Nature Literature discussion

Hello everyone,

Please post your nominations for the February 2015 Book of the Month here. The poll will go up next Saturday.

Thanks,
Becky

Only because I got it from the library yesterday:

The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd

It seems natural to follow up with one of Sharman Apt Russell's favorite authors. How about Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard? From the description, "An exhilarating meditation on nature and its seasons—a personal narrative highlighting one year's exploration on foot in the author's own neighborhood in Tinker Creek, Virginia. In the summer, Dillard stalks muskrats in the creek and contemplates wave mechanics; in the fall she watches a monarch butterfly migration and dreams of Arctic caribou. She tries to con a coot; she collects pond water and examines it under a microscope. She unties a snake skin, witnesses a flood, and plays 'King of the Meadow' with a field of grasshoppers."

I was given Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by my bosses when I started in my first job as a dishwasher at the age of 16. (They were lovely women - had met Eleanor Roosevelt, vacationed to the Bronte sisters' home in the UK, etc.) Loved the book, but haven't read it since I was a teenager. I'd love to read it again!

I would love to read that one as well. Also might nominate Oaxaca Journal by Oliver Sachs. I bought and haven't read - and I have a personal 2015 goal of reading twelve books thT have been on my shelf for at least twelve months!

Any book by Craig Childs: in particular, maybe "Soul of Nowhere"and "Secret Knowledge of Water".

The poll is now up on the homepage and on the Polls page. No more suggestions will be taken for February. Thanks for all the great nominations this time around again!

H is for Hawk by Helen Mcdonald . Published 2013/2014.
Evocative, fascinating memoir of falconry, nature, family and legend and people's relationship with all of these things in 21st Cambridgeshire.

Hi Sarah,

That sounds like a fascinating book, but the February poll is already closed. Could you remind me when the March suggestions are requested in a couple weeks? :)

Becky

The Forester

My favorite nature book is A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC by Aldo Leopold. Aldo Leopold was a forester & is consider by many to be the father of "wildlife management" in the USA. In A SAND COUNTRY ALMANAC Leopold presents a "Land Ethic" & this is notably important because it has never been done before. He is quoted many times in the environmental literature. The almanac part of the book is mostly a nice nature read, but his outstanding quotes are in his essays at the end of the book. This book is referred to in many "forestry classes" at universities in the USA as guidance for foresters to follow in the management of forests & land & his land ethic has been used to help develop a mission statement by the Society of American Foresters. James Kraus

I too am a big fan of A Sand County Almanac. An acquaintance of mine here in Chattanooga developed a one man show based around Aldo Leopold and his writings. The play is described at: http://www.astandardofchange.com/