Up until the publication of Rachel S. Gross’ “Shopping All the Way to the Woods; How the Outdoor Industry Sold Nature to America” I had not seen anyone take up the industry itself in a focused study that went beyond the mundane bounds of business and delve into how and why it came to be in the first place.
Ever since I read her brilliant book “Stiff; the Curious Lives of Human Cadavers” (on a trans-U.S. airplane flight, no less – talk about making one’s fellow seat mates uncomfortable!) I have delighted in her ability to take a range of topics that most people would think to be somewhere between uncomfortable (“Gulp”) and unmentionable (“Bonk”), and turn them into lively, eye-opening books.