The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World

Braiding Sweetgrass

Robin Wall Kimmerer

A botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation espouses having an understanding and appreciation of plants and animals.

Encounters with the Archdruid

John McPhee · 245 pages

The narratives in this book are of journeys made in three wildernesses - on a coastal island, in a Western mountain range, and on the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. The four men portrayed here have different relationships to their environment, and they encounter each other on mountain trails, in forests and rapids, sometimes with reserve, sometimes with friendliness, sometimes fighting hard a

The End of Night: Searching for Natural Darkness in an Age of Artificial Light

Paul Bogard · 337 pages

Describes how ever-present, modern artificial lights have changed the way humans experience darkness and bemoans the fact that the primal dark sky can no longer influence science and art.

The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America's National Parks

Terry Tempest Williams · 416 pages

"A personal, lyrical, and idiosyncratic ode to our national parks"-- "For years, America's national parks have provided public breathing spaces in a world in which such spaces are steadily disappearing, which is why close to 300 million people visit the parks each year. Now, to honor the centennial of the National Park Service, Terry Tempest Williams, the author of the beloved memoir When Women W

The Living Great Lakes: Searching for the Heart of the Inland Seas

Jerry Dennis · 308 pages

"If fresh water is a treasure, the Great Lakes are the mother lode. No bodies of water can compare to them. Superior is the largest lake on earth, and the five lakes together contain a fifth of the world's supply of standing fresh water. Their ten thousand miles of shoreline bound seven states and a Canadian province and are longer than the entire Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States;

On a Farther Shore: The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson, Author of Silent Spring

William Souder · 496 pages

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

Michael Pollan · 450 pages

What should we have for dinner?" To one degree or another this simple question assails any creature faced with a wide choice of things to eat. Anthropologists call it the omnivore's dilemma. Choosing from among the countless potential foods nature offers, humans have had to learn what is safe, and what isn't—which mushrooms should be avoided, for example, and which berries we can enjoy. Today, as

Desert Solitaire

Edward Abbey · 270 pages

An account of the author's experiences, observations, and reflections as a seasonal park ranger in southeast Utah. When Desert Solitaire was first published in 1968, it became the focus of a nationwide cult. Rude and sensitive. Thought-provoking and mystical. Angry and loving. Both Abbey and this book are all of these and more. Here, the legendary author of The Monkey Wrench Gang, Abbey's Road an

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

Barbara Kingsolver, Steven L. Hopp, Camille Kingsolver · 384 pages

Bestselling author Barbara Kingsolver returns with her first nonfiction narrative that will open your eyes in a hundred new ways to an old truth: You are what you eat."As the U.S. population made an unprecedented mad dash for the Sun Belt, one carload of us paddled against the tide, heading for the Promised Land where water falls from the sky and green stuff grows all around. We were about to begi

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History

Elizabeth Kolbert · 336 pages

From the author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe, a powerful and important work about the future of the world, blending intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a compelling account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes.

The World Without Us

Alan Weisman · 336 pages

The World Without Us, an intriguing peek inside the impact homo sapiens have on the world around us and what will be left when we cease to exist. Alan Weisman intelligently intertwines the affect we have on the Earth and its ecosystems and the way we have damaged it, the things nature can't undo. A tremendous report on the ways we have killed the flora and fauna and how we will ultimately extermin

All The Wild That Remains: Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner, and the American West

David Gessner · 354 pages

"Archetypal wild man Edward Abbey and proper, dedicated Wallace Stegner left their footprints all over the western landscape. Now, ... nature writer David Gessner follows the ghosts of these two remarkable writer-environmentalists from Stegner's birthplace in Saskatchewan to the site of Abbey's pilgrimages to Arches National Park in Utah, braiding their stories and asking how they speak to the liv

Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea and Human Life

George Monbiot · 319 pages

"George Monbiot explores a new, positive environmentalism that shows how damaged ecosystems on land and at sea can be restored, and how this restoration can revitalize and enrich our lives. Challenging what he calls his "ecological boredom," Monbiot weaves together a beautiful and riveting tale of wild places, wildlife, and wild people. Roaming the hills of Britain and the forests of Europe, kayak

Silent Spring

Rachel Carson · 320 pages

"An important, controversial account ... of the way in which man's use of poisons to control insect pests and unwanted vegetation is changing the balance of nature." Booklist.

Prodigal Summer

Barbara Kingsolver · 444 pages

Prodigal Summer weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives inhabiting the forested mountains and struggling small farms of southern Appalachia.From her outpost in an isolated mountain cabin, Deanna Wolfe, a reclusive wildlife biologist, watches a den of coyotes that have recently migrated into the region. She is caught off guard by a young hunter who invades her

The Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World

Emma Marris · 210 pages

"For decades people have unquestioningly accepted the idea that our goal is to preserve nature in its pristine, pre-human state. But many scientists have come to see this as an outdated dream that thwarts bold new plans to save the environment and prevents us from having a fuller relationship with nature. Humans have changed the landscapes they inhabit since prehistory, and climate change means ev

The Lost Language of Plants: The Ecological Importance of Plant Medicine to Life on Earth

Stephen Harrod Buhner · 330 pages

"Enraged, Energized, Exultant. You won't know how to feel after reading Stephen Harrod Buhner's The Lost Language of Plants. This is a devastating expose about how we are polluting our environment with the pharmaceuticals that Western medicine has developed to heal us. We are ingesting Prozac, Premarin, and antibiotics whether we want to or not." "Yet, as we foul air and water with toxic residues

Into the Wild

Jon Krakauer · 207 pages

In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose

Seeds of Hope: Wisdom and Wonder from the World of Plants

Jane Goodall, Gail Hudson · 426 pages

"Renowned naturalist and bestselling author Jane Goodall examines the critical role that trees and plants play in our world"--Provided by the publisher.

Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-scale Permaculture

Toby Hemenway · 231 pages

Whatever size yard or garden you have to work with, you can apply basic permaculture principles to make it more diverse, more natural, more productive, and more beautiful. Best of all, once it's established, an ecological garden will reduce or eliminate most of the backbreaking work that's needed to maintain the typical lawn and garden.

A Sand County Almanac: With Essays on Conservation from Round River

Aldo Leopold · 269 pages

First published in 1949 and praised in The New York Times Book Review as a trenchant book, full of vigor and bite, A Sand County Almanac combines some of the finest nature writing since Thoreau with an outspoken and highly ethical regard for Americas relationship to the land. Written with an unparalleled understanding of the ways of nature, the book includes a section on the monthly changes of the

Lab Girl

Hope Jahren · 408 pages

An illuminating debut memoir of a woman in science; a moving portrait of a longtime friendship; and a stunningly fresh look at plants that will forever change how you see the natural world Acclaimed scientist Hope Jahren has built three laboratories in which she’s studied trees, flowers, seeds, and soil. Her first book is a revelatory treatise on plant life—but it is also so much more. Lab

The Ocean of Life: The Fate of Man and the Sea

Callum Roberts · 405 pages

Who can forget the sense of wonder with which they discovered as a child the creatures of the deep? In this vibrant hymn to the sea, one of the world's foremost conservation biologists, known as the "Rachel Carson of the fish world" (The New York Times), takes us back in time to tell the story of man and the sea, from the earliest traces of water on earth to the oceans as we know them today. If yo

Last Chance to See

Douglas Adams, Mark Carwardine · 222 pages

An interactive multimedia exploration of the authors' trip around the world in search of endangered species. Contains the unabridged text of the book Last chance to see, a reading of the entire book by Douglas Adams, and over 800 full-screen color photographs. Allows the user to either read or listen to the book, to choose any chapter within the book, and to explore the many sidebars that provide