Last year I got him Call of the Wild and White Fang, and he's read them at least ten times. I'm thinking maybe London's short stories, but could you recommend any others? He's a really out-doorsy boy (a hunter). He likes to read, but most books lose his interest. I don't want anything too heavy or difficult (he's an average sixteen year old) but something with a nice wild feeling would do the trick.
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"Personal note: When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once when I was six, I did. At first the brightness was overwhelming, but I had seen that before. I kept looking, forcing myself not to blink, and then the brightness began to dissolve. My pupils shrunk to pinholes and everything came into focus and for a moment I understood. The doctors didn't know if my eyes would ever heal."
-Pi
I don't know about outdoor books, but how about the complete Sherlock Holmes stories? Everyone loves Sherlock Holmes & most of the adventures are only a few pages long. Holmes & Watson do seem to get out in the wild a lot as well! I think you can get paperback versions relatively well priced.
docendo discimus
If he liked Call of the Wild and White Fang and that sort of thing he may enjoy the book Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, I thought it was excellent, and it is along the same lines, also a pretty easy read.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ~ Edgar Allan Poe
How about The Compleat Angler by Izaak Walton, or how about these three books?
How about Jules Verne?
My Side of the Mountain, maybe? I don't remember who wrote it.
Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey -- a great book about the outdoors and a prose style that that is hard to beat. And if he also enjoys fishing, David James Duncan's The River Why would be excellent as well.
“Oh crap”
-- Hellboy
I recommend a copy of Playboy, it does have a nice wild feeling, failing that how about Oliver Twist.Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf
How about one of Gerald Durell's books?
Exit, pursued by a bear.
I believe that would be the River Wye, no?
And how about more of the classics: Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer? And Allan Quatermain's pretty good, too...
I heartly recommend "The Jungle Books" by Rudyard Kipling
"I should like to know what people fear the most: whatever is contrary to their usual habits, I imagine." -Fyodor Dostoevsky
"A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul" -Franz Kafka
"Treasure Island" by R.L. Stevenson. Try and find a version with a well printed treasure map! I couldn't read the one in the book I got! The only difficulty might come with the nautical terms, so try and find a version with a glossary -- or get him a book on 19th century sailing ships that names and labels the parts. Or a good dictionary.
Slightly more challenging:
"The Cossacks" by Tolstoy (Maude translation)
This is a really exciting adventure & love story on the Russian/Caucasian border (near Afghanistan...) There's a nice "Everyman hardback" edition, which should make a good present.
No, I mean this book:
“Oh crap”
-- Hellboy
There's also the brotherly themed, and outdoorsy, A River Runs Through It by Norman McLean. It was made into a movie by Robert Redford starring Brad Pitt in the 90s.
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into the mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind: me, wag.
- John Berryman
I enjoyed this too - (read it years ago, I think in Yr7). Set entirely outdoors, about a young boy trying to survive in the wild - he'd probably like it...
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