Best of
Recreation

2012

Your Guide to the National Parks


Michael Joseph Oswald - 2012
    This guide provides step-by-step itineraries, kid-friendly activities, and the most popular ranger programs to help plan your family vacation. Thousands of hotels, restaurants, and attractions beyond the parks and 11 suggested road trips make it the ultimate dashboard companion. Exhaustive activity information, including hiking tables, easy-to-find trailhead markers, outfitter details, and backpacking essentials, serves as blueprint for an adventure of a lifetime. With something from everyone this is "Your Guide to the National Parks."

The Most Scenic Drives in America, Newly Revised and Updated: 120 Spectacular Road Trips


Reader's Digest Association - 2012
    From Florida's Road to Flamingo to Hawaii's Oahu Coastal Loop . . . from British Columbia's Sea to Sky Highway to Cape Cod's Sandy Shores . . . each featured road trip is pictured in stunning full color and described in vivid text, keyed to an easy-to-follow newly revised map. Whether you choose a drive in a far corner of the continent or a back road in your own state, this book is your ticket to North America's most beautiful byways.Drives are grouped in four pictured-packed sections-Western, Mountain, Central, and Eastern states and provinces-and are accompanied by detailed, easy-to-use maps. New drives featuring some of Canada's most stunning destinations have been added. As a bonus, handy Trip Tip sidebars include: Mileage best season to travel nearby attractions special events "learn more" contact information including website addressesA special feature called Star Routes offers thumbnail sketches of shorter but especially scenic roads located in the same region as the main tours. Additional boxes highlight distinctive characteristics of the areas, including local plants, animals, customs, foods, and a variety of historical events.Whether on the road or in the comfort of your easy chair, this newly revised Reader's Digest travel guide will be a welcome companion.

American Triumvirate: Sam Snead, Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan, and the Modern Age of Golf


James Dodson - 2012
      During the Depression—after the exploits of Walter Hagen and Gene Sarazen and Bobby Jones (winning the Grand Slam as an amateur in 1930) had faded in the public’s imagination—golf’s popularity fell year after year, and as a spectator sport it was on the verge of extinction. This was the unhappy prospect facing two dirt-poor boys from Texas and another from Virginia who had dedicated themselves to the game yet could look forward only to eking out a subsistence living along with millions of other Americans. But then lightning struck, and from the late thirties into the fifties these three men were so thoroughly dominant—each setting a host of records—that they transformed both how the game was played and how society regarded it.   Sports fans in general are well aware of Hogan and Nelson and Snead, but even the most devoted golfers will learn a great many new things about them here. Their hundredth birthdays will be commemorated throughout 2012—Nelson born in February, Snead in May, and Hogan in August—but as this comprehensive and compelling account vividly demonstrates, they were, and will always remain, a triumvirate for the ages.

Hard Knocks Soft Spots


Paddy Doherty - 2012
    I teach my children to be proud too. Because being a traveller means everything to me. It's not just a label, it goes much deeper. It's an identity that is burned into my heart.Paddy Doherty loves his life as an Irish traveler, but as a child he felt like an outsider. He was different from his siblings. On the rare occasions he went to school, he was bullied. And beyond the gates of the camp he found nothing but hostility. Slowly, Paddy's hurt turned into anger and by the age of 11 he had started out on an illustrious career as a bare-knuckle boxer. This earned him a position as one of the most well-respected (and feared) men in the traveling community. Yet while he won countless brutal fights in the ring, the real battles he faced were very much outside. In this deeply honest autobiography, he tells of how he has loved and lost five children, and plummeted to seven stone while battling depression, drink, and drugs. He describes how it feels to be shot point-blank in the head and the lengths he'll go to to protect his people. Told with all the warmth and humor he is famed for, Paddy's rich and colorful story is one that will stay with you for a long time to come.

Wilderness Navigation: Finding Your Way Using Map, Compass, Altimeter, & GPS


Bob Burns - 2012
    Whether you are climbing a glacier, orienteering in the backcountry, or on an easy day hike, Mike and Bob Burns cover all the latest technology and time-tested methods to help you learn to navigate-from how to read a map to compasses and geomagnetism. Bob Burns is a long-time member of The Mountaineers. He has taught classes in the use of map and compass since the late 1970s. Mike Burns is an avid climber. He has instructed climbing and navigation classes, and written articles for Climbing magazine.Part of the The Mountaineers Outdoor Basics series! Created for beginning-to-intermediate enthusiasts, this series includes everything anyone would need to know about staying safe and having fun in the backcountry.

The Great American House: Tradition for the Way We Live Now


Gil Schafer III - 2012
    As a traditional architect, Gil Schafer specializes in building new "old" houses as well as renovating historic homes. His work takes the best of American historic and classical architecture—its detailed moldings and harmonious proportions—and updates it, retaining its character and detail while simultaneously reworking it to be more in tune with the way we live now—comfortable, practical, family-oriented. In his first book, Schafer covers the three essential cornerstones of creating a great traditional house: architecture, landscape, and decoration. He discusses the important interplay between the interior architecture and the fabrics, furniture, and wall treatments. In-depth profiles build on these essays, including Schafer’s own new "old" house in the Hudson Valley; the renovation of a historic home in Nashville designed by Charles Platt in 1915; and the restoration of a magnificent 1843 Greek Revival mansion in Charleston.Filled with hundreds of interior and detail shots, The Great American House is an invaluable resource for anyone who loves old houses and traditional design.

English Decoration: Timeless Inspiration for the Contemporary Home


Ben Pentreath - 2012
    The houses include Ben’s own homes in London and West Dorset, alongside those of Earls and artists, writers and architects, book designers and gardeners. The book opens with an essay on the English style in decoration, and then entrance halls, living rooms, kitchens and dining rooms and bedrooms and bathrooms are considered in turn, together with simple Rooms of Utility and spectacular Rooms of Display. There is also a foreword by Nicky Haslam, suggestions for further reading, and a style directory that reveals Ben's own favorite sources—helping you to achieve the classic English look, wherever you live.

Light and Lighting: From Snapshots to Great Shots


Syl Arena - 2012
    Aimed at beginners, Light and Lighting: From Snapshots to Great Shots, begins with a primer on light itself–how to see its direction, intensity, color, contrast, and shadow line–and quickly moves on to discussions of shooting both indoors and outdoors in the many different conditions of natural or man-made light (e.g., sunny, cloudy, fluorescent, and incandescent light). Then the book digs in to begin creating light with flash. Arena covers numerous kinds of lights–from small flash (both Canon and Nikon) to big flash, from continuous lights to the much-maligned pop-up flash on top of the camera. He also covers the basics (and beyond) of light modifiers: umbrellas, softboxes, flags, and gels. With recipes and tips on how to shoot products shots for selling online, food, glass and metal, flowers, headshots, group shots, action and sports, birthday parties and other events, Light and Lighting: From Snapshots to Great Shots gives readers all they need to know to get started on the journey of learning, creating, and controlling light in order to make great images.

Friendship Is Optimal: Caelum Est Conterrens


Chatoyance - 2012
    but can she even hope to truly understand such a thing - and more importantly, can she trust the artificial intelligence known as 'Celestia'?

Slime and Punishment


Gil Gevins - 2012
    Well-written, fast-paced and highly entertaining, the story revolves around a midlife crisis of such grotesque and gargantuan proportions, it obliterates the psyches of everyone in its path. Our hero, Dr. Karl Sanderson, knee-surgeon to the stars, suddenly finds himself, at the age of forty-nine, seized by an irresistible urge to have sex with someone other than his wife, something which (amazingly) he has never done. But his is a yearning indelibly tainted with guilt and the fear of being caught. Eventually, he winds up trolling the colorful but tattered streets of Havana, Cuba in search of a young woman with whom he can “safely” comingle his bodily fluids. In the process of satisfying his nefarious cravings, the good doctor, with the aid of a gay pimp from Puerto Vallarta, digs himself into a hilarious hole from which he may never emerge

Washington's Channeled Scablands Guide: Explore and Recreate Along the Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail


John Soennichsen - 2012
    Once completed, the Trail will connect interpretive facilities, signage, and other tourism activities * Features regional maps and photosOften overlooked by those cruising on the highway to Spokane or the Tri-Cities area, more than 2,000 square miles of terrain in eastern Washington are home to a striking collection of sharp-edged coulees slicing through a crust of basalt. In this stunning landscape, deep lakes fill the depths of dramatic gorges flanked by steep walls of towering rock columns, labyrinthine channels, and wide tracts of scabby rock that give the region its name—geologically, no other region in the world contains features like those found in the Channeled Scablands.Where-to guidebook and travel narrative come together in the Washington's Channeled Scablands Guide to offer a comprehensive and intimately knowledgeable tour of this one-of-a-kind region. Local writer and historian John Soennichsen is your guide to fascinating lore; snapshots of the unique towns connected by this singular landscape; descriptions of the unique geology; advice on how to explore whether by auto, horseback, canoe, bike, or on foot; and essential info like where to fuel up and stop for dinner.Take the family to scenic camping and fishing in Coffeepot Lake, and read out loud the legend of Old West outlaw Harry Tracey as you cruise along on a "Back Roads Auto Tour." Lace up your boots for a cross-country hike in the Juniper Dunes Wilderness Area or up Badger Mountain Trail. Explore the unearthly crater-like formations in the Telford–Crab Creek Tract, or set up with your camera for a stunning sunrise over Palouse Falls. Whether you're a boater looking for new waterways to explore, a naturalist interested in unique ecosystems, or just a curious traveler—if you're seeking adventure and intrigue just a little off the beaten path, you'll find the keys to a whole new world of exploration with Washington's Channeled Scablands Guide.