Outside In at the San Marcos Public Library

Not brand new, but outstanding! Check out this awarding winning title at the library. As always, if you don’t find it on the shelf when you visit, place it on reserve. The library will notify you as soon as it is available. In the meantime, browse around. You are sure to find something equally delightful!

On Trails: An Exploration

by Robert Moor
Published by Simon & Schuster, 2016
SMPL Call Number:  796.51 MOO

A strikingly original debut from a tremendous new talent, Robert Moor, explores how trails help us understand the world. From invisible ant trails to hiking paths that span continents and oceans, from migration routes to the Internet.

While through-hiking the Appalachian Trail, Robert Moor began to wonder about the paths that lie beneath our feet: How do they form? Why do some improve over time while others fade? What makes us follow or strike off on our own?

Over the course of seven years, Moor traveled the globe, exploring trails of all kinds, from the miniscule to the massive. He learned the tricks of master trail-builders, hunted down long-lost Cherokee trails, and traced the origins of our road networks. In each chapter, Moor interweaves his adventures with findings from science, history, philosophy, and nature writing.

Throughout, Moor reveals how this single topic–the oft-overlooked trail–sheds new light on a wealth of age-old questions: How does order emerge out of chaos? How did animals first crawl forth from the seas and spread across continents? How has humanity’s relationship with nature and technology shaped world around us?  And, ultimately, how does each of us pick a path through life?

Moor has the essayist’s gift for making new connections, the adventurer’s love for paths untaken, and the philosopher’s knack for asking big questions.

On Trails: an exploration is winner of the National Outdoor Book Award, the Saroyan International Prize for Writing, and the Pacific Northwest Book Award. The Seirra Club named it the “best outdoors book of the year” for 2016.

Compiled by Stephanie Langenkamp, former SMGA board member and member of the Outreach Committee