Audiobooks for the trail: a memory palace the size of a nation-state

An artist living in a lonely rented house discovers a mysterious man with inexplicable knowledge of her own life. This novella is at once a sort of ghost story, an exploration of grief and solitude, and a surprising dive into the mysterious depths of the artistic process. DeLillo's impeccable sentences helped to pull me through the arid, sunwashed mountains, and Laurie Anderson's mesmerising, low-affext voice making it all the more surreal. This was one of the only audiobook recommendations I received before heading out on the trail (thanks Andy!), and it worked its magic on me.

What this book is like (for me): sitting in the noonday desert sun listening to someone insisting that it is midnight on a moonless night, and believing them because they are that good at telling a story.

This memoir was just obscenely lauded before I even had a chance to crack it open. This unflinching recounting of the kinds of secrets and struggles most of us have a hard time sharing with anyone is riveting and rewarding. Expect hard truths about America, about societal violence and family violence, about family and art and identity. There's a through-line about the value of reading and writing, but it's a bruising account from start to finish.

Leymon and I grew up in the same town at the same time, but his skill as a writer showed me in new clarity how different his experience as a black youth in Mississippi in the 80s and 90s was than mine as a white one. I remember getting hooked into this immediately the day I listened to the first chapter. I was hiking around one of the more scenic spots in all of Oregon, Crater Lake, as I pressed play. About five minutes in, the clouds descended and it began to hail. Somehow it was fitting.

This is one of those books you finish and think: there isn't a person in America who shouldn't read this. Or, perhaps even better, listen to the author read his own text in the audiobook (this short piece written while recording the audiobook can give you a flavor for Leymon's flinty, beautiful but unvarnished prose).

The simplicity of its first line says almost everything you need to know: "It is worse, much worse, than you think." Listening to The Uninhabitable Earth was a one of the definitive "there's no going back" moments of global warming contemplateion for me. I actually listened to it twice. It terrified and radicalized me. It felt like nothing short of our generation's Silent Spring. I stopped worrying about sounding like a kook and began sounding the alarm.

The year I hiked the PCT was anamolous for the few forest fires that impacted the thru-hiking season. We were all expecting to have our hikes interrupted by the world on fire as it burned closer to us. It probably won't happen again. Reading this on the trail felt like a memento mori. Every step felt like a gift, but also like a step towards eventual confrontation with this crisis.

I would recommend this book to people who somehow don't feel urgency about this crisis, or who somehow need validation that their fears are real.

Michael Pollen made me crave psychedelic mushrooms. Mega-star nonfiction author Pollan changed American food culture almost single-handedly with The Omnivore's Dilemma. This one won't do the same for psychedelic drugs, but perhaps it should. Pollan's gift for weaving his own experiences and perspectives with historical and scientific research and firsthand accounts makes this compelling and digestible. He makes a near-watertight case that the closing off of these drugs to (at the very least) scientifc and pharmaceutical research and testing makes zero sense. Along the way, there are interesting insights into some of the recent literature on neuroscience and neuropsychology.

I read this one in the "green tunnel" of Oregon, dodging mosquitos, swimming in cool lakes and watching as the mushrooms proliferate to disturbing density on the trail. If it was a sign for me to turn my trip into a trip, I wasn't bold enough to do so. But it got me thinking about suffering, joy, perspectives and consciousness. Just like the trail itself.

Get ready to have all of your preconceived notions about fourteenth-century Norway totally upended. Wait a second... anyone with ideas about fourteenth-century Norway who hasn't read this must reside in the overlappy part of a venn diagram so small that the normal rules of book recommendations just won't work. These aren't quantum rules. Anyway this is a massive epic about early Christian Norway, and it's... epic.

But listen. Don't listen to the audiobook. Just don't. This was Type II fun, bordering on type III, for me. By all means, read this epic tale from slept-on nobel laureate Undset. But I think you're going to enjoy turning pages for this kind of thing. So I've put the link to a paper copy of this one. (It doesn't help that this audiobook is only available via Audible, which I'm not interested in supporting.)

I will say that the day I knew I was going to finish this book was a great feeling of triumph that totally compensated for arriving at one of my least favorite trail towns of the whole thing (sorry, Belden, CA).

From one of America’s most brilliant writers, a New York Times bestselling journey through psychology, philosophy, and lots of meditation to show how Buddhism holds the key to moral clarity and enduring happiness. At the heart of Buddhism is a simple claim: The reason we suffer—and the reason we make other people suffer—is that we don’t see the world clearly. At the heart of Buddhist meditative practice is a radical promise: We can learn to see the world, including ourselves, more clearly and so gain a deep and morally valid happiness. In this “sublime” (The New Yorker), pathbreaking book, Robert Wright shows how taking this promise seriously can change your life—how it can loosen the grip of anxiety, regret, and hatred, and how it can deepen your appreciation of beauty and of other people. He also shows why this transformation works, drawing on the latest in neuroscience and psychology, and armed with an acute understanding of human evolution. This book is the culmination of a personal journey that began with Wright’s landmark book on evolutionary psychology, The Moral Animal, and deepened as he immersed himself in meditative practice and conversed with some of the world’s most skilled meditators. The result is a story that is “provocative, informative and...deeply rewarding” (The New York Times Book Review), and as entertaining as it is illuminating. Written with the wit, clarity, and grace for which Wright is famous, Why Buddhism Is True lays the foundation for a spiritual life in a secular age and shows how, in a time of technological distraction and social division, we can save ourselves from ourselves, both as individuals and as a species. (Publisher's Description)

Hillary Mantel's trilogy is justly celebrated. It's compulsively readable, and the depth of her characterization of of Thomas Cromwell, is nothing short of miraculous. An absolutely unforgettable character. The narration of Ben Miles (Mantel's choice to play Cromwell in the Royal Shakespeare Company adaptation of the text) is perfect. If you have Mark Rylance's portrayal from BBC series version, you may be skeptical. But this is great.

This is one for which there is no audiobook on librofm and I am really sorry about that. The Emily Wilson text is read by Claire Danes on the evil empire's audiobook tributary. It is mighty fine. The text itself is fresh and lovely but Wilson's introduction is essential.

When I began this text I confess to being caught off-guard. It was my first Delany. I'd read about him before but never took the plunge. Some of this was disorienting and shocking, but I stuck with it and fell so hard for it. Hat Creek Rim is one of the hottest, hardest parts of the trail. This blew my mind and rekindled my interest in speculative fiction. A truly wild ride.

Ghost Wall is a bit of a cheat, but it's the last book I read. Dark mornings and evenings in March, this book carried me on 10 mile hikes. It's fun.