Ron Watters' Outdoor Literature Class Reading List

I love the outdoors, and over the past several months, I’ve given you several outdoor reading lists. Today, I give you a recommended reading list that Ron Watters uses in the Outdoor Literature class that he teaches at Idaho State University. (Watters is also highly involved in the selection of the annual National Outdoor Book Awards, which is sponsored by the National Outdoor Book Awards Foundation, Association of Outdoor Recreation and Education and Idaho State University.)
Without further ado, here’s Watters’ outdoors recommended reading list:
- Walden by Henry David Thoreau
- Scrambles Amongst the Alps by Edward Whymper
- The Exploration of the Colorado River
- Steep Trails by John Muir
- Journals of Robert Falcon Scott by Robert Falcon Scott
- To Build a Fire by Jack London
- The Wildest Dream: The Biography of George Mallory by Peter and Leni Gillman
- Roughing It by Mark Twain
- Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West by Wallace Stegner
- A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains by Isabella Bird
- Travels in West Africa by Mary Kingsley
- Shackleton by Roland Huntford
- The Singing Wilderness by Sirgurd Olson
- The Man Who Walked Through Time by Colin Fletcher
- Into Thin Air by John Krakauer
- The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses by Robert Service
- A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold
- Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey
- Never Turn Back by Ron Watters
I’ve read a few of these, and there are a few on the list that I’ve been meaning to read for a while. Which of these books have you read? Which is your favorite?
For more information about the books mentioned above, visit Watters’ Web site at www.ronwatters.com. The site contains a wealth of information on outdoors books and claims to be “the web’s most extensive collection of reading lists for outdoor book lovers.”