North Woods, a novel by Daniel Mason
Random House, 2023 “Shivers of lust passed through his elytra as he found her scent grow stronger,” and there we are, in the head of an Elm Bark beetle, one …
Random House, 2023 “Shivers of lust passed through his elytra as he found her scent grow stronger,” and there we are, in the head of an Elm Bark beetle, one …
Amazing books keep coming our way and we’re pleased to share a few of them this month. Enjoy! Any Human Power by Manda Scott Sometimes it takes a revolution to …
What do we know about life in the ocean, and what can the varied forms of life there teach us about our own lives and selves? These are the questions …
Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) was not the first scientist to test on animals, nor was he the last. But he is perhaps the most famous. And he has somehow escaped mainstream …
Guest book review by Gene Helfman. “…a woman’s place…is in the wild.” This remarkable book is a memoir, a unique lesson in natural history, a love poem to the wild, …
A few years ago, I was standing alongside Bear Creek, a small waterway in Southern Oregon, camera in hand, when a river otter approached. I captured the photo, thrilled to …
While a good many mystery novels have environmental themes, it’s rare to find a book specifically labeled “eco-mystery”—but Jann Eyrich’s new series is just that. The Rotting Whale introduces Hugo Sandoval, …
EcoLit contributor Bill Streever has a new book out, A Sea Full of Turtles, and it provides a hopeful antidote to the more dystopian environmental literature in bookstores today. Bill’s …
Sharon J. Wishnow’s debut novel, The Pelican Tide—set on Grand Isle, Louisiana, in 2010, just before the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill—is both an intense environmental disaster story and a …
Ada Limón recalls that soon after being named the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States, she found herself “staring out the window of my office in the Library of …
A toad can kill just by belching, and the lust of the octopus is blamed for its short lifespan. To produce a mule, the horse owner must give the mare a bad haircut to shame her into having sex with a donkey. The hedgehog is considered a spiteful animal because it urinates on itself when caught, unlike the lynx, who hides its urine until it forms a gem stone.
Such are a few of the many nuggets of animal lore recorded in Aelian’s On the Nature of Animals, a translation of De Natura Animalium by the third century Roman writer Claudius Aelianus, better know as Aelian.