Wood Lit

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…

The view – sacrosanct in many indigenous cultures – that the natural, material world is animate not inert, has long been considered as heresy by conventional Euro-American…

When we talk about trees, we often talk about the wilder among them, the rarer, the grander. And although beech trees can be wild and grand, they aren’t exactly rare. Pioneers in the…

The Untold Story of the Honey Bee in the Wild Tom Seeley is an authority on honey bees. His wonderful book Honey Bee Democracy describes how bees decide on a new home and Wisdom of the Hive is…

Have you ever found a freshwater mussel in the shallows of a New England lake or pond? They seem so secretive, pressed closed in their dark shells, their soft bodies hidden from view –…

Michael R. Canfield’s Theodore Roosevelt in the Field is not so much about Roosevelt’s conservation policies or his presidency as it is about the growth and evolution of…

When I venture into the woods – chainsaw on shoulders or skis strapped to boots – I assume that once I enter the natural world, my scattered brain will empty. I expect that worries…

Richard Power’s new novel, The Overstory, a work of fiction that prominently features trees, was released last year to a great deal of fanfare and critical acclaim. It not only made the…

Wolves, like gun control and the border wall, polarize political opinion, which is why Nate Blakeslee wrote American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West. I own eight other…

A couple of months ago I heard Thor Hanson interviewed on the radio and he said – maybe not exactly, but close – that “Keeping honey bees does little or nothing for bee…

I have an old farm field that seems to want to be a white pine nursery. If I didn’t brushhog it once a year, the trees would take over in no time. As it is, the seedlings are so dense in…

It used to be that in order to see or photograph wildlife, you’d have to be either incredibly lucky or spend hours crouched behind a blind. But now, thanks to the wide availability of…