Book Roundup Wednesday: Family Eco-Activity Guides

Every Wednesday, we review a selection of new and upcoming books addressing a specific aspect of environmentalism. Today we're recommending nature-themed activity guides for parents and teachers.

Run Wild! Outdoor Games and Adventures (by Jo Schofield and Fiona Danks, $25, Frances Lincoln, June 2011): Filled with gorgeous photos of children running through woods, tracking wild animals, building rafts, or wielding fairy wands, this book is a great reminder of nature's enchanting qualities. Filled with creative ideas for parties, games, and outdoor craft projects, a quick perusal will have you itching to head outside with kids.

Recycling Projects for the Evil Genius (by Russel J. Gehrke, $25, McGraw Hill, 2010): A handy DIY guide suited for parents or industrious teens, this book offers detailed instructions for a wide variety of home-improvement and maintenance projects. The utilitarian book's intriguing title and grainy black-and-white photos make activities like making your own organic bug repellent or constructing a solar composter seem like revolutionary acts.

More Than Flight: A Conversation With Thor Hanson

We sat down with Thor Hanson, author of Feathers: the Evolution of a Natural Miracle, a first-person natural-history book filled with anecdotes (like how he went mutton-birding in Australia) and startling characters (including Frightful, the skydiving falcon), to discuss birds, showgirls, and why scientists should write. 

Q: Why feathers?

A: What’s so neat about feathers is the diversity of structure and function — and to see the ways humans have co-opted them. They’re making feathers into biodiesel and they’re making feathers into absorbent fibers you can use in baby diapers.

Q: You divide the book into four sections, "Evolution," "Flight," "Fluff," and "Fancy." What’s your favorite "fancy" feather?

A: For the moment I’m going to choose ostrich plumes. Because ostriches don’t fly, they don’t need to have an asymmetrical wing shape to wrap around the air. They were a symbol of justice to Egyptians because of the equal division of their barbs. The most valuable cargo on the Titanic when it went down were ostrich plumes.

Book Review Wednesday: Sojourns into Nature and Self

Every Wednesday, we review a selection of new and upcoming books addressing a specific aspect of environmentalism. Today we're recommending memoirs of personal and natural discovery.

Cabin: Two Brothers, A Dream, and Five Acres in Maine (by Lou Ureneck, $26, Viking, 2011): Lou Ureneck grappled with his midlife crisis in the romantic way that most only dream of: He moved to Maine and built a log cabin with his brother and nephews. Cabin is an earnest, personal account of the building process, both of literal wood and of familial bonds, from someone who'd "built an awful lot of his life out of books." His memoir will resonate with the WWOOF generation, the citybound kids who feel stagnant where they are and drawn to nature, but who maybe aren't sure what it means to "be one" with it.

River House: A Memoir (by Sarahlee Lawrence, $17, Tin House Books, 2010): If Lou Ureneck was a late adopter of the wilderness mentality, Sarahlee Lawrence has been striving frantically toward it since birth. She'd trekked across America and the far reaches of the globe at an age younger than most of us had finished college. But her exploits lead her back to her birthplace in the Oregon desert, to build a cabin with her semi-estranged father. How do wanderers come back to their roots, the book asks, and what can you learn from where you were raised? The memoir is honest, unflinching, and its words transform an idealized vision of life in nature into something gritty, challenging, and meaningful.

Book Roundup Wednesday: Single-Species Volumes

Each Wednesday, we review a selection of new and upcoming books addressing a specific aspect of environmentalism. Today, we're recommending books about a single species.

Chanterelle Dreams, Amanita Nightmares: The Love, Lore, and Mystique of Mushrooms (by Greg A. Marley, $18, Chelsea Green, 2010): The author’s defense of fungi pulls from science, cultural history, and personal experience to explore the mushroom as food, drug, and object of both lust and loathing. Marley writes with the frankness of a memoirist and the detail of a man in love, invoking the multisensual seduction of a forest glen to persuade readers to make friends with the forest’s fruit. 

Lobster (by Richard J. King, $20, Reaktion Books, 2011): Lobster takes its readers on a thoroughly researched, engagingly written tour of the anatomy of both the creature and our imaginings of it. The lobster, King explains, has existed simultaneously as the poor man’s bread and the rich man’s butter for centuries — a symbol of both hard life and decadence, as illustrated by the book’s rich offering of glossy 19th-century anatomical drawings, water-colored portraits, and photographs of seamen at work, trawling for "bugs."

Book Roundup Wednesday: Waves and the Sea

Every Wednesday, we review a selection of new and upcoming books addressing a specific aspect of environmentalism. Today we're recommending books about waves and the sea.

The Sea (by Philip Plisson, $60, Abrams, 2010): Renowned French photographer Philip Plisson brings the ocean to us in immersive, atmospheric portraits. From headless tuna lined up for processing to an oil rig pummeled by a storm to the barely lit face of a captain at dusk, Plisson’s shots aren't just of the pristine deep, but of our relationship to it. The images are shot from a human’s perspective, from a bird’s perspective, and in the most stunning instances, from the perspective of the ocean itself. The only thing better would be to close the book and get out onto the sea.

The Wave (by Susan Casey, $28, Anchor Books, 2010): At the outset, Casey makes an good point: We know more about subatomic particles than we do about rogue waves. There the story begins, of scientists' fierce curiosity, surfers' courageous (foolhardy?) attempts to take on 100-footers, and Casey's own drive to understand these elusive giants. Through vivid, visceral, and enthralling prose, the reader is pulled into the book's undertow, learning as much about the science and history of massive freak waves as they do about the people drawn to them. The undertone of this fantastic book is one of awe, infused with the knowledge that as Earth warms, waves will get bigger.

Book Roundup Wednesday: Green Lessons for Kids

Every Wednesday, we review a selection of new and upcoming books addressing a specific aspect of environmentalism. This week, we're recommending books that promote eco-mindedness for children.

Children Make Terrible Pets (by Peter Brown, $17, Little, Brown, and Co., 2010): It's only natural that children who love spending time outdoors may want to take home a souvenir rock or plant or even "adopt" a wild animal. Brown's charming, accessible tale cleverly addresses that inclination: Lucy, a young bear, finds a human boy in the forest and decides to take him home. After the boy ruins her furniture and misbehaves at her tea party, the bear realizes that children make terrible pets. This delightful book is a great way to teach kids that wildlife is best left in the wild (and little boys best left with their human families).

Sheila Says We're Weird (by Ruth Ann Smalley, $17, Tilbury House, 2011): Living green may be tough for children whose peers aren't schooled in eco-responsibility. The protagonists of this colorful book hang their clothes out to dry, eschew air conditioning, compost with worms, and buy food from the local farmers' market. Their neighbor, Sheila, isn't impressed. "That's weird," she says. The young skeptic is won over in the end, however, making for a book that helps children understand that as the Sheilas of the world learn more about green living, acceptance will grow.

Book Roundup Wednesday: National Parks Photography

Every Wednesday, we review a selection of new and upcoming books addressing a specific aspect of environmentalism. This week, we're recommending books featuring photography from national parks. Can't get enough? Find more books about the national parks from our past reviews.

Ansel Adams in the National Parks (by Ansel Adams, $40, Little Brown and Company, Oct. 2010): Whether it’s a photograph of the Old Faithful in Wyoming or one of Mount McKinley in Alaska, Ansel Adams’s black and white photography is consistently iconic. As the most comprehensive book showcasing Adams’s talent for preserving nature through a lens, Ansel Adams in the National Parks includes many rare and never-before-seen images. To appease even the most fanatical of Adams fans, it features commentary from experts regarding Adams's various photo techniques as well as a variety of quotations from the famed photographer himself.

The National Parks: America’s Best Idea (by Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns, $33, Alfred A. Knopf, Sept. 2009): Those who enjoyed Ken Burns’s six-episode PBS series highlighting some of nature’s most beloved spots will want to get their hands on this companion book. Not only does it contain 440 color and black-and-white illustrations (free removable full-color map included), but it features a comprehensive history of America’s parks as well as exclusive interviews with the many people moved by them. Some might even say that this is a more immersive way to experience America's best idea than turning on the television.

Book Roundup Wednesday: Micro-Farming

Every Wednesday, we review a selection of new and upcoming books addressing a specific aspect of environmentalism. This week, we're recommending books about living off the land, when your backyard is all the land you've got.

Your Farm in the City (by Lisa Taylor, $13, Black Dog & Leventhal, Feb. 2011): Forget about 40 acres and a big red barn. If you come home to a miniscule Manhattan apartment whose most significant outdoor space is the fire escape, you can still compost, grow vegetables, and keep bees (in keeping with local zoning codes, of course). This book is hefty and looks good on a coffee table, but the lightweight cover and practical, attractive layout clue you in that this a book to be carried outdoors with spade and hoe. Follow its simple steps for designing a garden space, learn to harvest eggplants, and weigh the pros and cons of keeping goats. This book is for you if you've ever thought about starting a backyard farm but were too scared to ask the novice questions.

Urban Agriculture: Ideas and Designs for the New Food Revolution (by David Tracey, $15, New Society Publishers, Apr. 2011): Here's another crash course in backyard farming (sans goats) that takes you step-by-step from your barren plot of dirt to an agricultural Eden. Along the way, you pick up tidbits about why urban farming is the way of the future and how it can help save the planet. Unfortunately, the book's activist message somewhat kills its design, so that it's more a volume to sit down and read than one to prop open while you work the soil. Most pages are blocks of text, which makes finding basic guidelines for certain projects a bit cumbersome.

Green Your Mom: The Crafty Lady

Mother’s Day is Sunday (May 8), so this week’s tips suggest ways for you to help your mom be greener, no matter what type of lady she is. You might get a gift idea or two too.  

Tip #3: Green Her Crafts

If Mom's a DIY fiend who's always hunched over her next creative project, equip her with sustainable supplies, safe paints, a book or two about eco-crafts, a lesson (if she needs one) about how to use Craigslist and Freecycle, and maybe some Earth-friendly fibers. If she's more of a fix-it gal, consider getting her Energy Star-qualified power tools. Or just up her inspiration level by promising to take her to a green-minded festival like the delightful Renegade Craft Fair.

Tell us: What are the best green gifts for artists?

Virtual Book Club Brings Nature Lovers Together

There's no need to hop in the car to attend the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's new nature-themed book club, America's Wild Read. The online-only group lets bibliophiles around the world participate, and the virtual club's first book is acclaimed biologist E. O. Wilson's novel Anthill. For readers who don't want to commit to an entire tome, the discussion will also include two essays: "Thinking Like a Mountain" by Aldo Leopold and "Once and Future Land Ethic" by Curt Meine. Discussions begin online on May 1, and the virtural book chat starts May 15.

--Della Watson

Craving more eco-reads? Check out the Green Life's Book Roundup Wednesdays.