It’s that time of year again. Santa is making his list, checking it twice, and then collapsing under the weight of my holiday reading wish list.
This year — more than most — we’re looking forward to spending the holidays immersed in a good book. It’s the best remedy for end-of-year exhaustion and a great way to ward off that particular family member you’re trying to avoid. Call it self-care through stories. Bibliotherapy, if you will.
As always, our literary inclinations lean towards nature and the outdoors. These six books — ranging from eels to owls to outdoor adventures — will make great gifts for your loved ones, or yourself. Happy reading as you ring in the new year.
Top 10 List
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The Birds That Audubon Missed: Discovery and Desire in the American Wilderness
Kenn Kaufman | Simon & Schuster
Every American birder knows about John James Audubon. Or at least they think they do. His Birds of America was the definitive guide to our country’s feathered fauna for more than a century. And yet… Audubon and other early naturalists didn’t find every bird.
Acclaimed nature writer Kenn Kaufman takes readers back to the early days of ornithology in America, as Audubon and others like him attempted to catalog the birds of this vast new continent. What did they get right? What did they miss… and why?
Kaufman provides a level account of Audubon: a man who contributed immensely to ornithology, but who also owned slaves, stole scientific discoveries, and made fraudulent claims about giant eagles in an attempt to fund his book.
Alongside the narrative, Kaufman uses his considerable skill as an artist to draw portraits of the birds that Audubon missed, including species like the snail kite or Philadelphia vireo. Birders and American history buffs alike will appreciate this new look at the name on every birder’s lips. (JEH)
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The Adventure Gap
James Edward Mills | Mountaineers Books
In 2013, James Edward Mills documented the first all-Black summit attempt on Denali, North America’s highest mountain. Mills used this expedition to probe issues around diversity in outdoor and adventure sports and how this issue is often misrepresented.
The contributions of Black people to outdoor exploration have often been ignored or erased by the outdoor industry and media; Arctic explorer Robert Peary achieved global fame after leading the first expedition to the Arctic Circle, while Black co-leader Matthew Henson received little credit and lived a life of relative obscurity. This tenth-anniversary edition of Mills’s book revisits the expedition and the progress that has been made in making outdoor recreation more welcoming – as well as the barriers that still remain.
While I’m not a mountaineer, I have read plenty of mountaineering books. While I enjoy the adventure, I am often turned off by the ego and self-absorption of the participants. That’s why this book is so refreshing. Its participants of the 2013 Denali expedition are refreshingly honest in their triumphs and setbacks. This is a book with heart: it has a great respect for the participants and the many challenges they faced on this expedition. Even when the going gets rough, their humanity and support for each other shines through. (MM)
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Slippery Beast: A True Crime Natural History, With Eels
Ellen Ruppel Shell | Abrams Press
“How is it that we can track Higgs bosons and black holes in outer space, program machines to think, cure cancer of various sorts, yet—despite our best efforts—not find a way to breed the American eel?”
Slippery Beast, by science journalist Ellen Ruppel Shell, delves into the murky world of eels. These oft-unseen creatures remain a mystery despite centuries of study. There are more than 800 species of eel across 6 continents, and yet we know almost nothing about how or where they reproduce. Which means that baby eels — a culinary delicacy in Asia — are such a hot commodity that they’re known as “white gold.”
Eels are fascinating enough in their own right, Ruppel Shell’s book really picks up steam as she unravels the billion-dollar illegal eel trade, which extends from the backwoods of Maine to aquaculture farms in China. It’s part natural history, part true crime, and buckets of slippery, slimy fun. You won’t be able to put it down. (JEH)
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Flight Lines: Across the Globe on a Journey with the Astonishing Ultramarathon Birds
Andrew Darby | Allen & Unwin
When was the last time you looked at a shorebird? Really looked? Even veteran birds, myself included, are guilty of overlooking those little brown and grey smudges on the water’s edge. Too far away, too flighty, too hard to identify. “They are the birds ‘out there’, on the edge of the tideline, not really very noticeable creatures, and yet they have such extraordinary lives,” writes Tasmanian journalist Andrew Darby.
His book, Flight Lines, follows the extraordinary journey of migratory shorebirds, as they travel from Australia to Alaska and back again. Our entry into this world is through two grey plovers, captured with projectile cannon nets on the shores of South Australia. Darby follows their journey via satellite tags, as well as pilgrimages to the bird’s stopover sites on their migration route.
But this is so much more than just a story about plovers, or even birds. Darby received a lung cancer diagnosis as he was writing, and his account of the perils of migration is interwoven with his own struggle to understand and endure his illness. “The capacity of these birds to persist is what I found astonishing, and to someone who lives a precarious life with cancer, like me, it’s a lesson,” he writes. “You know, I will come and go – these birds will roll on.” (JEH)
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Uplift
Jessica Mann | BookBaby
Many novels with animal protagonists are really allegories or human-centered tales. Jessica Mann’s takes on the ambitious task of using a novel to see the world from animal eyes. In this case, the eyes of a clan of Clark’s nutcrackers. Author Jessica Mann is up to the task, and has created a forest world rich in its details. She’s found a way to transcend the typical anthropomorphizing of animal stories.
The Clark’s nutcracker is in itself a fascinating bird, capable of memorizing the location of thousands of cached pine seeds. Author Jessica Mann, a trained naturalist, conveys that rich natural history. But she goes beyond this, showing us the world through a nutcracker’s eyes.
These birds have their own culture and ways of seeing the world. The main protagonist, a nutcracker named Columbina, must rebel and shake tradition in order to face a new threat to their existence. It’s a creative way of envisioning what it’s like to be a bird, reading like part ancient myth and part experimental fiction.
It’s a great read for a cold winter’s night, transporting you deep into the Rocky Mountains with some of its most fascinating inhabitants. (MM)
Top 10 List
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The Owl Handbook
John Shewey | Timber Press
Owling is a perfect family holiday activity, and John Shewey’s The Owl Handbook offers a complete guide to observing and understanding these interesting creatures. It’s packed with useful information, whether you’re a seasoned birder or a casual naturalist interested in learning more about the great-horned owls in your neighborhood.
The book includes detailed natural history accounts of all U.S. and Canada owls plus fun owl facts, owl myths and great information on owl conservation. I especially appreciated the section devoted to the “art of owling.” This breaks down various ways to observe owls in an ethical manner, including calling and using trail cameras.
As Shewey notes, “the easiest way to see owls is to immerse yourself as often as you can in the places where owls live and keep your eyes and ears open—regardless of whether your primary objective is to see owls.”
This book will help you know what to look for when you’re out there, and give you an even greater appreciation for these always-fascinating birds. (MM)
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