About

Baseweight Books started on the Pacific Crest Trail. I always carried a book. Hikers often listened to audiobooks instead — lighter, they’d point out, which is true and also beside the point. I did too, but for me the physical book was a ritual: an excuse to stop, company in the tent, a reason to poke around the used shelf in the next trail town, something to trade with a stranger who’d just finished something good, an icebreaker at a water source.

After the trail I noticed that my memories of it had fused with the books I was reading in each section — this ridge belongs to that chapter, permanently. A paperback does that. When I think of the Klamath Mountains, I am thinking of Zorba the Greek. Burney Falls is a beautiful place to visit, but for me it’s also where I finished Out of Africa. The incredibly parched day of hiking the Hat Creek Rim into Lassen National Park is otherworldly because that’s where I started my first Samuel R. Delany book.

So this is a collection of books worth carrying — one hundred of them, eventually — each weighed against familiar backpacking gear. Not because you should count grams on a book (please don’t), but because the comparison makes the choice honest: A Leopard-Skin Hat costs you a balaclava and a bandana. Carry it anyway. That’s the whole idea — culture and intention, not optimization. (Which is also why drawings by a human and not an algorithm were important for this site. A huge thanks to Anna Moore for her work.)

“I like walking because it is slow, and I suspect that the mind, like the feet, works at about three miles an hour. If this is so, then modern life is moving faster than the speed of thought, or thoughtfulness.”

— Rebecca Solnit

Room in the Pack, the newsletter, arrives about once a month: one book, where I read it, what’s new on the shelf. Sign up on the home page.

How we weigh gear

Weights are for real, ordinary, trail-packed gear — a normal person’s kit, not an ultralight record attempt and not retail-box maximum. Consumables are travel-size and repackaged. Clothing and footwear are everyday versions, weighed as worn (footwear by the pair). Food is the normal single serving you’d actually pack. Honest and familiar beats lowest-possible.

The classifications

Every book carries two tags. Weight: Ultralight (≤130g), Lightweight (131–200g), or Luxury Item (201g+). Vibe — what kind of companion it makes: a Quiet Companion, the kind that keeps you up Past Bedtime, the kind that Changes the Way You See, or the kind that Carries You Away. A very few heavy books carry a third: Legends Only, reserved for the transformative ones.

Where the links go

Every book links to Bookshop.org, which routes your purchase through independent bookstores. The links are affiliate links; if you buy one, a small commission supports this project — at no extra cost to you.