Chrysalis Academy Posted February 18, 2015 Share Posted February 18, 2015 I'd love to get suggestions of your very favorite books of Natural History. Define that any way you like. I'm looking for a variety of topics, whole books rather than field guides, as I have a slew of those and they will be regionally specific anyway. I'd especially like to find things that are really well written, enjoyable to read. Writing like Rachel Carson, KWIM? There was a thread on this board in the last couple of weeks where someone posted a list of their favorite authors. I grabbed a few books from the library, and they were awesome! Can't find the thread now, though, so if you know what I'm talking about and find it, would you link it here please? I will come back later today and post my favorites, too, but have to go out for awhile and wanted to get the ball rolling. TIA! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raptor_dad Posted February 18, 2015 Share Posted February 18, 2015 John McPhee's "Annals of the Former World" is great for geology. If that is too much of a goat choker, you could read the individual books it combines("Assembling California", "Basin and Range", etc). McPhee's "Founding Fish" could be paired with Mark Kurlansky's "Cod" and maybe Linda Greenlaw's "Hungry Ocean" or William Warner's "Beautiful Swimmers" for an interesting natural history/human geography read. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raptor_dad Posted February 18, 2015 Share Posted February 18, 2015 Anything Peter Matthiessen wrote. I would start with "The Snow Leopard" or "The Tree Where Man Was Born" but they are all great. Aldo Leopold's "Sand County Almanac" is also a must read. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emerald Stoker Posted February 18, 2015 Share Posted February 18, 2015 We've enjoyed the books mentioned in this thread: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/513619-favourite-treeforest-books/?hl=%2Btrees&do=findComment&comment=5754293 ETA a couple more favourites: Colin Tudge's Secret Life of Trees, and Peter Thomas's Trees: Their Natural History. Also seconding McPhee! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
momto2Cs Posted February 18, 2015 Share Posted February 18, 2015 Swampwalker's Journal: A Wetlands Year, and other books by David M. Carroll We are really enjoying a strange, slightly outdated book... An Everyday History of Somewhere: Being the True Story of Indians, Deer, Homesteaders, Potatoes, Loggers, Trees, Fishermen, Salmon, and Other Living Things in the Backwoods of Northern California. So far in it, we have read about trees, local Native American culture, deer, and coyotes. Nicely written too! here's a link to a Goodreads list of "Best" Natural History books: http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/28410.Best_of_Natural_History Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raptor_dad Posted February 18, 2015 Share Posted February 18, 2015 Wallace Stegner's "Beyond the Hundredth Meridian", McPhee's "Encounters with the Archdruid", and Marc Reisner's "Cadillac Desert" are all well written and give great insight into water's role in the US Southwest. Ed Abbey's "Desert Solitaire" is a more personal reflection on the same themes. William deBuys' "A Great Aridness" is a modern update on the same topic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emerald Stoker Posted February 18, 2015 Share Posted February 18, 2015 Seeing raptor dad's mention of Wallace Stegner reminds me of lovely Ivan Doig; you might like This House of Sky or Winter Brothers (well, I love them all, but those two might be closest to "natural history"). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raptor_dad Posted February 18, 2015 Share Posted February 18, 2015 If you like Doig's books, you might also enjoy William Dietrich's "Northwest Passage". It is equal parts natural history and regional history of the Columbia River. It is less literary and more academic but still very readable(not surprising since it was written by a Pulitzer winning journalist). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalmia Posted February 18, 2015 Share Posted February 18, 2015 Here are some of my favorites. A little heavy on insects... I am sweet on them. Wild Season Allan W. Eckert (narrative on the food chain) Summer World by Bernd Heinrich Winter World by Bernd Heinrich Trees in My Forest by Bernd Heinrich The Frog Book by Mary K. Dickerson Moths and Butterflies by Mary K. Dickerson (vintage) Adventures in Nature by Edwin Way Teale (mostly insects) According to Season by Mrs. William Starr Dana (wildflowers, vintage) Life in the Soil by James B. Nardi Nature Discoveries with a Hand Lens by Richard Headstrom (vintage) Adventures with Freshwater Animals by Richard Headstrom Discovering Amphibians by John Himmelman Discovering Moths by John Himmelman The Living Year by Richard Headstrom Bringing Nature Home by Douglas W. Tallamy (plants and insects) Swampwalker’s Journal by David M. Carroll The Year of the Turtle by David M. Carroll Following the Water by David M. Carroll The Edge of the Sea Rachel Carson Noah’s Garden by Sara Stein (native plants) Planting Noah’s Garden by Sara Stein (native plants) Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer (moss) Broadsides from Other Orders by Sue Hubbell (insect) Waiting for Aphrodite by Sue Hubbell (invertebrate sea life) Chasing Monarchs Robert Michael Pyle The Thunder Tree Robert Michael Pyle (butterflies and childhood) Walking the High Ridge Robert Michael Pyle (butterflies) Suburban Safai by Hannah Holmes The Life of an Oak by Glenn Keator Near Horizons Edwin Way Teale (insects) Life Cycles of Butterflies by Burris and Richards Whisper in the Pines by Joanna Burger (pine barrens ecology) The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch in Nature by David George Haskell * A Guide to Night Sounds CD by Lang Elliot Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted February 18, 2015 Author Share Posted February 18, 2015 David M. Carroll was one of the authors on the lost thread I mentioned above - I pulled a bunch of his books from the library, and love them! That's just the kind of thing we want. Lots of great suggestions here, thank you and keep them coming! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emerald Stoker Posted February 19, 2015 Share Posted February 19, 2015 If you like Doig's books, you might also enjoy William Dietrich's "Northwest Passage". It is equal parts natural history and regional history of the Columbia River. It is less literary and more academic but still very readable(not surprising since it was written by a Pulitzer winning journalist). Thanks, raptor_dad! I'll look for that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raptor_dad Posted February 19, 2015 Share Posted February 19, 2015 Here are some of my favorites. A little heavy on insects... I am sweet on them. Wild Season Allan W. Eckert (narrative on the food chain) "Wild Season" is such a great book! It is a great as a read aloud too. It is less meditative than many of my suggestions but is still great for either younger kids or adults. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emerald Stoker Posted February 19, 2015 Share Posted February 19, 2015 My kids enjoyed several books by Roderick Haig-Brown, and several by BB (Denys Watkins-Pitchford). Another thought: Wylie Blanchet, The Curve of Time. Would the Fabre Souvenirs Entomologiques be interesting for you? We've read some of it in French, but I don't know how good the available translations are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foxbridgeacademy Posted February 19, 2015 Share Posted February 19, 2015 Nothing to add, just posting so I can find it later :seeya: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoJosMom Posted February 19, 2015 Share Posted February 19, 2015 Another great thread, Chrysalis Academy! :thumbup: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted February 19, 2015 Author Share Posted February 19, 2015 Ok, finally having time to revisit this thread. Awesome suggestions! I'm putting a bunch of these on hold so I can check them out and start to organize our list. I will post it back here when I get something together. I *adore* the David Carroll books I've seen so far, and we will definitely be reading Trout Reflections, The Year of the Turtle, and Following the Water. We will be covering our watershed, learning about how it functions and the native plants and animals, and potentially touching on Agroecology as well, but that might spin off into its own subject. Some of the books on my shelves I definitely want us to read are: Silent Spring - Rachel Carson The Diversity of Life - E O Wilson Sand County Almanac - Aldo Leopold Tales From the Underground: A Natural History of Subterranean Life – David Wolfe The View from the Oak - Kohl And here's one I've got my eye on: Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California's Natural Resources - Kat Anderson I also have a really great reader - Reading the Environment, Melissa Walker, ed. that has essays by, well, everybody! So I will incorporate some of those too. If we have time, I want to delve into the history of biology and study evolution this year, too, although we might get pushed back. We will be reading the first section of Science as a Way of Knowing: Foundations of Modern Biology. I'd like to read The Voyage of the Beagle and On the Origin of Species, but we might just do selections. I found a really neat biography of Darwin, focusing on the development of the theory post-Beagle, The Reluctant Mr. Darwin by David Quammen. So exciting! Off to look at all your suggestions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted February 19, 2015 Author Share Posted February 19, 2015 Anything Peter Matthiessen wrote. I would start with "The Snow Leopard" or "The Tree Where Man Was Born" but they are all great. Aldo Leopold's "Sand County Almanac" is also a must read. Oh, my library has a Peter Matthiessen reader! That might be a great starting point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalmia Posted February 19, 2015 Share Posted February 19, 2015 David Carroll is a masterful writer and a wonderful artist. I was lucky to meet him during graduate school when he was doing research on a population of endangered Blanding's turtle near our university. He gave a wonderful talk and had turtles rustling in paper bags behind him for the "show and tell" part of the presentation. I was too young and foolish at the time to beg to assist with his research like some of my more savvy friends did. He and his wife have a studio in New Hampshire which is not too very far from me. I hope in the next year to swing buy and purchase a piece of his artwork. The Asian influence in his work makes it very different from most natural history illustration you typically see. Everyone (naturalist or not) who has glanced through my copy of The Year of the Turtle has bought their own copy. It is that beautiful. If you like David Carroll you will probably also like Robert Michael Pyle, but Carroll is definitely the gold standard in the beautiful writing department. Pyle is more jocular and less contemplative, but still a good read. My son and I read Voyage of the Beagle aloud. We loved it. It was a lot more lyrical than Origin of Species which we left for later... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted February 19, 2015 Author Share Posted February 19, 2015 Another great suggestion, thanks Kalmia. I think doing Beagle as a read aloud next year will probably be perfect, and maybe the Darwin bio. Origins later, for sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Penguin Posted February 19, 2015 Share Posted February 19, 2015 This looks like a lovely new edition of the Beagle available for preorder. (Thanks for the thread, BTW!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted February 19, 2015 Author Share Posted February 19, 2015 This looks like a lovely new edition of the Beagle available for preorder. (Thanks for the thread, BTW!) Sweet! That looks perfect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.