As one of our prominent nature writers, Barry Lopez travels throughout the American Southwest and Alaska to explore the great abundance and diversity of some of our nation’s most pristine settings. His writing seamlessly blends science and history in a narrative that is as beautifully crafted as it is insightful and inspiring. The essays contained within Crossing Open Ground vary greatly in theme and subject, though along with the author, the reader too can lose the sense of urgency, rekindle a sense of what people were and a sense of “our endless struggle as a species to understand time and to estimate the consequences of our acts”. The great Barry Lopez leaves the reader with a lasting sense of wonder and respect for nature. A gem of our modern thinking about the human place and natural world.
In The Secret Wisdom of Nature, natural storyteller Peter Wohlleben takes readers on a heartfelt, personal and thought-provoking exploration of the vast natural systems that make life on Earth possible. By introducing us to the latest scientific discoveries and telling his own insights from decades of observing nature, one of the world’s most renowned foresters shows us how to recapture our sense of awe so we can see the world around us with completely new eyes. This is a book we’ve needed for a long time. Don’t miss it.
The Photographer in the Garden (Aperture, $50), co-written by Jamie M. Allen and Sarah Anne McNear, explores how the art of photography adopted the theme of gardens and suggests how the photographer is a kind of gardener seeking the beauty of a perfect composition. The book explains how successful photography incorporates a love of the subject and how black-and-white images shift attention to structures, forms, and textures. The volume displays the work of myriad botanists, sculptors, artists, and photographers as diverse as Anna Atkins, the first botanist/photographer to publish a book with photographic images; Karl Blossfeldt, an artist and photographer inspired by nature and the ways in which plants grow; and Edward Steichen, who famously said that he “knew that trees and plants have roots, stems and branches [and] reach up to the light,” but had to learn “that the magician was the light itself.” This elegant and radiant book is a noteworthy gift for the art and nature lover.
