Creature, by Andrew Zuckerman

The baby blue eyes of the panther* on the cover called me across the room. Before I knew what was happening I found myself with an impulse grab from the New Book shelf.
*Leopard, actually. The kitty is a black leopard, but I didn’t discover this till the very end, because there are no words in [...]

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The Daily Coyote: A Story of Love, Survival, and Trust in the Wilds of Wyoming by Shreve Stockton

Mired in a bout of bad luck, photographer and big city lover Shreve Stockton decides a major change is needed. Almost on a whim, she decides to move to the very small town of Big Sleep, Wyoming (population: 300).  Stockton adjusts well to her new life in this small town in a  beautiful but very [...]

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Letters from Eden: A Year at Home in the Woods, by Julie Zickefoose

I enjoy reading books about nature so I was eager to read this book by Julie Zickefoose, a well-known artist who contributes work to Bird Watchers Digest and is a frequent commentator on NPR’s All Things Considered.
Letters from Eden is a collection of stories about the natural world that Zickefoose observes throughout the year in her [...]

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The Snow Leopard, by Peter Matthiessen

In my way of thinking, the way to experience a 250-mile trek across the Himalayas, up to 17,000 feet, is by getting under a warm blanket on my sofa and reading a book about it by one of the best nature writers alive. The Snow Leopard, by Peter Matthiessen, is such a book.
In 1973, [...]

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Lost in the Wild: Danger and Survival in the North Woods, by Cary Griffith

I picked up this book because I wanted to get a quick look at how published writers write about being in the woods. I intended to skim just a few pages. From the first page, I was hooked. I finished the book in less than two days, not wanting to put it down to [...]

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Hand-Feeding Backyard Birds, by Hugh Wiberg

With more than 20 years of experience in hand-feeding birds, Hugh Wiberg is the perfect guide for bird-lovers who want to try hand-feeding in their back yards or in the woods. His tips for success: stand still, be comfortable, be patient, and “become the feeder” — be the only source of food. Patience is the most important [...]

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Why Don’t Woodpeckers Get Headaches? And Other Bird Questions You Know You Want to Ask by Mike O’Connor

This fun book is a “best of” collection from Mike O’Connor’s newspaper column, “Ask the Bird Folks.” O’Connor opened up one of the first wild bird shops in the U.S. on Cape Cod in 1983. He received so many questions about birds over the years that he decided to put his answers in one place, [...]

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In Hovering Flight, by Joyce Hinnefeld

In Hovering Flight, by Joyce Hinnefeld, tells the life story of Addie Kavanaugh, a bird artist and environmental activist. As the novel opens, Addie is dying of cancer at her best friend’s house on the coast of New Jersey. Addie’s two best women friends, her husband, Tom, and their daughter, Scarlet, are by her side. [...]

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Young Men and Fire, By Norman Maclean

Warmth is fine, but fire like any natural element can easily get out of control. Norman Maclean’s Young Men and Fire is a sobering look at the lives of those people who choose to go out into the wild to fight forest fires. In beautiful and precise prose, Maclean takes the reader through the intricacies [...]

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Go Down Moses, by William Faulkner

I blogged earlier about The Reivers, citing it as one of William Faulkner’s most accessible stories.  Reading Go Down Moses – more accurately, wrestling with it – confirms my feeling about The Reivers, but also left me in awe.  Finishing the book left me feeling like I had just eaten a full meal by a [...]

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