Reading List: The Best Outdoor Books 2012

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Late last week, the National Outdoor Book Awards released its picks for this year's best books. The list includes 15 winners and honorable mentions in nine categories like natural history, outdoor adventure guidebooks, instructional books, nature and environment and children's books. The highest honor—the Outdoor Literature Award—is a two-way tie between Almost Somewhere: Twenty-Eight Days on the John Muir Trail, by Suzanne Roberts, and The Ledge: An Adventure Story of Friendship and Survival on Mount Rainier, by Jim Davidson and Kevin Vaughan. [slideshow:575]

Is the list comprehensive? No—where is Wade Davis' Into the Silence, after all, and Cheryl Strayed's hot new book, Wild?—but the judges still worked well with their nominees to put together an admirable list of read-worthy outdoors books. Click through to the slideshow to see the full list of winners, including notes from the judging panel on why they picked each book, then stock your bookshelf for a long winter of good aprés-ski fireside reading.