24 Wonderful True Nature Stories

I love reading stories about nature. Here's a list of some of my favorites from this genre. The links take you to my review of each.

Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness by Edward Abbey

American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Observation in the West by Nate Blakeslee

The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science by Natalie Angier

The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession by Mark Obmascik

The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman

The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate - Discoveries From a Secret World by Peter Wohlleben

Forest Bathing: How Trees Can Help You Find Health and Happiness by Qing Li

Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout by Philip Connors

A Weird and Wild Beauty: The Story of Yellowstone, the World's First National Park by Erin Peabody

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage: Lessons for People from Animals and Their Trainers by Amy Sutherland

The Truth About Animals: Stoned Sloths, Lovelorn Hippos, and Other Tales from the Wild Side of Wildlife by Lucy Cooke

Never Cry Wolf: The Amazing True Story of Life Among Arctic Wolves by Farley Mowat

High Tide in Tucson by Barbara Kingsolver

Small Wonder by Barbara Kingsolver

Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver

Sudden Sea: The Great Hurricane of 1938 by R. A. Scotti

Lab Girl by Hope Jahren

Wilderness Essays by John Muir

North on the Wing: Travels with the Songbird Migration of Spring by Bruce M. Beehler

Animal Madness: How Anxious Dogs, Compulsive Parrots, and Elephants in Recovery Help Us Understand Ourselves by Laurel Braitmann

The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession by Susan Orlean

The Wave: In Pursuit of Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean by Susan Casey

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

What wonderful true nature stories have I missed? 

Have you read any of these?

Which have you loved?

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Each Tuesday That Artsy Reader Girl assigns a topic and then post her top ten list that fits that topic. You’re more than welcome to join her and create your own top ten (or 2, 5, 20, etc.) list as well. Feel free to put a unique spin on the topic to make it work for you! Please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own post so that others know where to find more information.

Look What Came in the Mail!

A shiny red envelope arrived in the mail several months ago.

Inside was a lovely box.

 And inside that box? The Acadia Files: Book Two, Autumn Science

It's just as much fun on the inside, too.

Acadia Green explores her world---cleaning up a nearby pond, studying the changing color of the leaves, thinking about time zones, and analyzing the role of dinosaur pee in the water cycle---by using the scientific method and keeping a science journal.

It's a very fresh take on an early chapter book. A delight.

For more wordless photos, go to Wordless Wednesday.

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by A Web of Stories. To participate in Saturday Snapshot: post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken and then leave a direct link to your post in the Mister Linky at A Web of Stories.

Nonfiction November: New to My TBR

Hooray, Nonfiction November is here! Nonfiction November is a month-long celebration of everything nonfiction. Each week, we’ll have a different prompt and a different host looking at different ideas about reading and loving nonfiction.

Week 5 (Nov. 26 to Nov. 30)

New to my TBR (Hosted by Katie at Doing Dewey)

It’s been a month full of amazing nonfiction books! 

Which new nonfiction books have you added to your TBR? 
Be sure to link back to the original blogger who posted about that book!

Here are books I've added this November.
I have added a huge number of new books. 
Thank you, all!

The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House (Musings of a Literary Wanderer)
Sometimes Amazing Things Happen: Heartbreak and Hope on the Bellevue Hospital Psychiatric Prison Ward (Musings of a Literary Wanderer)

The Light Book of Lykke: The Danish Search for the World's Happiest People (Reading with Jade)
The Joy of Forest Bathing: The Mysterious Japanese Art of Shinrin-Yoku  (Reading with Jade)

Vincent and Theo (Sophisticated Dorkiness)

The Ghosts of the Tsunami (Brona's Books)
The Secret Life of Cows (Brona's Books)
Basho: The Complete Haiku (Brona's Books)

The Idiot Brain by Dean Burnett (Curiosity Killed the Bookworm)
Tamed: Ten Species that Tamed Our World (Curiosity Killed the Bookworm)

Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout (Literary Mixtape)
John Muir and the Ice That Started a Fire (Literary Mixtape)

Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading by Lucy Mangan (Books, Please)

The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border by Francisco Cantu (Running 'N Reading)

The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman's Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster by Sarah Krasnostein (A Strong Belief in Wicker)
Any Ordinary Day by Leigh Sales (A Strong Belief in Wicker)

Beauty in the Broken Places: A Memoir of Love, Faith, and Resilience by Allison Pataki (Tina Says)
The Newcomers: Finding Refuge, Friendship, and Hope in an American Classroom by Helen Thorpe (Tina Says)

Forty Autumns: A Family's Story of Courage and Survival on Both Sides of the Berlin Wall by Nina Willner (Lakeside Musing)
I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life by Anne Bogel (Lakeside Musing)

Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts by Christopher de Hamel (Howling Frog)

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World (Brona's Books)
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating (Brona's Books)
The Brain that Changes Itself (Brona's Books)
The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, the Lost Hero of Science (Brona's Books)
The Porcelain Thief: Searching the Middle Kingdom for Buried China (Brona's Books)
The Brothers Gardeners: A Generation of Gentlemen Naturalists and the Birth of an Obsession (Brona's Books)

The Newcomers: Finding Refuge, Friendship, and Hope in an American Classroom (Based on a True Story)

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah (Lakeside Musing)
Tell Me More: Stories About the 12 Hardest Things I'm Learning to Say (Lakeside Musing)
Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America (Lakeside Musing)

Phantoms on the Bookshelves by Jacques Bonnet (Words and Peace)

Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation by Dan Fagin (Doing Dewey Decimal)

Jell-O Girls: A Family Memoir by Allie Rowbottom (Melissa Firman)

Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker (Booker Talk)

Hunting Eichmann: How a Band of Survivors and a Young Spy Agency Hunted Down the World's Most Notorious Nazi by Neal Bascom (Maphead's Book Blog)

Changing the Subject: Philosophy from Socrates to Adorno by Raymond Geuss (Typings)
Essayism by Brian Dillon (Typings)

American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee's, Farm Fields, and the Dinner Table by Tracie McMillan (Tina Says)

Forty Autumns by Nina Willner (Sarah's Bookshelves)

Heating and Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs by Beth Ann Fennelly (Unruly Reader)



How about you? What nonfiction books have you added to your TBR?

Nonfiction November: Reads Like Fiction

Hooray, Nonfiction November is here! Nonfiction November is a month-long celebration of everything nonfiction. Each week, we’ll have a different prompt and a different host looking at different ideas about reading and loving nonfiction.

Week 4 (Nov. 19 to Nov. 23)

Reads Like Fiction (Hosted by Rennie at What’s Nonfiction?)
Nonfiction books often get praised for how they stack up to fiction. Does it matter to you whether nonfiction reads like a novel? If it does, what gives it that fiction-like feeling? Does it depend on the topic, the writing, the use of certain literary elements and techniques? What are your favorite nonfiction recommendations that read like fiction? And if your nonfiction picks could never be mistaken for novels, what do you love about the differences?

Does it matter to you whether nonfiction reads like a novel? If it does, what gives it that fiction-like feeling? Does it depend on the topic, the writing, the use of certain literary elements and techniques?

Nonfiction doesn't have to read like a novel for me to enjoy it, but my favorite nonfiction books do. In nonfiction, the most important thing is truth. But the second most important thing is meaning, and I generally need story to get meaning.

And if your nonfiction picks could never be mistaken for novels, what do you love about the differences?

I love to read through books of information, like encyclopedias and dictionaries; no one would mistake an encyclopedia or a dictionary for a novel. What I love about reference books like these is the feeling that all the important things have been collected and shared in one place. 

What are your favorite nonfiction recommendations that read like fiction? 



For Adults:
God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State by Lawrence Wright
The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin
LeRoad Trip: A Traveler's Journal of Love and France by Vivian Swift
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Resistance by Laura Hillenbrand
Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott
Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
The Last Shot: City Streets, Basketball Dreams by Darcy Frey
The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson
Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Woman: An Intimate Geography by Natalie Angier
The Roads to Sata: A 2,000 Mile Walk Through Japan by Alan Booth
The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

And let's add two more that I finished this week:
The Library Book by Susan Orlean
The American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West by Nate Blakeslee




For Children:
Herstory: 50 Women and Girls Who Shook Up the World by Katherine Halligan
Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie, a Tale of Love and Fallout
Redwoods by Jason Chin
The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau by Dan Yaccarino
One Beetle Too Many: The Extraordinary Adventures of Charles Darwin by Kathryn Lasky
Bird Talk: What Birds are Saying and Why by Lita Judge
Let's Hatch Chicks: A Day-to-Day Chick Hatching Guide for Kids by Lisa Steele
Dolphin Baby! by Nicola Davies
Ella: Queen of Jazz by Helen Hancocks
Schomberg: The Man Who Built a Library by Carole Boston Weatherford
If the World Were a Village: A Book about the World's People by David J. Smith
Lives of the Artists: Masterpieces, Messes by Kathleen Krull

Living Sunlight: How Plants Bring the Earth to Life

Living Sunlight: How Plants Bring the Earth to Life by Molly Bang & Penny Chisholm

My Thoughts:

The bright pictures in this book reminded me on every page of the power of the sun. I felt a glow radiating out of the illustrations. And that's what this book is about; the text focuses on the connections between people and plants and light and energy.

An unusual feature of this book was a note that explains the simplifications the authors made for the sake of their young audience. Interesting. I’ve never seen a note explaining what was omitted from a book.

The children liked the bright pictures and the interactive way the text began. Some of the more complicated connections between energy and plants seemed to elude them.

A Sample:

“Without plants,
you would have no oxygen.
Without plants,
you would have no food.
Without plants,
you could not live.
Without plants,
there would be no life on Earth.”

Children’s Comments:

Jesse, 5, said, "I liked the pictures."
Ethan, 6, said, "I loved how bright the pictures are."
Ramsey, 6, said, "I liked when the sun was talking to us."
Elizabeth, 6, said, "I liked the sentences that tell what is happening in the story."
Rodrigo, 6, said, "I liked how it exploded."
Aria, 7, said, "I liked the dedication page."
Cailyn, 5, "I liked the title of the book."

Children's Ratings: 3, 5, 3, 5, 5, 5, 5, 3, 5, 5, 5, 3, 5, 5, 5, 1, 3, 5, 1

The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau

The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau by Dan Yaccarino

My Thoughts:

The text of this book wowed me. I could not stop reading to see what would happen to Cousteau. I liked its simplicity and its clearness. I liked how accessible the text was, even for the youngest of readers.

The illustrations were fun and cartoonish. I didn’t like the colors the Yaccarino used for the water at first, every color except ocean blue, I think, but the colors grew on me, and I grew to love them. I was very surprised how much the children liked this book and how much they were interested in this man’s life.

The book also included a table of Cousteau’s life and sources for further study.

A Sample:

“The fish off the coast of Africa were friendly and curious and did not swim away. Cousteau was the first human being they had ever seen.”

Children’s Comments:

Alexis, 6, said, "I liked how he went down in the ocean."
Vanessa, 6, said, "I liked how he made a camera all by himself."
Jony, 6, said, "I liked how he saw the seahorse."
Melanie, 6, said, "I liked when he went down in the ocean."
Tabitha, 7, said, "I liked how he was on tv."
Joey, 6, said, "I liked how he got sick and had to go under the water."

Children’s Ratings: 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5

Down Down Down by Steve Jenkins

Down Down Down by Steve Jenkins

My Thoughts:

Jenkins starts at the surface of the ocean. He goes deeper and deeper, telling about the animals and plants that live at every level.

I liked the book, but I thought the text would be too challenging for the primary students at my school.

I was wrong. This was an unequivocal favorite among the young children to whom I read this book. We had a large group of children of both kindergarteners and first graders and they all unanimously loved it. The pictures kept them enthralled. I read bits of the text here and there, and, though I’d anticipated that the text would be daunting for the children, I was wrong. They seemed to follow it well. I can only surmise that the vivid pictures and the movement of the book, going deeper and deeper down into the ocean with every page, kept them going.

A Sample:

“Near the surface the water is warm and brightly lit by the sun. Light-loving plants, algae, and bacteria---most single-celled and too small to see with the naked eye---are found here in uncountable numbers. Almost all life in the sea depends on these microscopic organisms, which use the sun’s energy to help them manufacture their own food. They themselves are food for billions of animals….”

Children’s Comments:

Sheridan, 6, said, "I liked the last page."
Shelby, 7, said, "I liked the part where it got darker and darker."
Jacobe, 6, said, "I liked the very end."
Edwin, 6, said, "I liked the sharks."
Ariana, 7, said, "I liked the dolphin jumping in the water."
Kali, 5, said, "I liked all the neat creatures."

Children’s Ratings: 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5

Best Reads Ever (to be updated regularly)

An online bookgroup invited its members to submit their 100 favorite reads list. Here's mine (100 plus a few extra):

Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
Amazing Grace by Kathleen Norris
Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Animal, Vegetable, Mineral by Barbara Kingsolver
Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
Blue Latitudes by Tony Horwitz
Book of Luminous Things edited by Czeslaw Milosz
Bowling Alone by Robert D. Putnam
Boy’s Life by Robert McCammon
Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Patterson
By the Great Horn Spoon by Sid Fleischman
Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
Candide by Voltaire
The Center of Everything by Laura Moriarty
Civility by Stephen L. Carter
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
Crispin: Cross of Lead by Avi
Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux
A Death in the Family by James Agee
The Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
The Death of Vishnu by Manil Suri
Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes
Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems
Eats, Shoots, and Leaves by Lynn Truss
Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
Everyday Sacred by Sue Bender
Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
Firegirl by Tony Abbott
Founding Brothers by Joseph J. Ellis
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
The Giver by Lois Lowry
The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse
The Gold Bug Variations by Richard Powers
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Good Poems edited by Garrison Keillor
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Grass Harp by Truman Capote
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Half Magic by Edgar Eager
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Happenstance by Carol Shields
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Apprentice by J. K. Rowling
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
Heaven is a Playground by Rick Telander
Henry Huggins by Beverly Cleary
A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
Holes by Louis Sachar
Homer Price by Robert McCloskey
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
A House for Mr. Biswas by V. S. Naipaul
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
How to Steal a Dog by Barbara O’Connor
The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes
I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More by Karen Beaumont
I, Claudius by Robert Graves
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
Into that Good Night by Ron Rozelle
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Independent People by Halldor Laxness
In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis
John Adams by David McCullough
Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg
A Kiss for Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik
The Last Shot by Darcy Frey
The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Lives of the Writers by Kathleen Krull
A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Pec
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
Love is a Wild Assault by Elithe Hamilton Kirkland
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
Magister Ludi by Hermann Hesse
Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
Make a World by Ed Emberly
Material World by Peter Menzel
Maus by Art Spiegelman
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
The Middleman and Other Stories by Bharati Mukherjee
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson
Mr. Putter and Tabby Walk the Dog by Cynthia Rylant
Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Wolfe
Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor
My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead edited by Jeffrey Eugenides
My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok
Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat
No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
The Odyssey by Homer
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
One Man’s Meat by E. B. White
Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse
Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norman Juster
Plan B by Anne Lamott
A Poem a Day edited by Karen McKosker
Possession by A. S. Byatt
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
Principles of Uncertainty by Maira Kalman
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
Rotten Island by William Steig
Sailing Alone Around the World by Billy Collins
Saint George and the Dragon by Margaret Hodge
Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand
The Secret History by Donna Tarte
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles
Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
Silk by Allesandro Baricco
Small Island by Andrea Levy
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park
Sounder by William Armstrong
Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
Step Ball Change by Jeanne Ray
Strong Measures edited by Philip Dacey and David Jauss
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
Tadpole's Promise by Jeanne Willis
Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Waiting by Ha Jin
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
Watership Down by Richard Adams
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevtich
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
Where I’m Calling From by Raymond Carver
Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne
The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis
Working by Studs Terkel
The World is Not Enough by Zoe Oldenbourg
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
Zen and Zen Classics by R. H. Blyth