11.19Dispatches Media
30 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE PHOTOGRAPH BY Hannah McCaughey
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THIS FALL, SOME OF OUR FAVORITE
NONFICTION AUTHORS ARE
DROPPING NEW BOOKS THAT
EXPLORE EVERYTHING FROM
CLIMATE DISASTER TO UNUSUAL
ACTS OF ENDURANCE
BY REID SINGER
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The Body: A Guide for Occupants
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($30, DOUBLEDAY)
A huge amount of research went into this
top-down introduction to the workings of
the human body, covering everything from
the skin and the skeleton to aging, repro-
duction, and death. But Bryson has a unique
ability to camouflage his hard work and depth
of knowledge with a light and self-effacing
voice, which fans of his Appalachian Trail
classic, A Walk in the Woods, will instantly
recognize. He uses it to deliver an avalanche
of surprising and eminently sharable facts
about how our bodies—“a product of three
billion years of evolutionary tweaks”—are
built. (Ever wondered how many species of
bacteria live in your belly button? Read on.)
Like your favorite teacher, Bryson is someone
who loves his subject. Before he’s finished,
he’ll make you love it, too.
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We Are the Weather
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($25; FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX)
Foer begins his newest book as a climate-
based argument for eliminating meat, eggs,
and dairy from the American diet. But the
novelist and author of Eating Animals is re-
ally too thoughtful and self-doubting to stop
the conversation there. Probing the contra-
dictions that seem built into how we talk,
think, and write about global warming, he
concludes that the only way we’ll actually do
anything about the crisis is through a collec-
tive embrace of personal responsibility. “The
ways we live our lives, the actions we take and
don’t take, can feed the systemic problems,”
he writes, “and they can also change them.”
We Are the Weather is not just a polemic, it’s
also a vigorous and unflinching meditation on
Foer’s own status as a father—and a descen-
dant of Holocaust survivors—trying to an-
swer for his role in a man-made disaster.,I<RX:DQW7UDLQLQJ$GYLFH
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Running with Sherman
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($28, KNOPF)
Not everyone would understand the impulse
to rescue a donkey from a hoarder, load it with
mining tools, and lead it on a trail run in the
Rocky Mountains. But burro racing is a real
thing, involving real competitors who travel
side by side with stubborn quadrupeds over
distances that range from a few miles to an
ultramarathon. To the author of Born to Run,
now living with his family in Amish country,
there was no better way for him to learn about
humanity’s relationship with working ani-
mals than to train an equine named Sherman
for the sport’s world championship in Fair-
play, Colorado. If you can forgive the reliance
on dad jokes, you’ll find a smart critique of
the culture of conventional American sports.
“You’ve got one hope of getting to the finish
line,” McDougall writes, “and that’s to forget
about dominance and ego and discover the
power of sharing and caring.”,I<RX)HHO/LNHD:DQGHUHU
Travel Light, Move Fast
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($27, PENGUIN PRESS)
Fuller was born in England, raised in south-
ern Africa, and resides in Wyoming. She has a
gift for depicting the forces that compel peo-
ple to move, and in her new memoir—written
shortly after her father died in a hospital in
Budapest—she reflects on how an itiner-
ant farmer who chased zebras and drank to
excess could also be a nurturing and per-
spicacious parent. Ultimately he helped her
appreciate the value of restlessness and im-
permanence: although grief strikes her as “a
place between countries, a holding pattern, a
purgatory,” the author nevertheless emerges
from it with a clearer understanding of what
it means to have a home.,I<RX·UH7U\LQJWR0DNH
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Erosion
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($27, SARAH CRICHTON)
Few writers can match Williams’s talent for
capturing big, abstract notions of environ-
mental justice and connecting them to the
lived experiences of individuals, families, and
communities. In this collection of essays,
written between 2012 and 2019, the lifelong
activist and educator celebrates the power of
friendship and dialogue to bring about au-
thentic change. “We tell stories that remind
us we will resist,” she writes, “and insist that
our communities be built upon the faith we
have in each other.” Crashing oil and gas lease
auctions and visiting tea ceremonies in the
desert, Williams lyrically depicts global dis-
putes over climate change and public lands
through her own community of art making,
collective organizing, and prayer.