Out of the Noosphere: Adventure, Sports, Travel and the Environment: The Best of Outside Magazine

By Outside Magazine

Book Overview

Inside, the best of the first fifteen years of Outside Cartwheeling down a Himalayan river. Climbing America's unfriendliest mountain. Dousing fires in the oil fields of Kuwait. Chasing African killer bees. For twenty years, Outside magazine has devoted itself to original and engaging reports on travel, adventure, sports, and the environment. This collection of the best of the stories from the first fifteen years features many of the country's finest writers, in a single volume: EDWARD ABBEY RICK BASS JOHN BRANT CHIP BROWN BILL BRYSON TIN CAHILL E. JEAN CARROLL PHIL GARLINGTON JIM HARRISON DONALD KATZ WILLIAM KITTREDGE JON KRAKAUER BARRY LOPEZ THOMAS MCGUANE BILL MCKIBBEN MICHAEL MCRAE PETER MATTHIESSEN PETER NELSON GEOFFREY NORMAN DAVID QUAMMEN BOB REISS DAVID ROBERTS ROB SCHULTHEIS BOB SHACOCHIS LAURENCE SHAMES GRANT SINS ANNICK SMITH RICK TELANDER BILL VAUGHN CRAIG VETTER RANDY WAYNE WHITE ED ZUCKERMAN Whether you're an armchair adventurer or a true-life trekker, you'll be at once entranced and exhilarated as you go Out of the No?sphere.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671754661
• ISBN13: 9780671754662
• Release Date: October 1992
• Publisher: Fireside Books
• Length: 484 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Fascinating mix of adventure, introspection & enlightenment.

I am a long time admirer of Tim Cahill's work and picked up "Out of the Noosphere" on that basis. I was delighted to find so many other authors equally as adventurous and thoughtful. Anyone who loves travelling for the pure joy of meeting different people, seeing new vistas, and having his/her world view challenged will love this book. The writing is superb, each story/article is a good length for commuter readers. I particularly like the way each author brings you personally into the action...you have to think about what you would do in a similar situation. And the situations are mind expanding -- from killer bee research, to losing friends in mountain climbing accidents. I couldn't recommend it more highly!

Get into the noosphere of reality.

"Withdraw to your cell," the Desert Fathers used to say, "and your cell will teach you everything" - at least all you need to know for the fullness of life. So said Thomas Merton in his "Notes for a Philosophy of Solitude." "Get out and about," say the editors of Outside magazine - away from the mind- and soul-destroying homogenization of urban living. In these 40 stories - 2 by women - we have diversity in unity, enhancing the value of the anthology. The integrating principle is not so much a style of writing - a certain outdoors "Outside" style - as an attitude of gifted adventurers who report not only from interesting places and events "out there" but especially from the deeper depths of their own reflective beings. "Get out of the noosphere," said author David Quammen. His comment provided the title for the collection. But he misinterpreted what Jesuit evolutionist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin had in mind when he invented the "Noosphere" as a word and a concept in 1922. For Teilhard was undoubtedly an outdoors "Outside" person and rejoiced in the creative convergence of human beings in all their diversity. "Union differentiates" was his constant theme, so well exemplified in these reports from writers likewise familiar with "the wild country of the soul" (p.12). With its foundations anchored to the genetic core of each participating member,Teilhard's noosphere enables us to communicate around the world and beyond at the speed of light - mind-to-mind, heart-to-heart and even soul-to-soul - providing a lifeline of care, concern and mutual respect to all who live not by bread alone, but dare to explore the farthest reaches of reality.