentioned here 
before, I think they're all great.

   All three are artctic/antarctic survival works.  Dunno why I'm reading 
all of these now; maybe when you're marking time waiting to freeze your butt 
off in another miserable New Hampshire winter, it's gratifying to read about 
some poor miserable S.O.B. who's got it worse than you.  It puts things 
marvelously into perspective.

   The first is "In the Land of White Death" by Valerian Albanov, a 
Shackleton-like tale of a ship stuck in pack ice and what resulted.

   The next is "The Long Walk" by Slavomir Rawicz, about a walk for survival 
across Siberia.  This guy makes Shackleton, who I admire greatly, look like 
a candy-ass.

   Last is "Mawson's Will" by Lennard Bickel, a survival tale about Douglas 
Mawson, whose experience on Antartica is considered by some to be the 
greatest polar survival story of all time.  If Rawicz makes Shackleton a 
lightweight, then Mawson makes Rawicz' trip look like a day on the beach.  
Parts of this book are so harrowing that I kept an excerpt with me on all of 
my hikes---whenever things got really tough, I'd sit down and read it, and 
all of a sudden the Trail didn't seem to hard.  Re-reading a little Mawson 
was a great remedy whenever I got tempted to wuss out and go the hell home.

    Anyway, these 3 are great, and will make your thru-hike seem like a 
piece of cake.  And if the cold turns you off, then here's one from a warmer 
clime---pick up a copy of T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia)'s autobiography, which 
is called Seven Pillars of Wisdom.  It's my favorite non-fiction book in the 
world, and one of the great adventure stories of all time.

                              happy reading, have a great holiday!

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