Seven Books That Will Make You Rethink Your Relationship to Nature
Reading can be a powerful method to reconnect with the planet we all live on. I learned this after I moved away from home, which was next to a wildlife reserve. To anchor myself, I reached for nature as a grounding wire, and usually found it through books. Writers such as Rachel Carson, Lucille Clifton, Aldo Leopold, and John McPhee brought me into their narratives in urgent ways, and their work made understanding, and preserving, the environment imperative. Even when they turned to subjects such as carcinogens or atomic waste, I kept reading. I hadn’t been seeking books about climate or ecological disasters, but as in the refuge, where I ate wild raspberries next to mylar balloons wrapped around tree branches, the danger existed alongside the beauty.
The genre’s most compelling authors show us what’s at stake in vulnerable places by tethering us first to their own love and appreciation for them. Below are seven books that act as conduits between readers
