On Trails

June 20, 2016
In this engrossing meditation on trails in animal and human societies, journalist Moor surveys the natural and social histories of trail-making, from the half-billion-year-old fossilized trails of Ediacaran blobs to the pheromone trails of ants, the well-judged and emotionally meaningful trails of elephants (they may carve routes to the graves of relatives), and the ancient Native American trails that underlie much of the modern U.S. road network. He styles these disparate trails as a kind of "external memory" whereby, as one individual follows in the tracks of another for prosaic reasons, a larger template for collective movement is unwittingly constructed. In fine participant-journalist fashion, the author dives into the trail-blazing himself, doing a stint as a shepherd trying to guide wayward sheep and goats through the countryside; mapping out hiking trails in Morocco, where the locals are baffled by the notion of foreigners traipsing around on barren mountainsides; and walking the Appalachian Trail, where exhaustion and rain are leavened by intense camaraderie. Moor combines vivid reportage told in supple prose with lucid explorations of science and history in an absorbing account of how travelers shape and are shaped by the land they pass through. Agent: Bonnie Nadell, Hill Nadell Literary Agency.

October 1, 2016

Moore, an award-winning environmental journalist, thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail in 2009, an experience that led him to contemplate the nature and history of trail making. The book that resulted from this exploration details a visit to the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee; a stint herding sheep in Black Mesa, AZ, near Navajo and Hopi reservations; and a hunt for old Cherokee trails in the Southeast. While the book itself defies easy categorization and resembles the kind of walking Moore engages in, meandering and immersive, the author primarily concerns himself with why humans, animals, and insects form trails; and why some survive while others disappear. Elephants create routes that lead them to the graves of their loved ones, while shepherds and sheep mold one another, collaborating in the mapping of effective paths. Most modern American roads were formed by the Native Americans who resided here for thousands of years. Native American pathmaking grew from the need to stalk game, and Moore notes that the Cherokee trekked across landscapes in moccasins heel-to-toe as if on a tightrope. Today we clomp through in heavy hiking boots; the goal is no longer to stalk or hunt but wandering for its own sake. VERDICT For fans of Annie Dillard and Jared Diamond alike, this book is suitable for all readers and is well worth the journey.--Barrie Olmstead, Sacramento P.L.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2016
A sagacious walker and writer guides us on a new journey of discovery, a different kind of road trip about roads themselves and what they mean.A thru-hiker on the Appalachian Trail (one who traverses the entire trail), environmental journalist Moor considers how traces became footpaths, roads, and highways over countless millennia, from the tracks of Precambrian proto-animals to life today. He reports how ungulates, including deer, horses, and giraffes, know where they are going by using marked pathways. The author chronicles his visits with elephants and deer-hunting expeditions. A good place to eat, expectedly, is normally high on the list of reasons for vertebrate and insect travel. Moor also learned, by walking with them, how Native Americans navigated the land they once tended. His varied chronicle of the paths taken by those who went before us is consistently fascinating and entertaining as we learn how trails are made by roaches, bison, and trekkers on the AT. His wide-ranging report represents a nascent scientific discipline, drawing out the wisdom of the paths scouted by Darwin, Thoreau, and Camus. Moor celebrates the history and popularity of the rigors of the AT even when, after the introduction of a carriage path in the 1850s, it "became possible to travel from the back alleys of Boston to the top of Mount Washington without taking more than a few steps." Now there is a movement to extend the AT through Canada. Walking with a fabled hiker called Nimblewill Nomad, Moor discovered that, "every morning, the hiker's options are reduced to two: walk or quit. Once that decision is made, all the others (when to eat, where to sleep) begin to fall into place." It's a curious form of freedom from all the choices society requires. With side trips to areas scarcely visited before, this is a fine guide to places with better views of the world.

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Starred review from June 1, 2016
In bewildering timeswhen all the old ways seem to be dissolving into mireit serves us well to turn our eyes earthward and study the oft-overlooked wisdom beneath our feet, writes Moor, who makes good on his advice in this deeply informed study of the nature and history of trailmaking. While he's certainly conversant in current field research, from studies of the world's oldest trails (an exposed fossilized section of seabed dating back 565 million years) to the mapping of all major footpaths of the ancient Cherokee homeland, the author literally walks the walk, joining Oxford researcher Alexander Liu on the Newfoundland coast to limn the faint fossil trails left by the ancient Ediacaran biota, then hiking with the pistol-packing historian Lamar Marshall to ascertain an old Cherokee trail along a North Carolina ridgeline. There are revelations at every turn here, from the nature of shepherding, to the vast network of ancient animal and Native American trails that underlie modern North America, to the very qualities of the best trailsdurability, efficiency, and flexibilityand how we learn from them even as we move beyond them.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)