Pete

Books: 
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Above the Fire By Michael O'Donnell Cover Image
$25.99
ISBN: 9798200987757
Availability: On our shelves now.
Published: Blackstone Publishing - December 5th, 2023

The premise of this book has come to mind many times over the years. Whether it's returning to my car after an eight-hour hike or poking my head out of my windowless basement here at the store, for all I know the zombie apocalypse happened while I was out of touch. What would you do to protect your family from a strange, unknown world?


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Quiet Desperation, Savage Delight: Sheltering with Thoreau in the Age of Crisis By David Gessner Cover Image
$19.95
ISBN: 9781948814485
Availability: On our shelves now.
Published: Torrey House Press - June 1st, 2021

I'd been training for Covid my entire life. Go for an eight-hour hike and avoid people--done! My life was already Thoreauvian but the quarantine days brought out the Thoreau in others at a time when we really needed his example.


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Where the Deer and the Antelope Play: The Pastoral Observations of One Ignorant American Who Likes to Walk Outside By Nick Offerman Cover Image
$20.00
ISBN: 9781101984703
Availability: On our shelves now.
Published: Dutton - October 3rd, 2023

Like a trip with a wonderful road trip buddy. Offerman is thoughtful, clever and adventurous. If you are like me, you get the added bonus of hearing his tales come off the page in his distinctive and comforting voice.


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Good for a Girl: A Woman Running in a Man's World By Lauren Fleshman Cover Image
$18.00
ISBN: 9780593296806
Availability: On our shelves now.
Published: Penguin Books - January 9th, 2024

Fleshman has long been a trailblazer in women's running. She is very informed and direct about physical and mental health issues for female athletes. It's a great lesson to see how someone who always appeared confident and strong like Fleshman was battling her own demons much of the time.


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Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O'Connell's urgent mission to bring healing to homeless people By Tracy Kidder Cover Image
$22.00
ISBN: 9781984801456
Availability: On our shelves now.
Published: Random House Trade Paperbacks - January 16th, 2024

Kidder has done it again. It's so good to know that there are so many caring people out there. Full of stats and logistics but also the human beings attached to the theories. A part of Boston most of us never see.


I've long been a fan of McKibben's environmental writing, but I was still impressed by the observational and historical writing in this book. He's a generation older than me, but the "how things have changed" tone is extremely relatable.


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Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau By Ben Shattuck Cover Image
$22.95
ISBN: 9781953534040
Availability: On our shelves now.
Published: Tin House Books - April 19th, 2022

As a Thoreau scholar, I loved this book, but you don't need to be an expert to enjoy this clever and thoughtful book. Shattuck lives my belief that you create your own Waldens. In life, you may not get the adventures that you were looking for, but, in going off the trail, you'll discover your own experiences.


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How She Did It: Stories, Advice, and Secrets to Success from Fifty Legendary Distance Runners By Molly Huddle, Sara Slattery Cover Image
$18.99
ISBN: 9780593234259
Availability: On our shelves now.
Published: Rodale Books - March 8th, 2022

The major theme of this book is "I wish that there had been a book like this when I was starting off as a female distance runner." Now that this book exists, you should take advantage of it. I coached XC and track at the high school level for 11 years, at Brandeis for 6 years, and at MIT for 8 years and I wish that my athletes had a chance to read this as young athletes.


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This Wild Land: Two Decades of Adventure as a Park Ranger in the Shadow of Katahdin By Andrew Vietze Cover Image
$18.95
ISBN: 9781628421323
Availability: On our shelves now.
Published: Appalachian Mountain Club - December 20th, 2021

As both a writer and long-time ranger, Vietze has the perfect perspective on a life in the shadow of Katahdin. It's not only mountainrescues and amazing views, you've also got daily toilet cleanings and the occaional battle with a beaver. Not to be confused with my workdays in the windowless basement of a bookstore.


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Islands of Abandonment: Nature Rebounding in the Post-Human Landscape By Cal Flyn Cover Image
$19.00
ISBN: 9781984878212
Availability: On our shelves now.
Published: Penguin Books - June 14th, 2022

I spent every page thinking "I wish I was there," but at least the author does a great job of making the reader feel a part of her adventures. Man may never learn, but the resilience of nature is incredible.


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Bravey: Chasing Dreams, Befriending Pain, and Other Big Ideas By Alexi Pappas, Maya Rudolph (Foreword by) Cover Image
By Alexi Pappas, Maya Rudolph (Foreword by)
$18.00
ISBN: 9781984801142
Availability: On our shelves now.
Published: Dial Press Trade Paperback - January 4th, 2022

Heart-wrenching, funny, and inspirational. A great book for young female athletes.


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The Patch By John McPhee Cover Image
$17.00
ISBN: 9781250234889
Availability: On our shelves now.
Published: Picador - November 19th, 2019

It always feels as though McPhee can make any subject interesting and this collection is more proof of his talent. Even the bits on matters that I thought I would have no interest in left me caring about the man writing these stories. 


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My Squirrel Days: Tales from the Star of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and The Office By Ellie Kemper Cover Image
$17.00
ISBN: 9781501163357
Availability: On our shelves now.
Published: Scribner - July 2nd, 2019

Ellie the author is every bit as quirky and adorable as the characters she has portrayed on television shows like The Office and The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.   From her childhood in St. Louis to her life in New York as a wife and mother, these are tales of a real person finding success in a very unreal world. 


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Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine By Alan Lightman Cover Image
$17.00
ISBN: 9780525432593
Availability: On our shelves now.
Published: Vintage - February 19th, 2019

Stargazing on an island in Maine -- ah, that is my happy place!  You can simply enjoy the pleasure of viewing the amazing constellations, or, like Lightman, you can ponder man's search for truth and meaning through science and religion.


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Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress By Steven Pinker Cover Image
$19.00
ISBN: 9780143111382
Availability: On our shelves now.
Published: Penguin Books - January 15th, 2019

Each generation tends to believe they are living in the worst of times, but this great book is chock-full of charts and graphs and stories that will remind you of the amazing progress that mankind has made over history.  Science and facts are great things, but don't let the twenty-four hour news channels get you down.


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Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches By John Hodgman Cover Image
$18.00
ISBN: 9780735224827
Availability: On our shelves now.
Published: Penguin Books - May 29th, 2018

This book is both heartfelt and hilarious.  Hodgman is full of clever observations on so many subjects, such as facial hair, middle age, the horror of freshwater clams, and the painful beaches of Maine, which have tried to kill him.  I have been to many of the areas he mentions in the book, and he is spot-on correct about them! 


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A Philosophy of Walking By Frederic Gros, John Howe (Translated by), Clifford Harper (Illustrator) Cover Image
By Frederic Gros, John Howe (Translated by), Clifford Harper (Illustrator)
$19.95
This title is currently unavailable to order. Please check back, as stock may become available in the future.
ISBN: 9781781688373
Published: Verso - April 7th, 2015

Preaching to the choir here, but Gros' book on the joys of walking and history's great walkers makes you feel as though you are walking through a peaceful forest on a spring day.  My rhythm was: read a chapter, hike for three hours, repeat.


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My Life in Middlemarch: A Memoir By Rebecca Mead Cover Image
$23.00
ISBN: 9780307984777
Availability: On our shelves now.
Published: Crown - January 27th, 2015

I read this book because my ridiculously stunning friend loved it, and if she said that the phonebook was an engrossing read then I would have read that. I would totally lie to her and tell her that I loved it regardless of my opinion on the book, but I have no reason to lie to you -- this book is fantastic. Told in a scholarly yet personal way, it's a biography of Eliot, autobiography of the author, and review of Middlemarch. You emerge from the book fired up to re-read Middlemarch, so it's like getting two wonderful books in one.


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One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories (Vintage Contemporaries) By B. J. Novak Cover Image
$18.00
ISBN: 9780804169783
Availability: On our shelves now.
Published: Vintage - February 3rd, 2015

Sometimes you read a collection of clever stories & you think that yes, over a period of years, writers can come up with a few good ideas. It would take many lifetimes for even the best of writers to come up with the fantastically warped tales that BJ Novak has put together here. I'm used to being the most clever guy in the room, but I have yet to share a space with BJ. I'm sure that when we do meet that we'll become the best of friends. Totally worth reading this book!


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My Green Manifesto: Down the Charles River in Pursuit of a New Environmentalism By David Gessner Cover Image
$15.00
This title is currently unavailable to order. Please check back, as stock may become available in the future.
ISBN: 9781571313249
Published: Milkweed Editions - July 12th, 2011

The humorous tale of Thoreau disciple David Gessner and his journey down the Charles. You don't need to travel to the national parks, the beauty of nature can be found in the most unexpected of places.


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The Art of Fielding: A Novel By Chad Harbach Cover Image
$19.99
ISBN: 9780316126670
Availability: Usually ships to store in 4-6 days.
Published: Back Bay Books - May 1st, 2012

The Art of Fielding covers all the bases - small college baseball, Melville, and many memorable characters. The best baseball-related fiction since Brothers K. You don't need to be a baseball fan to appreciate this book.


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The Outer Beach: A Thousand-Mile Walk on Cape Cod's Atlantic Shore By Robert Finch Cover Image
$16.95
ISBN: 9780393356014
Availability: On our shelves now.
Published: W. W. Norton & Company - June 12th, 2018

Now in paperback and ready to accompany you to the beach, Finch's examination of Cape Cod over many years is essential summer reading.  It is jam-packed with fascinating people with all of their quirks.  It's wonderful to read about the wild and raw side of the Cape shore.


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The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer By Siddhartha Mukherjee Cover Image
$22.00
ISBN: 9781439170915
Availability: Usually ships to store in 4-6 days.
Published: Scribner - August 9th, 2011

A well-written history of cancer. Neither "we can beat this!" nor "we're all doomed!" Just a good factual history of what we know and don't know about the disease.


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A City So Grand: The Rise of an American Metropolis: Boston 1850-1900 By Stephen Puleo Cover Image
$20.00
ISBN: 9780807001493
Availability: On our shelves now.
Published: Beacon Press - May 17th, 2011

A fantastic history of Boston whether you have read extensively on the city or if this is your first real exposure to the greatness that is Boston.


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Easter Rising: A Memoir of Roots and Rebellion By Michael Patrick MacDonald Cover Image
$14.95
This title is currently unavailable to order. Please check back, as stock may become available in the future.
ISBN: 9780618918638
Published: Mariner Books - March 3rd, 2008

If anybody deserved an outlet from the problems at home it's MacDonald. Great insight into the music scene in Boston.


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The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism By Megan Marshall Cover Image
$19.99
ISBN: 9780618711697
Availability: Usually ships to store in 4-6 days.
Published: Mariner Books - May 11th, 2006

If you were a thinker or artist in the mid-19th century then you knew the Peabody Sisters. I like to think that I might have been hanging out with their crowd.


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Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen By Christopher McDougall Cover Image
$17.00
ISBN: 9780307279187
Availability: On our shelves now.
Published: Vintage - March 29th, 2011

It works both as an an adventure book and as a running book. I usually find books about ultra runners to be self glorifying and overly dramatic, but this book is full of great characters.


Island: The Complete Stories By Alistair MacLeod Cover Image
$18.95
This title is currently unavailable to order. Please check back, as stock may become available in the future.
ISBN: 9780393341188
Published: W. W. Norton & Company - November 28th, 2011

I love a book that has a strong sense of place and in Island, Alistair MacLeod has cast Cape Breton as his main character.


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The Heather Blazing: A Novel By Colm Toibin Cover Image
$16.99
ISBN: 9781476704500
Availability: Usually ships to store in 4-6 days.
Published: Scribner - October 30th, 2012

Worth a read if only for its descriptions of the Irish coast, The Heather Blazing is a simply beautiful portrait of a family.


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The Robber Bride By Margaret Atwood Cover Image
$18.00
ISBN: 9780385491037
Availability: On our shelves now.
Published: Anchor - January 20th, 1998

Zenia is one of the most evil, manipulative, and seductive characters that I have ever come across. I think I'm in love.


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Once a Runner: A Novel By John L. Parker, Jr. Cover Image
$18.99
ISBN: 9781416597896
Availability: On our shelves now.
Published: Scribner - April 6th, 2010

Universally acknowledged to be the best fiction book about running ever, this classic is being republished after being out of print for years.


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All Souls: A Family Story from Southie By Michael Patrick MacDonald Cover Image
$17.95
ISBN: 9780807072134
Availability: On our shelves now.
Published: Beacon Press - November 1st, 2007

Part Dickens, part Angela's Ashes, it's incredible that people lived like this in modern day Boston.


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The Brothers K By David James Duncan Cover Image
$19.00
ISBN: 9780553378498
Availability: On our shelves now.
Published: Dial Press Trade Paperback - June 1st, 1996

A fantastic story about baseball, family, and religious philosophy. It's also a favorite of Globe baseball writer Amalie Benjamin as well as top Sox prospect Lars Anderson.