Wood Lit

“Without a plan, with only an impulse to walk,” is how Ben Shattuck set off on the first of the journeys he shares in Six Walks in the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau. At the…

Todd Davis’s poetry asks to be read aloud, in the woods or streamside. I’ve carried his books into the spitting snow of a March lambing paddock, read them perched on ash stumps…

150 Years of Fisheries Conservation and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Fisheries science is often conducted out of sight – in salt marshes and southern bayous, in the hatchery and…

Several years ago, on a wet March morning, more than a hundred robins appeared in my upper pasture, everywhere and hungry. They dashed about the sorry-looking grass, stooping, pecking,…

Our Most Useful Material and the Construction of Civilization The Stone Age, marked by our very distant ancestors’ use of stone tools, is commonly accepted as the beginning of human…

New Techniques and Master Recipes for Everything Caught in Lakes, Rivers and Streams, and at Sea If you’re into the hunting, fishing, and foraging lifestyle, chances are you’re…

A Solo Journey to Maine’s New National Monument In her memoir, Through Woods & Waters: A Solo Journey to Maine’s New National Monument, Laurie Apgar Chandler invites readers…

Citizen Science, Fungi Fanatics, and the Untapped Potential of Mushrooms Fungi have long been part of the counterculture movement, and interest is burgeoning as people learn more about the…

Immersing oneself in a place holds expansive potential. John Hanson Mitchell has spent decades exploring Beaver Brook, a stream that winds behind his home in eastern Massachusetts. With a…

Sheltering with Thoreau in the Age of Crisis From the first pages of his latest book, David Gessner shows that he gets Henry David Thoreau: He argues that Walden, Thoreau’s renowned book…

In his most recent outing, author William Bryant Logan travels far afield to rediscover the lost tradition of coppice culture – a neglected land management system that fueled human life…

Anyone who has turned to nature as a balm to an emotional wound – or to seek inspiration for how to live – will likely find relatable content in Michael Tougias’ memoir, The…

We tend to think of American conservation writing as beginning with Henry David Thoreau in the 1850s or with John Muir a generation or so later, so I was surprised to discover that Noah…

Of This River, Noah Davis’s rich debut poetry collection, centers on a series of poems featuring Short-Haired Girl, a young woman who drowns in the second poem “in the old water /…

Paint made from stones, charcoal crayons, and animal-fur paintbrushes – The Organic Artist for Kids will tell you how to create and use all of these and more. The book invites kids and…

Around my home, from April to October, phoebes perch in the open, tails pumping, fixtures in the yard. What robins are to the lawn, phoebes are to the pasture fence and apple trees: reliable,…

As an enthusiastic pedestrian, I was immediately drawn to the subtitle for Reservoir Year: A Walker’s Book of Days. I liked the premise, too: deliberately walk every day at the same…

It seems apt – or perhaps ironic – that Aldo Leopold’s classic environmental tome was reissued this year in honor of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. I finished reading A…

“More than any other living thing, trees define their surroundings,” Zach St. George writes in the opening of The Journeys of Trees: A Story About Forests, People, and the Future.…

My approach to fish is strictly epicurean. The last fish I caught was unintentional; a smallmouth bass hooked itself while I untangled a line. I’ve never gone fly-fishing. And yet, I…