1edwinbcn
I didn't spend as much time in The Greenhouse last year as I had hoped, but let it be one of my New Year's Resolutions to do so more.
In spite of my desertion, I saw last year some members posted reviews or comments about books on environmental topics or natural history here to share with all.
Unintended the Greenhouse was an oasis of peace last year. That doesn't mean many Club Read members read books about nature. I was glad to see Avaland & Dukedom read a book about oak trees, The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees that almost made me run to the bookshop.
I also saw that 4 books of Rachel Carson, among which Silent Sping and The Edge of the Sea can be downloaded as free eBooks from Fadedpage.com
It looks 2023 is going to be a great year for reading about plants, animals and the environment.
In spite of my desertion, I saw last year some members posted reviews or comments about books on environmental topics or natural history here to share with all.
Unintended the Greenhouse was an oasis of peace last year. That doesn't mean many Club Read members read books about nature. I was glad to see Avaland & Dukedom read a book about oak trees, The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees that almost made me run to the bookshop.
I also saw that 4 books of Rachel Carson, among which Silent Sping and The Edge of the Sea can be downloaded as free eBooks from Fadedpage.com
It looks 2023 is going to be a great year for reading about plants, animals and the environment.
2markon
>1 edwinbcn: Thanks for setting this thread up again. I'm watching the naturallitsy thread for ideas. I also want to mention Appleseed by Matt Bell, a science fiction novel looking at climate change.
3SassyLassy
Happy to see this thread back this year. I'll be reading books for it.
4dchaikin
A nature group was started on Litsy late last year, and i joined but didn’t post here. Our January book is The Book of Eels by Patrick Svensson. It’s originally written in Swedish (and also translated to English as The Gospel of Eels).
5japaul22
Happy to see this here again! I usually only read about a dozen nonfiction books a year, but at least a couple are on this topic. I especially love reading about birds and trees.
My favorite book in 2022 on environmental topics was World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds by Scott Weidensaul.
I don't know if this "counts", but I just finished a book by Simon Winchester about Krakatoa that does get into plate tectonics and environmental impact of the volcano.
My favorite book in 2022 on environmental topics was World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds by Scott Weidensaul.
I don't know if this "counts", but I just finished a book by Simon Winchester about Krakatoa that does get into plate tectonics and environmental impact of the volcano.
6Julie_in_the_Library
>5 japaul22: I just recently bought World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds, and plan to read it this year. I'm glad to hear you speak so highly of it.
8FlorenceArt
I didn’t know about this thread, I’ll follow it and try to participate.
9edwinbcn
>5 japaul22:
Simon Winchester has a compelling way to write that makes you read quite thick books with ease. I have read ten of his books and I think people who are interested in the natural world will also often come across Winchester's books. However, I think basically Winchester is more interested in people. I think as a writer he is interested in 'outliers', eccentric people, (people in) unusual places, and nature as in natural disasters and their impact on people; earthquakes, volcanoes, storms, etc.
I was most enthusiastic about his books (about) Krakatoa and (the) Atlantic.
Simon Winchester has a compelling way to write that makes you read quite thick books with ease. I have read ten of his books and I think people who are interested in the natural world will also often come across Winchester's books. However, I think basically Winchester is more interested in people. I think as a writer he is interested in 'outliers', eccentric people, (people in) unusual places, and nature as in natural disasters and their impact on people; earthquakes, volcanoes, storms, etc.
I was most enthusiastic about his books (about) Krakatoa and (the) Atlantic.
10Poistettu
>5 japaul22: I met Simon Winchester about 1980. He was writing a story about American towns named "Paradise," and our daily paper circulated in Paradise, Mich. My job that afternoon was to dig up morgue stories for him (no digitized, searchable morgue in those days) and find a local person he could talk to about Paradise. I don't think the story ever came to fruition, but he did seem interested that there is also a Hell, Mich.
After that encounter, I started noticing his name and stories. Wasn't he held hostage or prisoner in some world hotspot once?
He wrote a book about a psychological break he had as a young man. I read it, but it stymied me.
After that encounter, I started noticing his name and stories. Wasn't he held hostage or prisoner in some world hotspot once?
He wrote a book about a psychological break he had as a young man. I read it, but it stymied me.
11markon
>5 japaul22: It counts!
12markon
Mentioning a new book I ran across today: 27559711::The High Sierra: a love story by Kim Stanley Robinson. It's a chunkster, but it looks interesting and has some color photographs that intrigue me.
13japaul22
>9 edwinbcn: that's a good way to describe Winchester - being interested in people. Probably what makes his books so readable!
>10 nohrt4me2: how interesting that you met Simon Winchester! I don't know anything about his personal life, but now I'm intrigued.
>10 nohrt4me2: how interesting that you met Simon Winchester! I don't know anything about his personal life, but now I'm intrigued.
14WelshBookworm
I ran across this recently, and added it to my TBR because of my Moby Dick theme. It sounds fascinating! Ahab's Rolling Sea.
15Poistettu
Best "nature book" I read recently was Ravens in Winter by Bernd Heinrich. I have always been interested in corvids, especially crows.
16Julie_in_the_Library
A World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds by Scott Weidensaul: 4 stars
This book took me a long time to read - 26 days, according to my spreadsheet - but it was worth every minute. It's filled with fascinating facts and funny and poignant anecdotes, and has a spread of full-color photos in the middle.
Weidensaul's prose is elegant and easy to read, and his passion, love, and indeed, as he himself notes in the book, reverence, for his subject shines through throughout.
There is a good balance between narrative anecdotes and info dumping, for lack of a better term. The pacing between the two is likewise well handled, keeping either from becoming monotonous or overwhelming.
I will say that there are long chunks of text without page breaks, though there are paragraph breaks. The large chunks between natural stopping points mean that it is not well suited for reading in two to five minute chunks of time clawed out of a busy day. This book demands reading time that is set aside to get the most from it.
The theme of global anthropogenic climate change runs throughout the book. It can be a bit depressing, not to mention frightening, seeing the damage laid out the way that it is in this book. But Weidensaul takes pains to emphasize at every turn that there is hope, and that we still have time and chance to repair the damage. That, and the fact that climate change is a theme but not the main focus, keeps the book from being too depressing or upsetting to read.
Weidensaul is open about his agenda with the book, emphasizing the ways that what is good for birds is also good for humans, and vice versa, and as using all of his rhetorical powers to instill in his readers the same love and thus desire to protect birds as he feels himself. He wants to save the birds, and he wants his readers to want that, too.
That being said, it never feels like an Issue Book, lecture, or Morality Lesson. The agenda is there, and not hidden, but Weidensaul never lets it get in the way of writing a good book.
I really enjoyed A World on the Wing. I don't think it's for everyone - people without at least some interest in birds may find it boring. People who require their nonfiction to be narrative in format will likely have trouble with this as well. But I definitely recommend it to anyone interested in birds. It's a solid four star book, and I'm glad I picked it up off the shelf.
This book took me a long time to read - 26 days, according to my spreadsheet - but it was worth every minute. It's filled with fascinating facts and funny and poignant anecdotes, and has a spread of full-color photos in the middle.
Weidensaul's prose is elegant and easy to read, and his passion, love, and indeed, as he himself notes in the book, reverence, for his subject shines through throughout.
There is a good balance between narrative anecdotes and info dumping, for lack of a better term. The pacing between the two is likewise well handled, keeping either from becoming monotonous or overwhelming.
I will say that there are long chunks of text without page breaks, though there are paragraph breaks. The large chunks between natural stopping points mean that it is not well suited for reading in two to five minute chunks of time clawed out of a busy day. This book demands reading time that is set aside to get the most from it.
The theme of global anthropogenic climate change runs throughout the book. It can be a bit depressing, not to mention frightening, seeing the damage laid out the way that it is in this book. But Weidensaul takes pains to emphasize at every turn that there is hope, and that we still have time and chance to repair the damage. That, and the fact that climate change is a theme but not the main focus, keeps the book from being too depressing or upsetting to read.
Weidensaul is open about his agenda with the book, emphasizing the ways that what is good for birds is also good for humans, and vice versa, and as using all of his rhetorical powers to instill in his readers the same love and thus desire to protect birds as he feels himself. He wants to save the birds, and he wants his readers to want that, too.
That being said, it never feels like an Issue Book, lecture, or Morality Lesson. The agenda is there, and not hidden, but Weidensaul never lets it get in the way of writing a good book.
I really enjoyed A World on the Wing. I don't think it's for everyone - people without at least some interest in birds may find it boring. People who require their nonfiction to be narrative in format will likely have trouble with this as well. But I definitely recommend it to anyone interested in birds. It's a solid four star book, and I'm glad I picked it up off the shelf.
17MissBrangwen
"The High House" by Jessie Greengrass
First published in 2021
Rating: 4 stars - ****
This novel was my first venture into CliFi. The story is set in the future - it is not specified when exactly - and the world suffers the consequences of climate change. Caro and Pauly, the children of a climate scientist, arrive at the high house where everything is prepared for them to survive. There is a barn full of supplies, there are chicken and plant beds, the house features a mill and it is located by the sea, but on high ground. It is tended to by Sally and her grandfather, who was the village caretaker and possesses many skills that are forgotten by most, but are crucial now.
Soon, these four are cut off from the rest of the world and have to come to terms with each other, but also with themselves and their memories. It is a microcosmos of emotions, of memories, hopes and desperations, all driven by the need to survive and by the relationships between these characters.
Despite some heavy topics, it is a slow and quiet novel that lives from the descriptions of the natural world that surrounds the high house. The story felt rather depressing to me, but it also has some beautiful moments, and the characters seemed real and raw.
However, the criticism I have is that it all seems rather improbable to me, which is why I have to take one star off my rating. I don't mean climate change itself, but the way the people deal with it in this novel - on a large scale, but also on a small scale. The high house does not seem like the best place to survive, nor does the way it is equipped make much sense. But I do think that to be realistic in a practical sense is not the foremost goal of this novel, but rather to show how different characters might react under these circumstances.
18Poistettu
The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
Not too far into it, but looks at the way humans have shaped the environment and how nature would respond if we went extinct tomorrow.
Fascinating, detailed, and very nicely written. But so far it is mostly making me nervous about whether drainage around my house is adequate ...
Not too far into it, but looks at the way humans have shaped the environment and how nature would respond if we went extinct tomorrow.
Fascinating, detailed, and very nicely written. But so far it is mostly making me nervous about whether drainage around my house is adequate ...
19Poistettu
>17 MissBrangwen: If you like CliFi, you might try A Friend of the Earth by TC Boyle, though hardly an "upper" of a story.
20MissBrangwen
>19 nohrt4me2: I don't think that I can stomach a lot of it at once, but I'm taking a note. I haven't read anything by T.C. Boyle so far.
21SassyLassy
>19 nohrt4me2: Great suggestion
>20 MissBrangwen: T C Boyle, one of my favourites, has been writing fiction about the environment for decades in his decidedly unorthodox way. He also takes on those despoiling it. Definitely someone to look forward to in the future, if not now.
>20 MissBrangwen: T C Boyle, one of my favourites, has been writing fiction about the environment for decades in his decidedly unorthodox way. He also takes on those despoiling it. Definitely someone to look forward to in the future, if not now.
22Poistettu
>21 SassyLassy: That hippie book he wrote, Drop City, one of my all time faves.
23SassyLassy
>22 nohrt4me2: That was a fun one. Just checked, and I have 18 of his books.
24Poistettu
>23 SassyLassy: He writes from the spleen. But I have enjoyed his books when he doesn't go too over the top.
26markon
I'm add ing a few that I read this year to the list.
Arboreality, a novella of Rebecca Campbell's award winning story by the same name was intersting to me. Set on Vancouver island, it's a gentle *?! post-apocalyptic story or how people survive.
The language of butterflies by Wendy Williams was a fascinationg look at how we've learned about butterflies, including some newer (last 15-20 years) discoveries I wasn't aware of.
Islands of abandonment by journalist Cal Flynn is a look at what happens to some specific places in the world after humans damage the environment and then abandon it.
The coral bones by E. J. Swift is a novel set in three timelines in and around the Great Barrier Reef.
I'm planning for this to be part of my reading next year. Would those who notice and are interested drop a post here? I don't know if I want to keep a specific thread going, but I'd be interested in others that are doing some reading along the lines of climate fiction, natural history, and/or the environment.
Arboreality, a novella of Rebecca Campbell's award winning story by the same name was intersting to me. Set on Vancouver island, it's a gentle *?! post-apocalyptic story or how people survive.
The language of butterflies by Wendy Williams was a fascinationg look at how we've learned about butterflies, including some newer (last 15-20 years) discoveries I wasn't aware of.
Islands of abandonment by journalist Cal Flynn is a look at what happens to some specific places in the world after humans damage the environment and then abandon it.
The coral bones by E. J. Swift is a novel set in three timelines in and around the Great Barrier Reef.
I'm planning for this to be part of my reading next year. Would those who notice and are interested drop a post here? I don't know if I want to keep a specific thread going, but I'd be interested in others that are doing some reading along the lines of climate fiction, natural history, and/or the environment.
27japaul22
I am very interested in this topic for both nonfiction and fiction. This year I didn't read much that would apply, but here's what I did read.
American Canopy by Eric Rutkow which sort of ties together trees with the development of America as a nation.
The Nature of Oaks by Doug Tallamy - this was about oak trees and a lot about the caterpillars that inhabit them. We have about 5 white oaks in our small suburban yard so this book was fascinating to me.
Brave the Wild River by Melissa Sevigny was about two women and crew who made an trip down the Colorado and collected and identified the plants they saw. This was before the extensive damming that changed the river and it was a very dangerous trip that no woman had survived before. It also catalogued the area before there was extensive human interference.
Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake - a book about fungi - I loved it.
I don't think I read any climate fiction this year, but I've enjoyed it in the past, so I'd love to share some ideas in 2024. I'm sorry I lost track of this thread and didn't post my reviews for the above books as I read them!
American Canopy by Eric Rutkow which sort of ties together trees with the development of America as a nation.
The Nature of Oaks by Doug Tallamy - this was about oak trees and a lot about the caterpillars that inhabit them. We have about 5 white oaks in our small suburban yard so this book was fascinating to me.
Brave the Wild River by Melissa Sevigny was about two women and crew who made an trip down the Colorado and collected and identified the plants they saw. This was before the extensive damming that changed the river and it was a very dangerous trip that no woman had survived before. It also catalogued the area before there was extensive human interference.
Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake - a book about fungi - I loved it.
I don't think I read any climate fiction this year, but I've enjoyed it in the past, so I'd love to share some ideas in 2024. I'm sorry I lost track of this thread and didn't post my reviews for the above books as I read them!
28markon
>27 japaul22: Brave the wild river is on my list - glad to hear you enjoyed it. Did you observe some of the catepilllars in your oaks the the Tallamy book talked about?
29SassyLassy
Looking at the books I read this year which fall into this category:
Ginkgo by Peter Crane - possibly the best non fiction book I read this year, it looks at every aspect of this ancient tree, from taxonomy to poetry
Orwell's Roses - by Rebecca Solnit - this may seem an odd choice for this kind of category, but it shows just how important a connection to the earth is, even to those who would seem far removed from it
The Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard - relates how she came up with and then pursued her theory of the interconnectedness of soil fungi, and their role in the movement of nutrients and water in the soil
also two garden memoirs/journals by noted gardeners, always interesting to see how others cope:
From Stone Orchard by Timothy Findley details starting a broader life in a farming community
A New Leaf by Merilyn Simonds speaks of what it is like to move from an established garden and started anew
there was also a novel from Michael Pollan's Modern Library Gardening Series
Old Herbaceous by Reginald Arkell
- I had spent some time looking for this, but found it to be a disappointment
>26 markon: Islands of Abandonment was a book I loved - so much to think about
>>27 japaul22: Entangled Life is on my holiday wish list - I see there is a beautiful illustrated edition
>25 FlorenceArt: Great list
I'm currently reading (dipping in and out) Wildwood: A Journey through Trees, a book that looks at so many aspects of trees, in the ground and after
Ginkgo by Peter Crane - possibly the best non fiction book I read this year, it looks at every aspect of this ancient tree, from taxonomy to poetry
Orwell's Roses - by Rebecca Solnit - this may seem an odd choice for this kind of category, but it shows just how important a connection to the earth is, even to those who would seem far removed from it
The Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard - relates how she came up with and then pursued her theory of the interconnectedness of soil fungi, and their role in the movement of nutrients and water in the soil
also two garden memoirs/journals by noted gardeners, always interesting to see how others cope:
From Stone Orchard by Timothy Findley details starting a broader life in a farming community
A New Leaf by Merilyn Simonds speaks of what it is like to move from an established garden and started anew
there was also a novel from Michael Pollan's Modern Library Gardening Series
Old Herbaceous by Reginald Arkell
- I had spent some time looking for this, but found it to be a disappointment
>26 markon: Islands of Abandonment was a book I loved - so much to think about
>>27 japaul22: Entangled Life is on my holiday wish list - I see there is a beautiful illustrated edition
>25 FlorenceArt: Great list
I'm currently reading (dipping in and out) Wildwood: A Journey through Trees, a book that looks at so many aspects of trees, in the ground and after
30WelshBookworm
>26 markon: Yes, I'm interested. Always follow the Wainwright prize though I don't manage to read many of them. Hoping to read Wanderland in 2024.
Perhaps I should also say I'm pursuing a "garden" theme (mainly fiction) for 2024.
And I just got Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life for Christmas (we celebrate a few weeks early as it is easier and cheaper!)
Perhaps I should also say I'm pursuing a "garden" theme (mainly fiction) for 2024.
And I just got Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life for Christmas (we celebrate a few weeks early as it is easier and cheaper!)
31SassyLassy
>30 WelshBookworm: The Beatrix Potter book is excellent - enjoy!
32japaul22
>28 markon: I did notice some of the caterpillars, especially the hanging ones, but they are really tough to find and I think many live very high on the tree and branches. They are enormous trees!
33FlorenceArt
>32 japaul22: Hanging caterpillars are weird. I didn’t know they existed until I ran into them during a walk a couple of years ago.
34qebo
>27 japaul22:, >28 markon:, >32 japaul22:, >33 FlorenceArt: The Nature of Oaks
Doug Tallamy lives in an adjacent county and one or another organization brings him here to speak fairly frequently. I have a pack of caterpillar cards he was selling several years ago. I have oak and black cherry and hackberry trees in my yard, and I see the resulting butterflies but rarely the caterpillars.
I recently read Food and Climate Change with a half dozen people in a neighborhood climate action group, useful concept but the book itself, meh. It did get a few people to try Quorn.
Doug Tallamy lives in an adjacent county and one or another organization brings him here to speak fairly frequently. I have a pack of caterpillar cards he was selling several years ago. I have oak and black cherry and hackberry trees in my yard, and I see the resulting butterflies but rarely the caterpillars.
I recently read Food and Climate Change with a half dozen people in a neighborhood climate action group, useful concept but the book itself, meh. It did get a few people to try Quorn.
