The dedicated outdoorsman or woman is, by definition, equipped. The few things such a person might lack are likely so specialized as to be a mystery to outdoors outsiders.     Books and movies, however, fall into a safe-gift zone. If you’re intent on pleasantly surprising an outdoors lover with your gift, the following suggestions might help.     Kayak Fishing (Sportsman’s Best www.Florida

If you read Marley and Me and cried like a baby, we may have the book club for you.     The readers in this club carry their passion about animals into their taste in books. They’ll read any animal-themed book. They started on The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein and The Pitbull Placebo by Karen Delise.     This month the young, unnamed group — mostly Anne Arundel County SPCA volunteers — is reading local memoirist Janice Gary’s Short Leash.

At St. John’s College this Sunday, I’m sure to be asked how I got the access to write my latest book, Prisoners of the White House: The Isolation of America’s Presidents and the Crisis of Leadership.     It’s a question I’m used to, for I answer it all the time.     The theme is a natural extension of my work as chief White House correspondent for U.S. News & World Report. This has been my job since 1986, and President Obama is the fifth commander in chief I’ve covered.

Fans of award-winning author Lisa Scottoline have a treat this week. She’s coming to Annapolis for a reading and signing of her latest book, Accused.

Picture a generation of children losing their capacity to play. Picture a school system where recess and free time are disappearing. Imagine an educational mindset that tests its students with greater frequency even as students report growing anxiety and stress.     If your imagination fails, it may be because there was no room for imagination in your school day.     Peter Gray offers an alternative in his book Free to Learn and his speaking tour, which brings him to Chesapeake Country on October 5.

I’ve spent my life on the Chesapeake Bay, working in recreational and commercial fishing industries. Yet I never gave much thought to tugboats, their captains and crews in the Baltimore Harbor. That changed last winter. Editing Captain Bill Eggert’s new book — Gentlemen of the Harbor: Stories of Chesapeake Bay Tugboats and Crews — I became fascinated by the tugboat industry on the Bay, its history, people and contributions to Maryland’s economy and commerce.

Simeon Booker is a lucky man. He has lived to enjoy the spoils of victory.     On the sandy shores of the Chesapeake at Cove Point in southern Calvert County, the 94-year-old has enjoyed 30 years of the best the Bay has to offer. He has basked in water just outside his cottage windows, miles of beach walking, fishing, the solace of nature, the company of neighbors and friends … even the luxury of a new septic system supported in part by the Bay Restoration Fund.

Move over Lassie, Rin Tin Tin and Benji. Make way for Mr. Pish, the latest rising star in the doggy world.

School’s out! Children yell and jump for joy, getting pumped for a fun summer of beaches, lazy days and reading. Anne Arundel and Calvert Libraries are helping kids Dig into Summer Reading, a national initiative to make books part of summer’s fun.     Anne Arundel and Calvert libraries are spicing summer reading with jugglers, mad scientists, magicians and puppets.

For more than 25 years, Kenneth Walsh has covered the White House and its chief occupant for U.S. News & World Report, penning more than a dozen books in that time. His latest, Prisoners of the White House: The Isolation of America’s Presidents and the Crisis of Leadership, explores the irony that the most powerful man in the world, the president of the United States, is powerless against the confines of his very office.