AN ADVENTURE LOG

A stirring collection of far-flung adventure stories.

“The authors of these articles all have day jobs,” writes Doti in his preface. “Somehow, some way, they carved out enough time to experience and then record their adventures, pushing against the boundaries that often constrain the range of life’s offerings.” The contributors—Scott Chapman, Ryan Dahlem, Adam Doti, Lynne Doti, Daniele Struppa, and Dan Temianka—recount the broadly varied expeditions they’ve undertaken, from climbing famous mountains like Rainier, Kilimanjaro, and Everest to running famous meets including Tanzania’s Mount Meru International Marathon and the Boston Marathon. These events range from high-profile and well-organized endeavors, like summiting Mount Denali, which requires long and careful preparation, to the far more ramshackle and informal, such as the Mount Meru run, in which Jim Doti and the other runners found themselves navigating roads filled with people, donkeys, and cows (“Evidently, there was no traffic control for the marathon”). Each chapter features plenty of color photos of the smiling participants camping out in exotic locales. Most of the entries highlight the most human moments: “after the Boston medal was placed around my neck,” Jim Doti writes, “I turned right at Clarendon Street and walked a half block to Hancock Tower, where it wasn’t long before I was showering under a steaming spray of hot, soothing, and redemptive water.” This element of relatability is the book’s strongest and most winning throughline; Doti starts off the collection by asserting that the friends, songs, and meals were the point of it all, not the peaks reached or the miles logged. He recites Mark Twain’s dictum to “Explore. Dream. Discover” as he looks back on “all the laughs, the cold winds, the relentless climb up the mountain, the lessons [he] learned, the beautiful sights [he] saw, the new friends [he] met.” Charmingly, this sense of appreciation extends even to the discovery of a new book.

A vivid and thoroughly inviting anthology of happy escapades.