There is a conversation, repeated several times, during the powerful novella Of Cattle and Men by Paula Maia, translated by Zoë Perry: “Like they say in these parts: as long as there’s a cow in this world, there will be a man keen to kill it.”“And another keen to eat it,” concludes Edgar Wilson. Edgar …
In pollinator ecologist Stephen Buchmann’s What a Bee Knows: Exploring the Thoughts, Memories, and Personalities of Bees, the author makes a compelling case for why we need to pay closer attention to bees (and to protect them), offering stories and anecdotes from research and observation that highlight the fascinating lives of these extraordinary creatures.
Funny the difference a word makes. Restaurants generally don’t advertise “fungi” on their menus. But “mushrooms” and “truffles” are a different story. Even though they are the same thing. Which leads me to a book that took me out of the animal kingdom and into the fungi kingdom, a far more populous and less understood …
Once again, I wanted to highlight a number of books that came across our radar as of late… Melted Away: A Memoir of Climate Change & Caregiving in Peru by Barbara Drake-Vera Candid, poignant, and deeply researched, Melted Away is the true story of how a writer at midlife reclaims her agency, and an ardent plea to …
What does a solo journey across the Alaskan Arctic entail? As it turns out, much of it is a matter of putting one foot in front of the other, again and again and again, seemingly forever. But if that is what you envision when you think of Michael Engelhard’s Arctic Traverse: A Thousand-Mile Summer of Trekking the Brooks …
Mountain Time, A Field Guide to Astonishment is a sharp and moving collection of essays about author Renata Golden’s time in the Chiricahua Mountains in Southeast Arizona. Hard on the New Mexico and Mexico borders, the area is isolated, but not desolate. For those who pay attention, the desert is teeming with life, past and present.
Here are some of the latest books to land on our desks. Please take a moment to scroll down and check them out! Facing the Climate Emergency: How to Transform Yourself with Climate Truth by Margaret Klein Salamon with Molly Gage Overwhelmed by climate anxiety? Transform your angst into action to become the hero humanity …
Humans have bestowed many rather grandiose names upon the region we otherwise know as Antarctica. It has been called the Last Continent, the Last Wilderness, the End of the Earth. Even before any person had set eyes on the southernmost continent, early maps often included a speculative polar landmass labeled Terra Australis Incognita, the “unknown …
by Camille T. Dungy Simon& Schuster, 2023 During racial segregation in the South, florists refused to sell flowers to Black people.[1] In Soil, The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden, author Camille T. Dungy writes that instead they cut and sent flowers from their own gardens for weddings and funerals. “Black people grew their own …
By Bob Katz To an event organizer, Bob Katz’s novel, Waiting For Al Gore, will read like a horror story, but for those worried about how we will organize ourselves in time to save the planet, this book might, just might, offer a glimmer of hope. In a remote corner of Vermont, EarthKare’s climate conference …
by Helen Macdonald Vesper flights is the name of the sunset behavior of swifts, who rise high into the air, out of sight, in order to reorient themselves to the world. Vesper Flights is also the name of a collection of essays by Helen Macdonald, and it, too, is a reorientation to the world, particularly …
John Vaillant’s Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World is not only the story of the devastating 2016 Fort McMurray fire in Alberta, Canada, but also a history of fire, the oil industry, climate science, and where we go from here. In addition to the page-turning narrative of the fire that raged through Fort McMurray, Fire …
In Entangled Encounters at the National Zoo: Stories from the Animal Archive author Daniel Vandersommers explores the evolution of the National Zoo as well as the far more limited evolution of society’s empathy for the animals within its walls. The National Zoo opened in 1891, thanks in large part to the advocacy of William Temple …
By Melanie Challenger, (Penguin Books, March, 2021) To call someone an animal is considered a grave insult, but it is also the truth. We, the humans, we are all animals. It’s not something we like to admit, but if Melanie Challenger is correct in her thinking, embracing our animalness will help humanity better deal with …
Henry David Thoreau’s words were my companion during the writing of this novel. I read through all of his journals and his voice guided mine. I appreciated his wise and witty counsel and hope that this book conveys some of his mercurial spirit. –Helen Humphreys In Followed by the Lark, a new book by Helen Humphreys, …
