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The Adirondack 46 in 18 Hikes: The Complete Guide to Hiking the High Peaks (North Country Books, 2025), by James Appleton, offers a strategic roadmap to tackling the High Peaks, as well as tips and tricks for newcomers and enough tales of adventure to keep veteran trekkers entertained (258 pages, softcover, $22.95, black-and-white photographs and maps, www.simonandschuster.com).
In Adirondack Solitude: Peace and Stillness in the Adirondack Wilderness (North Country Books, 2025), award-winning photographer Russ Hartung pays homage to the quieter sides of the park (184 pages, hardcover, $36.95, color photographs, globepequot.com).
Backroads & Byways of Upstate New York: Drives, Day Trips & Weekend Excursions (Countryman Press, Second Edition, 2025), by Christine Smyczynski, includes three trips around the Adirondack Park, covering 250 miles (360 pages, softcover, $24.99, color photographs and maps, wwnorton.com).
Basic Wilderness First Aid (Falcon Guides, Third Edition, 2025) by William W. Forgey, covers everything from wound care and head-injury management to treating shock and altitude sickness (108 pages, softcover, $19.95, color photographs and illustrations, globepequot.com).
Peggy Lynn and Sandra Weber celebrate the 20th anniversary of Breaking Trail: Remarkable Women of the Adirondacks (Purple Mountain Press, Second Edition, 2025)—their collection of 25 trailblazing profiles—with this new edition (184 pages, softcover, $20, black-and-white photographs and illustrations, www.nysbooks.com).
Campfire Stories: Adirondacks (Mountaineers Books, 2025) is an expansion of the Campfire Stories series by Dave and Ilyssa Kyu, which features shareable tales and traveling tips from National Parks and other destinations. This volume includes essays from Joseph Bruchac, Bill McKibben and Adirondack Life’s Elizabeth Folwell (184 pages, softcover, $18.95, www.campfirestoriesbook.com).
Daisy Rewilds (Random House Children’s Books, 2025), a colorful new picture book by Margaret McNamara, digs into the power and beauty of nature as a budding environmentalist lets herself grow wild (40 pages, hardcover, $18.99, color illustrations, www.rhcbooks.com).
“With its vastness, isolation and sudden shifts in weather, the Adirondack wilderness doesn’t just form a backdrop; it actively shapes the psychology of the characters,” write authors Christina Baker Kline and Anne Burt about their new Adirondack-based thriller, Please Don’t Lie (Thomas & Mercer, 2025). The novel follows a woman who moves to the mountains to escape her tragic past, only to find something even darker (268 pages, hardcover, $28.99, christinabakerkline.com; www.anneburtwriter.com).
In A Force for Nature: Paul Schaefer’s Adirondack Coalitions (Syracuse University Press, 2025), David Gibson—a wilderness advocate who was mentored by Schaefer—gives us an up-close-and-personal look at the groundbreaking conservationist (226 pages, softcover, $27.95, black-and-white photographs, press.syr.edu).
Lake George Journey: An Alphabet Adventure (Wildpreneurs, 2025), a picture book by Tamara Jacobi and Walter Wright, explores the ABCs of the Queen of American Lake’s history, wildlife and culture with engaging illustrations by seven artists (60 pages, hardcover, $34.95, color illustrations, wildpreneurs.com).
The Manager (self-published, 2025), a novel by former Adirondack Life editor Christopher Shaw, delves into the grittier side of 1980 Olympics–era Lake Placid as a regional-magazine editor gazes back to what happened between him, a KGB agent, and a dashing Russian figure skater just after the Miracle on Ice hockey win over the USSR (311 pages, softcover, $23.95, outskirtspress.com).
In The Nature of the Place: On the Flora and Fauna of the Adirondacks (North Country Books, 2025) naturalist Ed Kanze looks at the private lives of regional plants and animals, both tiny and towering. It’s a book that combines Kanze’s familiar folksy tone with a wealth of scientific tidbits and a moral at its core—always take the time to meet your neighbors (288 pages, hardcover, black-and-white illustrations, $32.95, www.globepequot.com).
Edward Pitt’s Sketching the Adirondacks: Letters from the Wilderness (Syracuse University Press, 2025) traces the 1851 backcountry journey of two early landscape artists—Jervis McEntee and Joseph Tubby—through a collection of fictionalized letters home to the artists’ friends and families as well as McEntee’s historical sketches (190 pages, softcover, $32.95, black-and-white illustrations, press.syr.edu).
Squirrels: How a Backyard Forager Shapes Our World (Island Press, 2025), by environmental educator Nancy Castaldo, is a light-hearted and informative look at the ecological importance of these furry—and sometimes exasperating—neighbors (264 pages, softcover, $30, black-and-white illustrations and maps, islandpress.org).
In our November/December 2025 issue, Lauren McGovern writes of Kate Messner’s latest middle-grade novel, The Trouble with Heroes (Bloomsbury, 2025), “Messner creates a portal to the world of loss, with a young teen carrying way more than a backpack full of gear. … [She] gives Finn an authentic voice—one middle-school teachers have heard in their classrooms—tired, afraid, anxious, annoyed. And also vibrant, lyrical, creative, funny and innovative (368 pages, hardcover, $17.99, www.bloomsbury.com).
Wild Forest Lands (Syracuse University Press, 2025), by historian Philip G. Terrie, examines our evolving understanding of wilderness through an Adirondack lens (237 pages, softcover, $29.95, press.syr.edu).
