For better or for worse, I am one of those people who doesn’t seem to need as much sleep as most. To fill in the late night hours I tend to read a lot and as a result am often asked for book recommendations from friends. I am also always greedily searching for new books to devour. In that spirit, I thought that it might cool to start a thread on this blog where we could share books that we love with one another.
Click the link below to see a list of several of my favorite books –in categories– but in no particular order beyond that. You’ll notice that I get somewhat addicted to certain authors. Please contribute your own favorites in the comments below the post!
Science / Nature:
-The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinction by David Quammen
-Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds by Bernd Heinrich
-Swampwalker’s Journal: A Wetlands Year by David M. Carroll
-Adventures Among Ants: A Global Safari with a Cast of Trillions by Mark Moffett
-Summer World: A Season of Bounty by Bernd Heinrich
-The Snoring Bird: My Family’s Journey Through a Century of Biology by Bernd Heinrich
-Walden by Henry David Thoreau
-Naturalist by E.O. Wilson
-Monster of God: The Man-Eating Predator in the Jungles of the Mind by David Quammen
-Diversity of Life by E.O. Wilson
-Why We Run: A Natural History by Bernd Heinrich
-The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan
-The Company of Wolves by Peter Steinhart
(Recommended by Andrew Mason)
-For the Love of Nature: E. E. Gostelow’s Birds and Flowers By Christobel Mattingley (Recommended by Kim Piddington)
-Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams & Mark Carwardine (Recommended by Kim Piddington)
-Of Wolves and Men by Barry Lopez (Recommended by John MacPherson)
-Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez (Recommended by John MacPherson)
-Schroedinger’s Kittens and the Search for Reality by John Gribbin (Recommended by John MacPherson)
Nature / General Essays:
-The Bill McKibben Reader: Pieces from an Active Life by Bill McKibben
-The Wilderness World of John Muir by John Muir and Edwin Way Teale
-The Boiler Plate Rhino: Nature in the Eye of the Beholder by David Quammen
-Natural Acts: A Sidelong View of Science and Nature by David Quammen
-The Flight of the Iguana: A Sidelong View of Science and Nature by David Quammen
-The Tracker by Tom Brown Jr.
-Coming into the Country by John McPhee (Recommended by John MacPherson)
-Stories from Suburban Road by T.A.G. Hungerford
-Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout by Philip Connors
(Recommended by Andrew Mason)
-Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness by Edward Abbey
Adventure:
-The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann
-The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Millard
-Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superatheletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall
-Four Corners: A Journey into the Heart of Papua New Guinea by Kira Salak
-The Shaman’s Apprentice: An Ethnobotanist Searches for New Medicines in the Amazon Rainforest by Mark J. Plotkin
-Undaunted Courage: Merriweather Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West by Stephen Ambrose
-Rowing the Atlantic: Lessons Learned on the Open Ocean by Roz Savage
Nature Photography / Coffee Table:
-The Smaller Majority by Piotr Naskrecki
-Looking for the Summer by Jim Brandenburg
-On This Earth: Photographs from East Africa by Nick Brandt
-Relics: Travels in Nature’s Time Machine by Piotr Naskrecki
-Wild Wonders of Europe by Staffan Widstrand, Florian Mollers, Peter Cairns and Bridget Wijnberg
-Au Fil des Songes by Vincent Munier
-The Last Place on Earth by Mike Fay and Michael Nichols
-Australia Wide: The Journey by Ken Duncan
-Life: Journey Through Time by Frans Lanting
-Jungles by Frans Lanting
-The Blue Ridge Ancient and Majestic: A Celebration of the World’s Oldest Mountains by Charles W. Maynard and Jerry Greer
-Salmon in the Trees: Life in Alaska’s Tongass Rain Forest by Amy Gulick
-Charley Harper: An Illustrated Life by Charley Harper and Todd Oldham
Photo Instruction:
-Tao of Photography: Seeing Beyond Seeing by Philippe L. Gross and S.I. Shapiro
-Outdoor Photography Masterclass by Niall Benvie
-The Complete Guide to Close-Up & Macro Photography by Paul Harcourt Davies
-Digital Close-Up Photography Q&A: Great Tips and Hints from a Top Pro by Paul Harcourt Davies
-National Audubon Society Guide to Landscape Photography by Tim Fitzharris
-Close-Up Photography in Nature by Tim Fitzharris
-Close Up & Macro: A Photographer’s Guide by Robert Thompson
-Photographing Wild Birds by Chris Gommersal
Biography / Autobiography:
-Andrew Wyeth: A Secret Life by Richard Meryman
-The Secret Life of Salvador Dali by Salvador Dali and Haakon M. Chevalier
-The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin by H. W. Brands
-Gavin Maxwell: A Life by Douglas Botting (Recommended by John MacPherson)
Poetry
- Poems of Norman McCaig by Norman McCaig and Ewen McCaig (Recommended by John MacPherson)
- Beneath the Wide Wide Heaven: Poetry for the Environment (Collection) (Recommended by John MacPherson)
Great initiative here! Clay, thanks for starting all this!
As a fellow book-oholic, here a few titles I would add
to this excellent list:
Science / Nature / Essays:
- Guns, germs and steel by Jared Diamond
- Eating stone by Ellen Meloy
- The book of Yaak by Rick Bass
- The lost grizzlies by Rick Bass
- The Buffalo Wolf by Lu Carbyn
- Grizzly years by Doug Peacock
Adventure:
- Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
- Stones of silence by George Schaller
- The snow leopard by Peter Matthiessen
Nature Photography / Coffee Table:
- Brother Wolf by Jim Brandenburg
- The year of the tiger by Michael Nichols
- Clair de brume by Vincent Munier
- La vie sauvage au Sahara by Alain Dragesco
- The lingering wild by Michael Forsberg
- The eye of the forest by Matthias Klum
- Polar Obsession by Paul Nicklen
- Water Light Time by David Doubilet
- Tibet’s hidden wilderness by George Schaller
- CHOEURS DE LOUPS ET AUTRES HISTOIRES D’OURS by Robert Hainard
- Grizzly by Michio Hoshino
Photo Instruction:
- Mountain light by Galen Rowell
- The inner game of of outdoor photography by Galen Rowell
- Photographing in nature by John Shaw
Biography / Autobiography:
- Slightly out of focus by Robert Capa
Bruno,
Thanks so much for your additions and my apologies for the very tardy response! Wow, you’ve really added so much! Wonderful! Can’t wait to check some of these out. Also, thanks for adding Guns, Germs & Steel! That one totally slipped past.
Eventually, I’ll get around to adding them to the master list.
My best,
Clay
Yes big shout for Desert Solitaire from me too.
I’d add also Scenes in America Deserta by Reyner Banham. All about a growing addiction to deserts and the ways they infect the human imagination. Years since I read it but well worth tracking down.
I’d suggest also a foray into Laurens Van Der Post too. Especially the Hunter and The Whale, but also some of his others (many). Very perceptive and humane look at human relationships with the natural world.
For a real treat you might enjoy The Soul of the White Ant, by Eugene Marais – this book is little known, and strangely out of print, but if you can obtain a copy you’ll be utterly entranced. Mind you he did attract some criticism for his theories but he was ahead of his time in many many ways as you will understand when you read it. As a follow up read the remarkable ‘My Friends the Baboons’. He had a slight (!) drug problem and I read a ‘warning’ that one should ponder whether to trust the observations of a man with an opium addiction who spent his days lying face down on the African veldt in brain-frying temperatures (studying termites). Time has proven the critics wrong and Marais to be a visionary.
See here: http://publicliterature.org/2008/04/03/eugene-marais-baboons-termites-and-the-evolution-of-the-human-psyche/
I’d add “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” by Annie Dillard, in the Science/Nature list. It’s a book that you return to over the years.