The books were stacking up, double, on my bookshelf; time to sort through them. The nature books were outward facing and mostly new. I reached behind them, filled a box, and thanked those older books for their service. Curious, I checked to see what I had checked out of the library this past year. Time for some mini book reviews and recommendations. [Amazon associates links below]
Fox and I: an uncommon friendship by Catherine Raven. I've read many books about people becoming close and friendly with animals, but this one is unique in that the author is not situated in a city or a typical domestic situation. She has an academic science background and also worked prior to her degrees as a fire lookout and ranger and other jobs in remote locations. She has a house built in Montana in a remote and harsh landscape, but she also teaches, so she is not completely cut off from human contact, even though she does prefer to be alone. A young fox appears, and she begins reading to him from The Little Prince. Her book is a naturalist's look at the world, both romantic and practical, awe-filled and reality based. Beautifully written and quite remarkable, I think.
Outraged: why we fight about morality and politics and how to find common ground by Kurt James Gray. The title is a bit in-your-face, but the background he presents, including historical reasons for and research about protecting one's group makes understanding about our current divisions a bit more clear. His premise is that the underlying cause of outrage is the perception of harm. Whether the harm is or isn't there is not the point, but the perception is. What is being harmed and how, and why people may see the other side as crazy or mean. I think this makes sense if you are dealing with presumably reasonable people, but in some cases, the common ground, in my experience, is not possible. It repeats a little, and it reads a teeny bit like a textbook, but overall good ideas, and definitely worth reading and thinking about.
Aflame: learning from silence by Pico Iyer. I have been a fan of Iyer's travel writing for years; this book is about internal travel, as I see it, and his longtime meditation practice. He has a few favorite monasteries he visits to be quiet, to still his mind, and it seems to help him in some particularly difficult times of his life, notably fires. It's written in short bursts, compiled from decades of notes. I was most interested in the interactions with the monks and what a monk's daily life is like.
Immemorial by Lauren Markham. A brief little book. She searches for a word that means missing something before it is gone as she talks about the environment, particularly the melting of glaciers. This inspired my art quilt, Melt Away.
His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik (the first of the series). The whole series is marvelous. Highly entertaining and gripping story of the Napoleonic wars with dragons. While there is violence (it is a war, after all), the personalities of the dragons are charming and the relationships between them and their captains are highly original. There is also an undercurrent of how dragons are treated in different countries, and how they rally for their rights. A fresh take, and as some people note, the merging of the Anne McCaffrey dragon books and the Patrick O'Brian books. These fictional stories are perhaps the outlier in my list of nonfiction, but a wonderful escape to another world, and prompted a dragon quilt, Culcita Draconis. A friend who does not usually read and like fantasy books recommended the first book to me. If you like them you can really dig in: there are ten in the series, all set in different places.
Becoming Wild: how animal cultures raise families, create beauty, and achieve peace by Carl Safina. Safina is a dedicated naturalist and thoughtful writer, also author of Alfie and Me and Voyage of the Turtle, both of which I enjoyed. This particular book is divided into three sections, with close examination of the life and culture of a different animal for each: sperm whales, scarlet macaws, and chimpanzees. Beyond what we think we know.
The Swerve: how the world became modern by Stephen Greenblatt. I wrote about this one when I last read it in 2014! And still, in 2024, I found it fascinating, having forgotten much of it. I wrote again about it when I made my 2024 art quilt, The Nature of Things. How one rediscovered book changed the world.
Secrets of the Octopus by Sy Montgomery. What? There's more? I had read her earlier book, The Soul of an Octopus, and very much enjoyed it. This book contains new material. It's always a pleasure to read her work; she loves the octopus and all animals, and is willing to dive deeply into their worlds, sometimes even taking physical risks.
The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan. This is a whimsical look at the birds in her northern California backyard, wonderfully illustrated with her endearing drawings and handwritten comments as well as generous blocks of text that make up her journal of the outdoors, the birds' stories, her imaginatively engineered bird feeders, her obsessions, her close observations, and more.
Walk, Ride, Paddle: a life outside by Timothy M. Kaine. An outdoorsman, Tim Kaine documents his trek through Virginia by foot, by bicycle, and by canoe in his 60th year, remarking on nature and politics, humanity and the world. Periodically he is joined by family and friends, sometimes recognized as the former governor and current senator from Virginia (and Hillary Clinton's running mate in 2016), sometimes not, and he includes humorous stories and anecdotes as well.
Turtle Diary by Russell Hoban. A very quirkily written fictional book, the style and initial humor of which I liked, yet the tone turned existential and a bit angsty and dismal even as the characters were so very interesting. Two strangers become fixated on the turtles in the zoo and decide to rescue them. Russell Hoban is best know, I think for his children's books about Frances the badger, such as Bread and Jam for Frances.
The Fabric of Civilization: how textiles made the world by Virginia Postrel. Did you know the word, "spinster" comes from all the spinning of thread that most women had to do to provide yarn for the weavers so that fabric and then clothing could be made? Did you know that bolts of cloth were once used as currency in some parts of the world? Each step of the way, from wool to silk to cotton and beyond, brings a new way of thinking to humanity and opens up news doors to exploration, science, and technology. This book made my mind explode.
Fox. Psychology. Meditation. Ecology. Dragons. Whales. Ancient history. Octopuses. Birds. Hiking. Turtles. Textiles. Happy Reading!
*
Coming Soon: Star 82 Review's Summer Reading Anthology!
Comments