BIRDS AND BOOKS READING GROUP
Archives of all the Books we've read by year
In case you want to find a book to read about Birds, Nature, Evolution, Adventure....
Archives of all the Books we've read by year
In case you want to find a book to read about Birds, Nature, Evolution, Adventure....
2018 BIRDS AND BOOKS
January 16, 2018
To keep us entertained over the holidays, we are suggesting reading all or part of the following trilogy:
EVER SINCE DARWIN: REFLECTIONS ON NATURAL HISTORY BY STEPHEN JAY GOULD Part 1 of the Series
Ever Since Darwin, Stephen Jay Gould's first book, has sold more than a quarter of a million copies. Like all succeeding collections by this unique writer, it brings the art of the scientific essay to unparalleled heights. Paperback, 285 pages
Published July 17th 1992 by W. W. Norton Company (first published 1977)
THE PANDA’S THUMB: MORE REFLECTIONS ON NATURAL HISTORY BY STEPHEN JAY GOULD Part 2 in the Series
Were dinosaurs really dumber than lizards? Why, after all, are roughly the same number of men and women born into the world? What led the famous Dr. Down to his theory of mongolism, and its racist residue? What do the panda's magical "thumb" and the sea turtle's perilous migration tell us about imperfections that prove the evolutionary rule? The wonders and mysteries of evolutionary biology are elegantly explored in these and other essays by the celebrated natural history writer Stephen Jay Gould. (less) Paperback, 352 pages
Published August 17th 1992 by W. W. Norton Company (first published 1980)
HEN’S TEETH AND HORSE’S TOES: FURTHER REFLECTIONS IN NATURAL HISTORY BY STEPHEN JAY GOULD Part 3 in the Series
Over a century after Darwin published the Origin of Species, Darwinian theory is in a "vibrantly healthy state," writes Stephen Jay Gould, its most engaging and illuminating exponent. Exploring the "peculiar and mysterious particulars of nature," Gould introduces the reader to some of the many and wonderful manifestations of evolutionary biology. Paperback, 416 pages
Published April 17th 1994 by W.W. Norton & Company (NY) (first published 1983)
February 20, 2018
THE WINDBIRDS: SHOREBIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA, by Peter Matthiessen
In this nature-writing classic, now available for the first time in paperback, National Book Award winner Peter Matthiessen captures the essence of the world's most fascinating group of birds: "The restlessness of shorebirds, their kinship with distance and swift seasons, the wistful signal of their voice down the long coastlines of the world make them, for me, the most affecting of wild creatures," writes Matthiessen. He conveys the biological and behavioral intricacies of shorebirds without dulling their romance and wonder.
Paperback, The Curious Naturalist, 168 pages
Published September 25th 1996 by W. W. Norton & Co. (first published 1973)
March 20, 2018
NATURAL ACTS: A SIDELONG VIEW OF SCIENCE AND NATURE BY DAVID QUAMMEN Essay Collection #1
Most of the pieces found in this book appeared first as installments of thee 'Natural Acts' columns that Quammen wrote regularly for Outside magazine. In an upbeat and original way of thinking Quammen writes about beetles, bats, crows, snakes and other interesting animals. Paperback, 221 pages
Published March 1st 1996 by Avon Books (first published 1985)
April 17, 2018
UNTAMED; THE WILDEST WOMAN IN AMERICA AND THE FIGHT FOR CUMBERLAND ISLAND, by Will Harlan
Carol Ruckdeschel is the wildest woman in America. She eats road kill, wrestles alligators, rides horses bareback, and lives in a ramshackle cabin that she built herself in an island wilderness. She’s had three husbands and many lovers, one of whom she shot and killed in self-defense. A combination of Henry David Thoreau and Jane Goodall, Carol is a self- taught scientist who has become a tireless defender of sea turtles on Cumberland Island, a national park off the coast of Georgia.
Cumberland is the country's largest and most biologically diverse barrier island—over forty square miles of pristine wilderness celebrated for its windswept dunes and feral horses. Steel magnate Thomas Carnegie owned much of Cumberland, and his widow Lucy made it a Gilded Age playground. But in recent years, Carnegie heirs and the National Park Service have clashed with Carol over the island’s future. What happens when a dirt-poor naturalist with only a high-school diploma tries to stop one of the wealthiest families in America? Untamed is the story of an American original standing her ground and fighting for what she believes in, no matter the cost.
Hardcover, 320 pages
Published May 6th 2014 by Grove Press
May 15, 2018
Rivers and Birds by Merrill Gilfallan
This book is a collection of 14 essays containing keen observations of rivers and birds — with an emphasis on the latter. His prose is highly evocative and his love for both wing and water is rendered in the language and cadences of poetry.
June 19, 2018
The Meaning of Birds by Simon Barnes
This is a passionate and informative celebration of birds and their ability to help us understand the world we live in. Besides exploring how birds do what they do, Barnes muses on the uses of feathers, the drama of raptors, the slaughter of pheasants, the infidelities of geese, and the strangeness of feeling sentimental about blue tits while enjoying a chicken sandwich.
July 17, 2018
A Sand Country Almanac and Sketches Here and There by Aldo Leopold
This is a classic, first published in 1949, that has brought many a person to an understanding of the ways of nature. It contains some of the finest nature writing since Thoreau. Leopold wrote these informal pieces over a forty-year period as he traveled through the woodlands of Wisconsin, Iowa, Arizona, Sonora, Oregon, Manitoba and elsewhere. In a final section, he addresses the philosophical issues involved in wildlife conservation.
August 21, 2018
Living on the Wind: Across the Hemisphere with Migratory Birds by Scott Weidensaul
Scott Weidensaul follows kettles of hawks over the Mexican coastal plains, bar-tailed godwits that hitchhike on gale winds of 7,000 miles non-stop across the Pacific from Alaska to New Zealand, and myriad songbirds whose numbers have dwindled dramatically. Migration paths form an elaborate global web now showing serious signs of fraying. Weidensaul delves into the tragedies of habitat degradation and deforestation with an urgency that brings to life the vast problems these miraculous migrants now face.
September 18, 2018
Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey
When Desert Solitaire was written in 1968, it became the focus of a nationwide cult. It is thought-provoking and mystical, angry and loving. It is a view of Abbey's quest to experience nature in its purest form. And it asks if any of our natural treasures can be saved before the bulldozers strike again
October 16, 2018
The Homing Instinct: Meaning and Mystery in Animal Migration by Bernd Heinrich
Acclaimed scientist and author Bernd Heinrich has returned every year since boyhood to a beloved patch of western Maine woods. What is the biology in humans in this deep-in-the-bones pull toward a particular place, and how is it related to animal homing? He explores how geese retain true visual landscape memory, how scent trails are used by many creatures, from fish to amphibians, and how the tiniest songbirds are equipped for solar and magnetic orienteering over vast distances. Most movingly, he portrays the deep psychological emotion in sandhill cranes newly arrived at their home pond in the Alaska tundra. He reminds us that to discount our own emotions toward home is to ignore biology itself.
