Tuesday, August 22, 2023

Nature Books I Want To Read

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I've been working at a state park since 2019, but I rarely read nonfiction books about parks or nature. It's time to change that! I think the information in these books might make me suck less at my job. Or, maybe they'll just entertain me, and I'll still suck. Either way, it's a win.

I apologize for how western-US-centric this book list is, but I've never lived or worked in anywhere else's wilderness. 

Here are 10 books about nature that I hope will educate and entertain me.




🌲  Nature Books I Want To Read  🌄





I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us And A Grander View Of Life by Ed Yong




Every animal, whether human, squid, or wasp, is home to millions of bacteria and other microbes. Many people think of microbes as germs to be eradicated, but those that live with us—the microbiome—build our bodies, protect our health, shape our identities, and grant us incredible abilities. In this astonishing book, Ed Yong takes us on a grand tour through our microbial partners, and introduces us to the scientists on the front lines of discovery.


Buy it on Amazon





Fuzz: When Nature Breaks The Law by Mary Roach




What’s to be done about a jaywalking moose? A bear caught breaking and entering? A murderous tree? Three hundred years ago, animals that broke the law would be assigned legal representation and put on trial. The answers are best found not in jurisprudence but in science: the curious science of human-wildlife conflict, a discipline at the crossroads of human behavior and wildlife biology.

Roach tags along with animal-attack forensics investigators, human-elephant conflict specialists, bear managers, and "danger tree" faller blasters. Intrepid as ever, she travels from leopard-terrorized hamlets in the Indian Himalaya to St. Peter’s Square in the early hours before the pope arrives for Easter Mass, when vandal gulls swoop in to destroy the elaborate floral display. She taste-tests rat bait, learns how to install a vulture effigy, and gets mugged by a macaque.

Combining little-known forensic science and conservation genetics with a motley cast of laser scarecrows, langur impersonators, and trespassing squirrels, Roach reveals as much about humanity as about nature’s lawbreakers. When it comes to "problem" wildlife, she finds, humans are more often the problem—and the solution.


Buy it on Amazon





The Dragon Seekers: How An Extraordinary Circle Of Fossilists Discovered The Dinosaurs And Paved The Way For Darwin by Christopher McGowan




Set in nineteenth-century England, The Dragon Seekers chronicles the amazing discoveries of the first fossilists, whose findings in geology and paleontology led to the discovery of the age of dinosaurs. The intriguing cast of characters includes Mary Anning, a working-class woman who became one of the most successful fossil collectors of all time; Thomas Hawkins, another amateur collector who "improved upon" fossils in order to increase their market value; the eccentric William Buckland, discoverer of the world's first dinosaur (Megalosaurus), and Richard Owen, an expert anatomist, who synthesized the discoveries of the age and ultimately coined the word "dinosaur" in 1842.


Buy it on Amazon





Braving It: A Father, A Daughter, And An Unforgettable Journey Into The Alaskan Wild by James Campbell




Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, home to only a handful of people, is a harsh and lonely place. So when James Campbell’s cousin Heimo Korth asked him to spend a summer building a cabin in the rugged Interior, Campbell hesitated about inviting his fifteen-year-old daughter, Aidan, to join. Would she be able to withstand clouds of mosquitoes, the threat of grizzlies, bathing in an ice-cold river, and hours of grueling labor peeling and hauling logs?

But once there, Aidan embraced the wild. She even agreed to return a few months later to help the Korths work their traplines and hunt for caribou and moose. Despite windchills of 50 degrees below zero, father and daughter ventured out daily to track, hunt, and trap. Under the supervision of Edna, Heimo’s Yupik Eskimo wife, Aidan grew more confident in the woods.

Campbell knew that in traditional Eskimo cultures, some daughters earned a rite of passage usually reserved for young men. So he decided to take Aidan back to Alaska one final time before she left home. It would be their third and most ambitious trip, backpacking over Alaska’s Brooks Range to the headwaters of the mighty Hulahula River, where they would assemble a folding canoe and paddle to the Arctic Ocean. The journey would test them and their relationship.


Buy it on Amazon





Waterfalls Of Stars: My Ten Years On The Island Of Skomer by Rosanne Alexander




When Rosanne Alexander’s boyfriend Mike was offered the job of warden of Skomer, a small uninhabited island off the southwest tip of Wales, they had just ten days to leave college, marry (a condition of employment) and gather their belongings and provisions for the trip to the island. This was the first of many challenges Rosanne and Mike faced during their ten years on the nature reserve, from coping with periods of isolation when they were the island’s only inhabitants, to dwindling food supplies during the winter when rough weather made provisioning from the mainland impossible. Thrown on their own resources they had also to deal with catastrophes like the devastation of the island’s seal colony following an oil spill.

With great sensitivity, and humor, Rosanne Alexander relates their experiences on Skomer, including her observations of the island’s wildlife and landscape. It is an important breeding ground for many birds, and shearwaters, puffins and kittiwakes—and the seals—become a source of pleasure and companionship.


Buy it on Amazon





Engineering Eden: The True Story Of A Violent Death, A Trial, And The Fight Over Controlling Nature by Jordan Fisher Smith




When twenty-five-year-old Harry Walker was killed by a bear in Yellowstone Park in 1972, the civil trial prompted by his death became a proxy for bigger questions about American wilderness management that had been boiling for a century. At immediate issue was whether the Park Service should have done more to keep bears away from humans, but what was revealed as the trial unfolded was just how fruitless our efforts to regulate nature in the parks had always been.


Buy it on Amazon





Dispossessing The Wilderness: Indian Removal And The Making Of National Parks by Mark David Spence




National parks like Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Glacier preserve some of this country's most cherished wilderness landscapes. While visions of pristine, uninhabited nature led to the creation of these parks, they also inspired policies of Indian removal. By contrasting the native histories of these places with the links between Indian policy developments and preservationist efforts, this work examines the complex origins of the national parks and the troubling consequences of the American wilderness ideal.


Buy it on Amazon 





Leave Only Footprints: My Acadia-To-Zion Journey Through America's National Parks by Conor Knighton




When Conor Knighton decided to spend a year wandering through "America's Best Idea," he was worried the whole thing might end up being his worst idea. But, after a broken engagement and a broken heart, he desperately needed a change of scenery. The ambitious plan he cooked up went a bit overboard in that department; Knighton set out to visit every single one of America's National Parks, from Acadia to Zion.


Buy it on Amazon





Nature Noir: A Park Ranger's Patrol In The Sierra by Jordan Fisher Smith




A nature book unlike any other, Jordan Fisher Smith's startling account of fourteen years as a park ranger thoroughly dispels our idealized visions of life in the great outdoors. Instead of scout troops and placid birdwatchers, Smith's beat—a stretch of land that has been officially condemned to be flooded—brings him into contact with drug users tweaked out to the point of violence, obsessed miners, and other dangerous creatures. In unflinchingly honest prose, he reveals the unexpectedly dark underbelly of patrolling and protecting public lands.


Buy it on Amazon





The Last Season by Eric Blehm




The Last Season examines the extraordinary life of legendary backcountry ranger Randy Morgenson and his mysterious disappearance in California's unforgiving Sierra Nevada—mountains as perilous as they are beautiful. Eric Blehm's masterful work is a gripping detective story interwoven with the riveting biography of a complicated, original, and wholly fascinating man.


Buy it on Amazon








Do you read nature nonfiction? Recommend books to me!






23 comments:

  1. I think we might have talked about this before, but what a cool job you have!

    Fuzz was a good read. Enjoy.

    Here is my Top Ten Tuesday post.

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  2. I may pick up some of your suggestions. I’m intrigued. Regine
    www.rsrue.blogspot.com

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  3. I’m curious about I Contain Multitudes!

    Here is our Top Ten Tuesday.

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  4. Some of these sound right up your alley. Braving It sounds very interesting.

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  5. Yong was great reading. I like the idea of "Nature Noir"!

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  6. I hope you get to read these soon! Maybe while out in nature yourself.

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  7. I hope you'll enjoy all of these! I like the sound of Braving It.

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  8. I do read nonfiction, but nature is not a topic I have read much on. I am sure there are so many great books out there...I just don't know them!

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  9. I am not a huge non-fiction reader, but I hope you love these and learn a lot of great stuff

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  10. I don't read much about nature, but I do love a good outdoor survival story, true or fictional. One book I did really like is THE COLD VANISH by Jon Billman. It's a disturbing but fascinating read about how many people go missing in North American parks every year. Ykes!

    Happy TTT!

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  11. Oooh! Nature books! I rarely see a lot of lists that detail Nature themed books. All of these books look interesting! Great list!

    Here’s my Top Ten Tuesday

    Rabbit Ears Book Blog: WORLD’S WEIRDEST BOOK BLOG!

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  12. I'd like to read Fuzz too. I have a lot of nature books on my TBR, almost all of them are about trees lol.

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  13. The nature breaking the law one sounds so interesting! Hope you enjoy these :-)

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  14. I have Fuzz on my TBR as well. It sounds like such a funny read!

    Pam @ Read! Bake! Create!
    https://readbakecreate.com/visit-michigan-in-ten-books/

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  15. Oh, hey - look at me being able to comment on blogs again! Love the sound of Fuzz. Sounds like such an interesting concept.

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  16. Great books. I haven't read any of them, but am interested in Mary Roach (I've read other books by her) says, as well as "Waterfall of Stars." I do read a lot of nature books and currently about 1/2 through "Riverman," by Ben McGrath (about a man who mysteriously dies after paddling man of the longer rivers in America). I've just reread (the 4th time since the 7th grade) Robert Ruark's "The Old Man and the Boy." While it's more of a coming of the age story, he and the old man live their lives mostly outdoors and in the part of the country where I grew up. Another that you might like is Dear Park Ranger by Jeff Muse (I reviewed it in Feb or March). It is about a man married to a National Park Ranger. Check out anything by Barry Lopez...

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    1. This was posted by Jeff https://fromarockyhillside.com. I am having problems posting on some sights under my name.

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  17. How cool that you work at parks!! That sounds amazing. These all look great, and I actually have a copy of Fuzz (although I haven't read it yet -- but I do tend to really enjoy Mary Roach's books)

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  18. What a fun topic choice! I went through a mountain climbing book phase and read several nonfiction books about Everest and K2. Mostly just about climbing disasters. Ha! I've also read Wild and Into the Wild. I'm very intrigued by Braving It!

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  19. Fuzz and the microbe book both sound super interesting, I will add them to my list! Really interesting to compare the books on my list to yours, as we focussed on different regions :)

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  20. Pre-blogging, I only read about nature so it's weird that it's barely on my radar now. I didn't know about Fuzz but I've loved Roache's books so maybe I'll check my library for that one.

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  21. Thank you for this list! I've not read any of these. I'm interested in checking them out. My three favourite nature books this year were Barkskins by Annie Proux, The Forest Lover by Susan Vreeland, and The Golden Spruce by John Vaillant.

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