WRITER’S READS
David George Haskell is the author of Sounds Wild and Broken (2022), The Songs of Trees (2017) and The Forest Unseen (2012)
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard (1974)
A book that cracked open my imagination. Her lyricism about light, insects and frogs illuminates life and death questions with a glorious lightness of touch.
Being A Human by Charles Foster (2021)
A terrifyingly immersive exploration of 40,000 years of human ecology and consciousness. The ideas and experiences related here are so rich that every other page is dog-eared.
Findings by Kathleen Jamie (2005)
Brilliant short essays exploring nature and culture. Whether describing pickled body parts in Edinburgh’s Surgeon’s Hall or rare birds in the Hebrides, Jamie’s writing is unfailingly astute, witty and evocative.
The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin (2015)
I love this novel and its sequels for the gripping, shocking storylines about a world in tumult and for the way she bends geological and biological rules to help us see our own world more clearly.
The Outermost House by Henry Beston (1928)
Returned from war in Europe, Beston spent a year in a shack on Cape Cod. Gorgeous writing evokes the beauty and travails of both human and nonhuman life on this stormy shore.
Fathoms by Rebecca Giggs (2020)
Like fine tapestry, strands unite into a coherent work of great beauty. Yes, this is a book about what whales mean to us, but it’s also about how to interweave and admire cultural and biological stories, metaphors and meanings.
The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert (2013)
What’s sexier and more full of adventure and possibility than moss? In this novel, the pursuit of botanical knowledge becomes a lens through which to explore desire, feminism and science in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The Nutmeg’s Curse by Amitav Ghosh (2021)
Extraordinary ‘parables’ that trace the roots of present-day crises of injustice and ecological collapse. He makes a powerful case that deeper empathy and connection to the more-than-human world are necessary.