Nature Books to Inspire You to Explore this Summer

With summer just around the corner and temperatures rising, it’s the perfect time to go explore the great outdoors. If you are looking to get inspired by nature and all that it offers, here are some nature book recommendations that are sure to do just that!

 

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

In Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer combines her experiences as a woman and as an indigenous scientist to show how nature not only offers us gifts but also teaches us lessons. From asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, sweetgrass, and other wonders from the Turtle island, Kimmerer shows us that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. With this beautiful book, she teaches us how to listen to the voices of nature so we can learn how to give gifts back to it.

 

 

Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake

Fungi might not be something that you often find yourself thinking about, but they are some of the most interesting organisms in the world. In Entangled Life, Merlin Sheldrake shows us the world through the magic of fungi, going from yeast, to psychedelics, to the “Wood Wide Web,” the underground fungi that ranges for miles making it the largest organisms on the planet.

 

 

What It’s Like to Be a Bird: From Flying to Nesting, Eating to Singing—What Birds Are Doing, and Why by David allen Sibley

Ever wondered why birds do what they do? Ever wanted to learn that from the perspective of a bird? If your answer to those questions was “yes,” then What It’s Like to Be a Bird is the books for you. In this coffee-table-sized-book (which makes it perfect for a gift, btw!) David Aleln Sibley does just that and answers the most frequently asked questions about the birds we see most often. Complemented with some beautiful artwork and research about environmental research, What It’s Like to Be a Bird is the perfect book for anyone wanting to go out birdwatching this summer.

 

 

The Language of Butterflies: How Thieves, Hoarders, Scientists, and Other Obsessives Unlocked the Secrets of the World’s Favorite Insect by Wendy Williams

Butterflies are perhaps the one insect that we all love, and in The Language of Butterflies, Wendy Williams takes us on a beautiful journey through butterflies habitats across the globe while digging deeper into the lives of these wondrous insects and the people who research them. In this thought-provoking book, Williams explores the partnership between these special creatures and humans, and why we continue to be fascinated by them.

 

 

The Bedside Book of Beasts: A Wildlife Miscellany by Graeme Gibson

The predator-prey dynamic is one that has defined animal history. In The Bedside Book of Beasts, Graeme Gibson explores this relationship, capturing the power, grace, and inventiveness predators and their natural prey. Gathering myths, fables, poetry, excerpts from nature and travel writing, journals, sacred texts, and works of fiction, Gibson paints a portrait of the natural world and legendary prey such as the Minotaur, Grendel, and the Biblical Leviathan.

 

Featured image via chicago Health Magazine