Sample-Chapter Showdown: National Geographic

 

Great Outdoors U.S.A. (National Geographic)
Gordon Ramsay's Uncharted by Gordon Ramsay (National Geographic)

It's time for a sample-chapter showdown!

These two books, both published by National Geographic, have two other things in common: far-flung places and beautiful photos. Each sample contains one chapter (one on Arizona, the other on Morocco)...so it's on those chapters that I'm forming my impressions.

One part armchair travel and two parts fuel for getting out of that armchair and going somewhere, Great Outdoors U.S.A. provides 1,000+ suggestions for ways and places to get outdoors.

With 14 pages of adventures for each state—Arizona, included in this sample, offers details on 10 adventures and quicker mentions of a further 10—there are enough options here to inspire years of travel throughout the US, whether you're interested in hiking or biking or rafting or birding or something else entirely. I don't have enough information to say how many of the suggestions will be friendly to those with accessibility concerns, but in general you'd be hard pressed to not find an adventure that speaks to you.

 
True to National Geographic's reputation, the photos here are gorgeous. If National Geographic magazines have served as inspiration for you before, or if you've ever (ahem) saved a folder of National Geographic pictures to use as desktop backgrounds, you're likely to enjoy paging through this for the photos alone.

Travel meets food (meets celebrity chef): Gordon Ramsay's Uncharted takes the reader to 21 different locations for some vicarious travel and some less-vicarious meals. This sample chapter drops you in "the Mountains of Morocco" for a few pages of history and travelogue before finishing with three recipes—in this case, a beef dish, a carrot dish, and a sort of mushroom pizza.

This is not a part of Morocco that comes quickly to mind—I've never been to North Africa, and I automatically think desert, not mountains, so it's always nice to be reminded of the complexities of far-off places. (For some reason I'm also fascinated by a description Ramsey gives of camel meat—I'm vegetarian, so it's not information applicable to my own life, but it sort of makes me hope that someone somewhere has written, or will write, a book of recipes from scattered places using ingredients that you *can't* source easily in the West. Spiced carrots are grand, and that one's a recipe I can even make(!), but it doesn't pique my imagination like camel meat does.)

Other places the book draws from include Tasmania, Norway, and Croatia, and the Michigan UP. Although I'm not a foodie, I'd be very curious to see a recipe list—I have so little context for what foods might come out of those places. This will definitely be an interesting set of recipes for anyone who likes to dig into new foods when they travel.

The verdict: If I'd made a guess before reading, I would have said that I was more likely to skim the entirety of Great Outdoors U.S.A., because if I could spend all my time having outdoors adventures (or—all my non-reading time—with maybe some overlap), I would, but...Uncharted feels more useful to my day-to-day life, and I'm curious enough about what recipes come out of Croatia and the UP that I might have to dig deeper when the full book is published.

Thanks to the authors and publisher for providing these samples through NetGalley.