The Adirondack Center for Writing will announce the winners of its annual literary contest on June 5 at the Blue Mountain Center in Blue Mountain Lake. For entries to be eligible, the ACW guidelines require authors to “Live in region part or full-time OR include the Adirondacks in your publication, and have published in 2015.”

I again had the privilege to join editor (and author of the wonderful “The Way Home: A Wilderness Journey”) Bibi Wein as judge of this year’s non-fiction entries. Here, maybe for your summer reading, is a summary of the books we reviewed. Each is a rewarding read.

-“Ausable Chasm in Pictures and Story” by Russell Dunn, John Haywood and Sean Reines. This booklet presents the geology, history and current information for visitors. With its companion volume, “Ausable Chasm in 3D,” also by Dunn and Haywood, the well-known local attraction is effectively highlighted.

-“Lake Placid Diet: How the Olympic Village Saved My Life” by Andy Flynn. Columnist Andy Flynn courageously chronicled his weight loss efforts in his weekly Lake Placid News column from December 2013 to December 2014. Those columns are reprinted in this book. Flynn writes clearly, personally, and inspiringly about his success (a loss of 80 pounds) and his continuing struggle.

-“Escape from Dannemora” by Lawrence Gooley. This is much more than a recap and analysis of the escape of Richard Matt and David Sweat in June of last year from Clinton Correctional Facility. Lawrence Gooley does a good job with that famous event, but also, and maybe more importantly, writes of “170 years of escapes, tortures, and infamous inmates at New York’s most notorious prison.”

-“The Psychic Highway: How the Erie Canal Changed America” by Michael T. Keene. The impact of the 19th-century engineering marvel, a watery New York State Thruway, rippled through commerce, westward expansion, abolition, the Underground Railroad, and the women’s movement. Michael Keene traces how the canal came about and its influence on the country.

-“Possums to Porcupines: The wild Life of an Adirondack Rehabilitator” by Nancy Kimball. Nancy Kimball became a licensed wildlife rehabilitator late in life, and this is her story and advice to those interested in caring for the Adirondack animals.

-“Adirondack Outlaws: Bad Boys and Lawless Ladies” by Niki Kourofsky. Wonderfully organized, this book reminds us that the “forever wild” phrase can have more than one meaning in the Adirondacks.

“Missing Persons: A Life of Unexpected Influences,” by Bruce Piasecki. Bruce Piasecki’s memoir, written in brief third person sketches, traces – elliptically and artistically?- the journey of a gifted basketball player from Long Island to business success.

-“A Not Too Greatly Changed Eden: The Story of the Philosophers’ Camp in the Adirondacks,” by James Schlett. In 1858, intellectuals such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Louis Agassiz and James Russell Lowell gathered at Follensby Pond. That scholars were camping in the woods was news, and focused a non-commercial light on the Adirondacks. James Schlett’s carefully researched book takes us back to that gathering, and its important implications.

-“My Adirondack: Ten Stories from Twenty Years” by Erik Schlimmer. Many books, such as Colin Fletcher’s “The Man Who Walked Through Time,” are the public musings of solitary hikers. Erik Schlimmer joins that group, writing effectively of his years of trekking and camping. He has a gift for writing about the trails less traveled, such as his walk among five unnamed Adirondackpeaks in Hamilton County’s town of Piseco.

Each of these books deserves attention, and, depending on your interests, will bring you pleasure and insight. They also remind me that the Adirondack Center for Writing is doing important work by encouraging the literary exploration of the Adirondacks and supporting local authors.