The Best of Outside: The First 20 Years (Hardcover)

~ Outside Magazine Editors (Author) "Hunting in your own backyard becomes with time..." (more)
Key Phrases: other triathletes, bee boxes, killer bees, Andrea Gail, New York, North Shore (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

For two decades Outside magazine has remained committed to good writing, publishing feature articles from well-known authors on a variety of topics connected (in sometimes obscure yet fascinating ways) to the outdoors, adventure, travel, and just about anything else that happens beyond the confines of the mall. The most memorableof these pieces are collected in a single anthology, The Best of Outside: Tom McGuane offers compelling reasons to hunt; Jonathan Raban discusses life on the open ocean; Barry Lopez considers the graceful and beleaguered flocks of snow geese that once filled the skies. Also included are the original articles from Jon Krakauer and Sebastian Junger that would expand into their bestselling books Into Thin Air and The Perfect Storm, respectively.

From Library Journal

Celebrating 20 years in publication, the editors of Outside magazine glean here 31 of the best pieces that have appeared in its pages. This book glitters with the prose of writers such as Edward Abbey, Thomas McGuane, E. Annie Proulx, and Jane Smiley. Each essay concerns the writer's encounters and interactions with nature. Abbey shares a 1984 experience in the Alaskan wilderness in "The Last Pork Chop." Ian Frazier writes of how he and two friends pondered the problem of removing plastic bags from the tops of trees in New York City. Having devised a solution, they debagged the city and headed west for the Mississippi (where the floods of 1993 had left a devastating trail of debris in the treetops) and began their quest for "Keeping America's Trees Safe from Small Curd Bubble Wrap." Highly recommended for public libraries and academic libraries with browsing collections.?Sandra Knowles, Univ. of South Carolina Sch. of Medicine
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 420 pages
• Publisher: Villard; 1st edition (November 4, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375500642
• ISBN-13: 978-0375500640
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,158,185 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Many Interesting and Varied Stories, August 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Best of Outside: The First 20 Years (Paperback)

Not just ordinary stories about the outdoors. There are stories on hunting, fly fishing, female bull-fighters, surfing in Hawaii, sailing, training for the Hawaii Ironman, climbing and my two favorites "ferret-legging" and "bag-snagging." You will find yourself reading about subjects you would not ordinarily choose to read but enjoy such stories anyway. If you have any interest in the outdoors you should read this book. There are about 40-50 stories by different authors on varied activities. Incls. the articles that became Into Thin Air (very good) and The Perfect Storm (not so good).

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ferret-legging, you must read this, May 28, 2000

By	Carl Skutsch (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Best of Outside: The First 20 Years (Paperback)

Years and years ago an office-mate brought in a copy Outside magazine with an article on "Ferret-legging," and read to all of us. By the end of it we were dying with laughter. I made a xerox, which I saved for years, until I finally made the mistake of loaning to a friend (ex, now, obviously) WHO DID NOT RETURN IT.
Now this compendium of Outside's comes out, and blessed Mary mother of God, it includes the ferret-legging piece.
You must buy this, flip to "King of the ferret-leggers," and read the piece. You'll thank me, honest you will.
And I'm told there're some other stories in here as well. Think of them as gravy.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb writing about superb adventures, August 5, 1999

By	Gavin Kentch (Anchorage, AK) - See all my reviews

This book posits that a well-written account of an adventure can be just as much fun as the actual, original experience, and the book's contributors, all with sterling credentials (published books, New Yorker work, etc.), do not disappoint. The writing quality is such that I found myself avidly reading through stories about pastimes I don't enjoy and hardly consider -- hunting, flyfishing, etc. -- and enjoying them nonetheless, drawn in by the enticing quality of the writing. Some of the pure adventure works may not be great literature, but, then, not everything enjoyable in life is.