Is this book for you?

Here is a review of some of my favorites.

Like many of my friends who read ravenously, some of whom also write prolifically, I have more books than I will read in this lifetime. Along with others who love to read, I ponder my habit of collecting.

Thanks to excellent used bookstores here in Chattanooga, as well as some very good outlets for new books, my desire to aquire books faster than I can read them is well fed. Add to that, the online used booksellers, and a fine public library with eBook access through Hoopla, and I can’t keep up with all the books I can access.  I even purchase a few directly from the publishers and I reread books I particularly liked.

Several years ago, I put this habit to work as I wrote a bimonthly column titled “Nature’s Bookshelf.” I have updated and republished some of the features here on Substack, including “Jeff Biggers: Spokesman for Appalachia.”

If you like to read books, you might enjoy the following works. Some are old favorites and others are new discoveries.

Wild Spectacle by Janisse Ray is a favorite I have read twice as an eBook I am now preparing to dive into a print copy. This book takes a familiar author I associate with the vanishing Longleaf Pine Forest and wetland Cypress Groves of the Southeast into other realms, including Montana, Belize, and Costa Rica.

Her promptings to conserve wild nature in these locations are as eloquent as those promoting her native Georgia, If, like me, you have read other works by Janisse Ray, works such as Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, The Wildcard Quilt, The Seed Underground, and Drifting into Darien, you will find this book equally delightful. You can purchase copies via her website.

You can also read her work on her Substack publication, Trackless Wild. A free or paid subscription will give you a weekly dose of her nature writing.

Lessons from the Wolverine by Barry Lopez, with illustrations from Tom Pohrt, is an exploration of Indigenous knowledge systems. Though classified as a work of fiction, it meets his definition of an authentic story. I have read nearly all of his works and reviewed his book Vintage Lopez here on Substack, but only recently acquired a copy of Lessons from the Wolverine.

I also recently read his final work, Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World. Lopez was finishing this collection of essays when he died of metastasized cancer on Christmas Day, 2020. All but four of the essays previously appeared in periodicals and anthologies.

Lopez visited all seven continents and traveled with both scientific researchers and Indigenous people. He published seventeen books, as well as a multitude of shorter works.

Nightwalk: A Journey into the Heart of Nature by Chris Yates is the story of a walk through the countryside surrounding his home in the United Kingdom. He departed at sunset and arrived back home at sunrise on the Summer Solstice, the shortest night of the year. The publisher is in the UK, but the book is available in the United States. A friend who borrowed my copy just returned it and I look forward to reading it again.

I have just started on Sounds Wild and Broken by David George Haskell, a finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction. I have only read a few sections of this massive book, but it figured prominently in my 2023 interview of the author for an article that appeared in The Hellbender Press.

Haskell is a congenial interview subject with an astounding breadth of knowledge. He said in the introduction that his motivation for authoring the book was partly from the discovery that his own hearing is fading with age. His website includes an extensive collection of natural sounds recorded in the field.

Those are a few of my favorite reads which you might enjoy too, but I have left out a number I may bring to you attention in a later article. What about your favorite reads? Tell me about them in the comments section. I may already have a copy or I may obtain one when I read your comments.