ericpinder.com

Books and audiobooks about
Katahdin and Mount Washington
and other places of interest

Read my reviews of other people’s books and leave comments of your own at my book review blog

Soul of the Sky, edited by Dave Thurlow

Diane Ackerman, Chet Raymo, Annie Dillard, Gretel Ehrlich, Sebastian Junger, Robert Henson, Eric Pinder, C. Ralph Adler, and others contribute essays to this anthology, subtitled Exploring the Human Side of Weather. Nice illustrations, too.

Buy the book: amazon.com
Or buy directly from the Observatory Bookshop

Wind, by Jan DeBlieu, read by Mary Woods

A lyrical account of wind and weather around with world, with visits to North Carolina’s Outer Banks during hurricane season and a short trip to the Mount Washington Observatory.

Rent or buy audiobook: Blackstone Audiobooks
Also available in paperback: amazon.com

Chimney Pond Tales, by LeRoy Dudley

Hilarious homebrewed folklore from the slopes of Mount Katahdin. In the 1930s, park ranger Roy Dudley recorded his favorite campfire yarns about Katahdin’s resident Indian god, Pamola, on the wax cylinders of an Edison office dictating machine. This book rescues those tales from obscurity.

Buy paperback: amazon.com
Also available as an audiobook

Lost on a Mountain in Maine

By Donn Fendler. Boy gets lost on Mount Katahdin, freezes, hallucinates, gets eaten alive by mosquitoes, and starts using “Christmas!” as a G-rated expletive. Search & rescue operation begins, fails. Many lose hope. Boy wanders for days. Happy ending ensues. A classic children’s book, in print since 1939.

Buy the book: amazon.com
Also available as an audiobook

The Climb, by Anatoli Boukreev 

You could call this one Lost on a Mountain in Nepal, but there’s no happy ending. Gripping narrative of the 1996 tradedy on Mount Everest, from the perspective of the guide who came off less than favorably in Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air.

Rent or buy audiobook: Blackstone Audiobooks
Also available in paperback at amazon.com

Everest, directed by David Breashears

Scenic, deadly...and partly filmed in New Hampshire. Try to spot the few, brief scenes that were actually filmed on Mount Washington. Originally an IMAX movie, now available on DVD. Filmed (mostly) in Nepal in 1996.

Buy the DVD: amazon.com

Not Without Peril, by Nicholas Howe

Bad weather, bad luck, and bad judgment mean bad news on the slopes of Mount Washington. This popular book recounts 150 years of people dying on New Hampshire’s small but surprisingly dangerous peak.

Buy the book: amazon.com

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

By Henry David Thoreau. Concord’s not-yet-famous nature writer takes a canoe trip with his brother, who manages to finish the week without jumping out of the boat.

Rent or buy audiobook: Blackstone Audiobooks
Also available in paperback at amazon.com

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

By Robert A. Heinlein, read by Lloyd James.
Before Heinlein devolved into a weird, horny, scatterbrained old man, he actually wrote some pretty good books. This is one of them.

Rent or buy audiobook: Blackstone Audiobooks
Also available in paperback at amazon.com

Mountain Peril, by Tom Eslick

A murder mystery set on Mount Washington. Anyone familiar with the roads and trails between Conway and Gorham, New Hampshire, will have great fun following the characters to familiar places as they search for clues.

Buy the book: amazon.com