Nature Literature

[raffaellabella]

I'm probably going to get a lot of flack from forum members but I love the Earth Children Series by Jean M. Auel (Clan of the Cave Bear is the first book). It's not top-notch writing but I would suggest it to anyone interested in historical nature. The books are an easy read and interesting.

 

[nomadic myth]

I'm probably going to get a lot of flack from forum members but I love the Earth Children Series by Jean M. Auel (Clan of the Cave Bear is the first book). It's not top-notch writing but I would suggest it to anyone interested in historical nature. The books are an easy read and interesting.

Sounds interesting. I'm interested in that period.

The only similar thing I've read seems to be a section of Hesse's The Glass Bead Game called the "Rainmaker".

 

[nomadic myth]

Kon-Tiki, by Thor Heyerdahl.

I looked that up, and it sounds amazing, but I'm a little scared to read it because it also sounds terrifying. Trees and lakes are okay, but the Pacific is a bit of a challenge.

 

[nomadic myth]

Listening Point by Sigurd F. Olson.

A beautiful collection of essays about nature. Olson finds his "listening point" in Lake Superior country, a place where he can get close to and "listen" to nature. The essays are his reflections on his time in that area. They cover themes such as nature as source, human history, ecology, and natural history, but in a light and anecdotal manner. He is kind of a nature essay equivalent of Robert Frost.

 

[nomadic myth]

I found an internet site that had links to nature and literature course syllabi. This is a large selection of books that are offered on various courses. I didn't select anything already listed in this thread. I also didn't read any of these yet, so I can't vouch for them. Professors of literature chose them for their courses, though, if that means anything.


McPhee, Coming into the Country
Zwinger, Run, River, Run
Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge
Nelson, The Island Within
William Bartram, Travels
Richard Llewellyn, How Green Was My Valley
Gerald Durrell, My Family and Other Animals
Washington Irving, The Sketch Book
Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Teaching a Stone to Talk
Loren Eiseley, The Immense Journey
Scott Russell Sanders, Staying Put
Bill Devall and George Sessions, Deep Ecology
Mary Oliver, American Primitive
Diane Ackerman, The Moon by Whale Light
Anaya, Bless Me, Ultima
Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard
N. Scott Momaday, The Way to Rainy Mountain
Marcia Bonta, Appalachian Spring
Joseph Meeker, The Comedy of Survival
Annette Kolodny, The Lay of the Land
Elizabeth Gray, Green Paradise Lost
Craig Lesley, Riversong, Winterkill
Louise Erdrich, Tracks
Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping
A. B. Guthrie, Big Sky
James Welch, Fool's Crow
Wendell Berry, Remembering, The Memory of Old Jack
Anne Matthews, Where the Buffalo Roam
Al Stewart, The Holy Season, Walking in the Wild
Ernest Gaines, A Gathering of Old Men
James Dickey, Deliverance
Ed. David R. Pichaske, Late Harvest: Rural American Writing
Edward O. Wilson, Biophilia
Bill McKibben, The End of Nature
Alfred Crosby, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900
Yi-fu Tuan, Topophilia

 

[Donna Rose]

Over the past 2 days I read Hatchet by Gary Paulsen...not strictly a "nature" book but rather a wilderness survival type book, I just think he writes the wilderness *really* well. It was a compelling and extremely engaging read.

D

 

[nomadic myth]

Over the past 2 days I read Hatchet by Gary Paulsen...not strictly a "nature" book but rather a wilderness survival type book, I just think he writes the wilderness *really* well. It was a compelling and extremely engaging read.

D

Just checked him out. He has lots of books I want to read. They seem to be geared towards young adults, but I'm a firm believer that good books are timeless and ageless.

 

[ecks]

Over the past 2 days I read Hatchet by Gary Paulsen...not strictly a "nature" book but rather a wilderness survival type book, I just think he writes the wilderness *really* well. It was a compelling and extremely engaging read.

That's the first book that came to my mind when I thought "Nature Literature". I read that book when I was about 12 and it is still one of my most memorable books.

 

[Dogmatix]

My favorite nature book is Two in the far North - by Margaret Murie. It's a wonderful biography about her difficult pioneer life in Alaska and how she came to champion the Alaskan National Wilderness. It's also an amazing love story about her and her husband Olaf's long and wonderful marriage. John Denver wrote a beautiful song, a waltz, about them but I can't recall the title. (A Song for all Lovers- that might be it)

 

[Prairie_Girl]

Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver is still one of my absolute favourite books. It's beautifully written and really tells a story.

 

[nomadic myth]

Yikes! I'll never be able to read all the books that keep piling up on my reading list!

 

[nomadic myth]

Yikes! I'll never be able to read all the books that keep piling up on my reading list!

I'm going to bump this thread because I was just talking about it in another thread.

Anyway, I've been making wonderful progress with my nature reading. Most of my reads come from references made within books I've been reading to other good books.

 

[Fred R]

You might like Green Mansions by W.H. Hudson. It is somewhat obscure as classics go. Hudson was a Victorian-era naturalist. His descriptions of the South American jungles are fantastic. It has an unusual love story and strong themes of civilization vs. the natural world.

 

[Silverhawk]

It really is difficult to pick a favorite, but one of my all time most enjoyable has to be Colin Fletcher for his ability to paint a picture with words. Because I do'nt have time for writers crazy imaginations,read that as novels in general. I like true accounts, travel by foot, bicycle, canoe, or vehicle and such.
All of Bill Bryson's books were fun reads. Peter Jenkins could always get me out of the house without leaving my chair.
How about John Muir?
William Least Heat Moon is another. There are many others.