Give the Gift of Reading: Great Books to Gift, Keep and Revisit
If you’re on the hunt for the perfect gift for the outdoors-minded person in your life, looking for a good story to curl up with this winter or hoping to kick off the New Year with a new hobby, there’s no better place to start than sinking into a great read. Storytelling has the power to connect us, reminding us that we’re part of a larger community, and it carries the traditions we pass down through generations spent in the woods. Whether you want to relive the magic of a spring morning in the turkey woods or dive deeper into the American conservation movement shaping our future, this collection will deliver exactly what you’re after.
Talking Turkeys
by Denny Painter
Painter, a retired game warden from West Virginia and an avid turkey hunter, made his debut as an author this past June. In his new book Eating Crow, Painter blends real turkey hunting stories with imaginative tales, exploring lessons, humility and nature's beauty. The title is a classic American idiom that some use when they admit to being wrong, which many turkey hunters know all too well. Painter’s title cleverly links the idiom with the challenges and quiet moments of turkey hunting.
by Col. Tom Kelly
Often regarded as the Bible of wild turkey hunting, Kelly’s classic is all too familiar to turkey hunters across the country. Written in 1973, these pages recount Kelly’s experiences in the woods as both a forester and turkey hunter. He has a profound gift for putting words to the feelings and experiences of being in the woods with wild turkeys. Tenth Legion inspired and continues to inspire wild turkey enthusiasts from every corner of the country and is an essential on every turkey hunter’s bookshelf.
by Brent Rogers, Danny Ellis, Chris McDonald, and Rick Ellis
Available in January 2026, The Origin and Evolution of Turkey Calls builds on work started by Howard Harlan in his groundbreaking book, Turkey Calls: An Enduring American Folk Art. The book is coming out at a time when we are losing the Greatest Generation of wild turkey hunters and callmakers. Their lives carry firsthand knowledge of all things related to early turkey callmaking, which is why it is necessary to record their stories and innovations. Full of hundreds of photos illustrating turkey call history, this book presents the fascinating evolution of turkey call styles. For current and future hunters, collectors and historians, this book will offer a lasting reference to fully appreciate the craft of fashioning calls to outwit the American wild turkey.
Outdoor Obsessions
by Bill Bryson
In this nonfiction classic, Bryson recounts his decision to walk the 2,100-mile Appalachian Trail, which stretches from Georgia to Maine. Bryson asks friends and family who might be interested in joining him, when he hears back from out-of-shape Stephen Katz, a buddy from Iowa. The duo’s dynamic adds comedy to their journey, which is paired with Bryson’s brilliant ability to put words to the beautiful and fragile ecosystems they witness on their journey on the trail. He tells the trail’s fascinating history and advocates for the conservation of America’s last great wilderness. An adventure, comedy and celebration, A Walk in the Woods is a modern classic of outdoor literature.
by Anthony Matarese Jr. and Will Primos
Whether you’re hunting ducks, geese, doves, deer or turkeys, Straight Shooting for Hunters will show you how to pick the right gear, develop the right plan and make the shot when it matters. Anthony I. Matarese Jr., one of the most decorated sporting clays shooters in U.S. history, and Will Primos, a true pioneer of the game-call industry, created this no-nonsense guide that will improve your shooting, regardless of skill level. The book features photos of the authors in action along with easy-to-follow diagrams. From practical advice to true stories from the field, this book is a must on every hunter’s bookshelf.
by Craig Childs
Childs’ book is compiled of 40 brief, compelling narratives, each focusing on his own encounters with a particular species, with astonishing facts about the species’ behavior, habitat, breeding, and lifespan. The glory of each essay lies in Childs’ ability to portray the complicated beauty of the wilderness, to capture the individual essence of wild creatures, and to transport the reader beyond the human realm and deep inside the animal kingdom. Though the essays are organized in order, the Author’s Note encourages readers to skip around at will and read whichever essay intrigues them at that moment: “This is how each story came to me: unexpectedly, halting my breath before I could draw it in.”
by Chris Eberhart
Between these pages, Eberhart shares with readers how to hunt for bucks on a shoestring budget. For less than the cost of most guided hunts, Eberhart hunts five states over the course of three months. He brings readers along with him for an entire season while he successfully harvests deer in top trophy buck spots. The experience and reality of hunting both public and private lands is explained from firsthand experience, and Eberhart includes insights on how to gain access to hunting land when you're on the road. This book will allow you to take a week-long hunt of a lifetime on an extremely limited budget.
Craving Conservation
by Aldo Leopold
Take a trip through the woods with this American classic. Leopold, considered by many as the father of modern American wildlife ecology, was a forester, philosopher, conservationist, educator, writer, and outdoor enthusiast. In this environmental classic, Leopold takes readers with him through the seasons on a tour of our natural resources. A Sand County Almanac is known for introducing the concept of land ethics, which calls for an ethical, caring relationship between people and nature: “When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”
by Jim Sterba
In his groundbreaking nonfiction book, Sterba writes that it is quite likely that more people live in closer proximity to more wildlife and trees in America than anywhere on the planet at any time in history. While this sounds like a good thing, it comes with drivers hitting deer, coyotes killing pets, neighborhood cats killing songbirds and more. All the while, people have become more withdrawn from the natural world. They get anthropomorphized versions of wild nature from films and discard their grandparents’ hard-won knowledge of the working landscape and forget obligations of responsible stewardship. Nature Wars tells the story of how a wildlife comeback miracle became a mess and advocates for the responsible management of local landscapes for all their inhabitants, including people.
by Douglas Brinkley
During his presidency from 1901 to 1909, Theodore Roosevelt conserved about 230 million acres of land. He created and expanded 150 national forests, 51 Federal Bird Reservations, six National Parks, and 18 National Monuments. In The Wilderness Warrior, Brinkley writes of all this, while also giving the reader a deeper understanding of why Roosevelt had such a love for America’s wild places. Throughout these pages, readers learn about a young Roosevelt collecting birds around his family’s property, learning taxidermy, his adventures as a teenager in the wilderness of Maine, hunting, trapping, and snowshoeing around the wilderness for weeks at a time and more. For anyone who is interested in the history of land conservation in America, The Wilderness Warrior is worth the investment.
Mindful Memoirs
by Heathe Pendergraft
Published this past summer, Pendergraft recounts his self-guided journey toward becoming a turkey hunter. As a boy, no one was willing to take him out turkey hunting, so he decided to teach himself. By doing this, he felt like he became a misfit turkey hunter, always learning things the hard way. In his memoir, readers will get a glimpse into Pendergraft’s misfit brain, along with his personal take on turkey hunting tactics. For turkey hunters looking for an inspiring turkey hunting story, this will be the read for you.
by Steven Rinella
Hunting icon Steve Rinella has had a lifelong relationship with nature and hunting. In Meat Eater, he recounts ten different hunts and with each one, he grapples with nuanced themes such as the role of the hunter in shaping America, the vanishing frontier, the ethics of killing, the allure of hunting trophies, and the disappearance of hunters on the landscape as Americans lose their connection with the way their food finds its way to their tables. Rinella also includes a section after each chapter of “Tasting Notes” inspired by his thirty-plus years of eating and cooking wild game. In Meat Eater, he paints a loving portrait of a way of life that is part of who we are as humans and as Americans.
by James Cambell
Cambell’s memoir tells of the powerful and affirming journey he took with his teenage daughter to the far reaches of Alaska. Despite windchills of 50 below zero, father and daughter ventured out daily to track, hunt and trap and slowly grew more comfortable in the woods. On their third and most ambitious trip backpacking over Alaska’s Brooks Range, the journey tests the pair and their relationship, in one of the planet’s most remote places. For readers craving a true adventure story with themes of parent-child relationships, Braving It might be your next read.
by Jim Casada
To know where we’re going, we have to know where we've been, and Casada does an amazing job telling the stories of those who came before us. In Remembering the Greats, readers are put directly in the shadow of true turkey hunting giants, in whose footsteps we turkey hunters now march. Casada honors their memory by telling the truth of these men, writing of both the good and the difficult, hoping that readers see themselves in their imperfections. This book showcases an enthusiasm for turkey hunting, tells the stories of legends and how they dedicated their lives to establishing the hunting methods and turkey populations we so enjoy today.