Virga & Bone: essays from dry places by Craig Childs

Writer and adventurer Craig Childs dwells upon desert icons—human, animal, and otherwise—in these contemplative and visceral essays.

From the author of The Secret Knowledge of Water and Atlas of a Lost World comes a deeply felt essay collection focusing upon a vivid series of desert icons—a sheet of virga over Monument Valley, white seashells in dry desert sand, boulders impossibly balanced.

Craig Childs delves into the primacy of the land and the profound nature of the more-than-human.

122 pages (October 2019)

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Title Read-alikes: A Desert Harvest by Bruce Berger; Walking the High Desert: encounters with rural America along the Oregon Desert Trail by Ellen Waterston; Seasons: desert sketches by Ellen Meloy; The Nature of Desert Nature: meditations on the nature of deserts by Gary Paul Nabhan ; Deep Creek: finding hope in the high country by Pam Houston; In Earshot of Water: Notes from the Columbia Plateau by Paul J. Lindholdt; High Sierra: a love story by Kim Stanley Robinson; The Immeasurable World: journeys in desert places by William Atkins; Refuge: an unnatural history of family and place by Terry Tempest Williams; Braiding Sweetgrass: indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants by Robin Kimmerer; Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People by Elizabeth A. Fenn; Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology by David Abram; and Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard.

Braiding Sweetgrass: indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. She brings these frameworks of understanding together in original ways, taking "us on a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise" (Elizabeth Gilbert).

Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings―asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass―offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices. In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.

382 pages (October 2013)

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Braiding Sweetgrass Discussion Questions from USFWS Conservation Library

 

13 Book Club Questions to Energize Any Meetup from Bustle

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Gifts of the Land | A Guided Tour with Robin Wall Kimmerer:

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Title Read-alikes: A Garden of Marvels: How We Discovered that Flowers Have Sex, Leaves Eat Air, and Other Secrets of Plants by Ruth Kassinger; Birthright: People and Nature in the Modern World by Stephen Kellert; Sprout Lands: Tending the Endless Gift of Trees by William Bryant Logan; Full Ecology: Repairing Our Relationship with the Natural World by Mary M. Clare & Gary Ferguson; World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil; Seeds of Hope: Wisdom and Wonder from the World of Plants by Jane Goodall; Still Waters: The Secret World of Lakes by Curt Stager; Lessons from Plants by Beronda Montgomery; The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate by Peter Wohlleben; The Overstory by Richard Powers; An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz: and Entangled Life; How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake.

This Is Chance!: The Great Alaska Earthquake, Genie Chance, and the Shattered City She Held Together by John Mooallem

The thrilling, cinematic story of a community shattered by disaster—and the extraordinary woman who helped pull it back together.

In the spring of 1964, Anchorage, Alaska, was a modern-day frontier town yearning to be a metropolis—the largest, proudest city in a state that was still brand-new. But just before sundown on Good Friday, the community was jolted by the most powerful earthquake in American history, a catastrophic 9.2 on the Richter Scale. For four and a half minutes, the ground lurched and rolled. Streets cracked open and swallowed buildings whole. And once the shaking stopped, night fell and Anchorage went dark. The city was in disarray and sealed off from the outside world.

Slowly, people switched on their transistor radios and heard a familiar woman’s voice explaining what had just happened and what to do next. Genie Chance was a part-time radio reporter and working mother who would play an unlikely role in the wake of the disaster, helping to put her fractured community back together. Her tireless broadcasts over the next three days would transform her into a legendary figure in Alaska and bring her fame worldwide—but only briefly. That Easter weekend in Anchorage, Genie and a cast of endearingly eccentric characters—from a mountaineering psychologist to the local community theater group staging Our Town—were thrown into a jumbled world they could not recognize. Together, they would make a home in it again.

Drawing on thousands of pages of unpublished documents, interviews with survivors, and original broadcast recordings, This Is Chance! is the hopeful, gorgeously told story of a single catastrophic weekend and proof of our collective strength in a turbulent world.

There are moments when reality instantly changes—when the life we assume is stable gets upended by pure chance. This Is Chance! is an electrifying and lavishly empathetic portrayal of one community rising above the randomness, a real-life fable of human connection withstanding chaos.

336 pages (March 2020)

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1964 Quake| The Great Alaska Earthquake (USGS):

 

Jon Mooallem on This is Chance! (with Jazmine Hughes from GreenlightBookstore):

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Title Read-alikes: The Great Quake: How the Biggest Earthquake in North America Changed Our Understanding of the Planet by Henry Fountain; Gunflint Burning: Fire in the Boundary Waters by Cary J. Griffith; Paradise: One Town's Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire by Lizzie Johnson; Strong in the rain: surviving Japan's earthquake, tsunami, and Fukushima nuclear disaster by Lucy Birmingham; On the Burning Edge: A Fateful Fire and the Men Who Fought It by Kyle Dickman; Ruthless Tide: The Heroes and Villains of the Johnstown Flood, America’s Astonishing Gilded Age Disaster by Al Rocker; Megafire: The Race to Extinguish a Deadly Epidemic of Flame by Michael Kodas; Under a Flaming Sky: The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894 by Daniel James Brown; The Big Ones: How Natural Disasters Have Shaped Us and What We Can Do about Them by Lucile M. Jones; One Day: The Extraordinary Story of an Ordinary 24 Hours in America by Gene Weingarten; Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad; Quakeland: On the Road to America's Next Devastating Earthquake by Kathryn Miles; and Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History by Erik Larson.

The Sun Is a Compass: a 4,000-mile journey into the Alaskan wilds by Caroline Van Hemert

The gripping story of a biologist's journey from Washington State to high above the Arctic Circle - traveling across remote and rugged terrain solely by human power - to rediscover birds, the natural world, and her own love of science.

During graduate school, as she conducted experiments on the peculiarly misshapen beaks of chickadees, ornithologist Caroline Van Hemert began to feel stifled in the isolated, sterile environment of the lab. Worried that she was losing her passion for the scientific research she once loved, she was compelled to experience wildness again, to be guided by the sounds of birds and to follow the trails of animals.

In March of 2012 she and her husband set off on a 4,000-mile wilderness journey from the Pacific rainforest to the Alaskan Arctic, traveling by rowboat, ski, foot, raft, and canoe. Together, they survived harrowing dangers while also experiencing incredible moments of joy and grace - migrating birds silhouetted against the moon, the steamy breath of caribou, and the bond that comes from sharing such experiences. A unique blend of science, adventure, and personal narrative, the book explores the bounds of the physical body and the tenuousness of life in the company of creatures whose daily survival is nothing short of miraculous. It is a journey through the heart, the mind, and some of the wildest places left in North America.

In the end, The Sun Is a Compass is a love letter to nature, an inspiring story of endurance, and a beautifully written testament to the resilience of the human spirit.

 

308 pages (March 2019)

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Title Read-alikes:

On Call in the Arctic by Thomas J. Sims; Trespassing Across America by Ken Ilgunas; Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube: Chasing Fear and Finding Home in the Great White North by Blair Braverman; Northernmost by Peter Geye; How to Be a Good Creature by Sy Montgomery; Kissed by a Fox by Priscilla Stuckey; On Trails by Robert Moor; My Penguin Year Lindsay McCrae; Fathoms by Rebecca Giggs; The Adventurer's Son: A Memoir by Roman Dial; Lands of the Lost Borders by Kate Harris; A Land Gone Lonesome: An Inland Voyage Along the Yukon River by Dan O'Neill; and Into the Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver by Jill Heinerth.

The honey bus : a memoir of loss, courage and a girl saved by bees by Meredith May

An extraordinary story of a young girl who finds solace in one of nature’s most mysterious and beguiling creatures: the honeybee.

Meredith May recalls the first time a honeybee crawled on her arm.

She was five years old, her parents had recently split and suddenly she found herself in the care of her grandfather, an eccentric beekeeper who made honey in a rusty old military bus in the yard.

That first close encounter with a bee was at once terrifying and exhilarating for May, and in that moment she discovered that everything she needed to know about life and family was right before her eyes, in the secret world of bees.

May was drawn to the art of beekeeping as an escape from her troubled reality.

Her mother had receded into a volatile cycle of madness and despair and spent most days locked away in the bedroom. It was during this pivotal time in May’s childhood that she learned to take care of herself, forged an unbreakable bond with her grandfather and opened her eyes to the magic and wisdom of nature.

The bees became a guiding force in May’s life, teaching her about family and community, loyalty and survival and the unequivocal relationship between a mother and her child.

Part memoir, part beekeeping odyssey, The Honey Bus is an remarkable story about finding home in the most unusual of places, and how a tiny, little-understood insect could save a life.

318 pages (April 2019)

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Title Read-alikes: A Honeybee Heart Has Five Openings by Helen Jukes; How to Be a Good Creature by Sy Montgomery; H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald; Field Notes from an Unintentional Birder by Julia Zarankin; My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout; Fire Season by Philip Connors; The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Bailey; Wintering by Katherine May; Late Migrations by Margaret Renkl; The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson; This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger; and Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler.

Citizen Scientist: searching for heroes and hope in an age of extinction by Mary Ellen Hannibal

Citizen science might just be our last, best chance to fight extinction. But is there really hope for threatened species? Mary Ellen Hannibal needed to find out.

Hannibal, an award-winning writer and emerging emissary from scientists to the public, sets out to become a citizen scientist herself. In search of vanishing species, she wades into tide pools, follows hawks, and scours mountains. The data she collects will help environmental research—but her most precious discovery might be her fellow citizen scientists: a heroic cast of volunteers devoting long hours to helping scientists measure—and even slow—today’s unprecedented mass extinction.

A consummate reporter, Hannibal digs into the origins of the tech-savvy citizen science movement—tracing it back through centuries of amateur observation by writers and naturalists. Prompted by her novelist father’s sudden death, she also examines her own past and discovers a family legacy of looking closely at the world. Her personal loss only fuels her quest to bear witness to life, and so she ultimately returns her gaze to the wealth of species still left to fight for.

Combining research and memoir in impassioned prose, Citizen Scientist is a literary event, a blueprint for action, and the story of how one woman rescues herself from an odyssey of loss—with a new kind of science.

423 pages (September 2016)

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Title Read-alikes: The Nature of Nature by Enric Sala; Unstoppable Global Warming by S. Fred Singer; Wild Things, Wild Places by Jane Alexander; Earth in Human Hands by David Harry Grinspoon; Seeds of Hope by Jane Goodall; A World for My Daughter by Alejandro Frid; The Edge of Extinction by Jules N. Pretty; The Human Age by Diane Ackerman; The Green Book by Elizabeth Rogers; What a Plant Knows by Daniel Chamovitz; The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio; Fifty Words for Rain by Asha Lemmie; and Weather by Jenny Offill.

Profound River by John L. Gubbins

Did a nun really invent the first flies for fly-fishing? Yes. Dame Juliana Berners was a remarkable woman: devout catholic nun and the credited inventor of fly-fishing. From boar-hunting on horseback with nothing but a spear to facing off with greedy priests determined to further impoverish her convent and family of faithful sisters, Dame Juliana's story will surprise and inspire you.

Dame Juliana Berners was a devout catholic nun who used the rich decorations that adorned the ceremonial robes of her faith to create the first fishing lures, becoming the Mother of Fly-Fishing From boar-hunting on horseback with nothing but a spear to facing off against greedy priests determined to further impoverish her convent and family of faithful sisters, Dame Juliana's story will surprise and inspire you.

 

235 pages (August 2011)

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The Best Book Club Questions to Spark Discussion from The Oprah Magazine

 

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Title Read-alikes: Magdalena Mountain by Robert Michael Pyle; Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams; My Last Continent by Midge Raymond; Earthly Joys by Philippa Gregory; Year of Wonders by Geradine Brooks; The Glass Ocean by Lori Baker; Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh; The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott; Illuminations by Mary Sharratt; The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett; The Anchoress by Robyn Cadwallader; The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro; and Antihill by Edward O. Wilson.