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John Burroughs Medal
The Control of Nature
• John McPhee
NATURAL HISTORY •
1989 •
PAPER
• 272 PAGES
A bestseller in the classic McPhee tradition, this book explores our generally feeble attempts to combat all-powerful nature. Interweaving solid science, interviews and observation, he chronicles the army corps of engineers and their efforts to control the Mississippi, Icelanders and their attempts to control the flow of a volcano, and Angelinos and how they cope with the ever-present threat of seismic destruction. A national treasure, no one explains geology and geologists like McPhee. Like most of his work, these vintage essays originally appeared in the "New Yorker."
(NAT01, $16.00) |
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Cry of the Kalahari, Seven Years in Africa's Last Great Wilderness
• Mark Owens
• Delia Owens
BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR •
1985 •
PAPER
• 352 PAGES
A thoroughly readable version of Born Free, set in Botswana (and just as weepy about the animals). This is the book that got the Owens family thrown out of Botswana, in part because of their opposition to fencing the land. While their approach to conservation is controversial, there's no doubt that the Owens are dedicated to the wildlife of southern Africa -- and are very good writers.
(SAF13, $16.00) |
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The Crystal Desert
• David Campbell
NATURAL HISTORY •
2002 •
PAPER
• 308 PAGES
A splendid, prize-winning portrait of Antarctica, the land and its history and especially its marine life. Written with authority and love, Campbell's vivid essays on fossils, glaciers, history and wildlife of the Antarctic Peninsula are an excellent introduction to the area.
(ANT01, $20.95) |
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The Desert Year
• Joseph Wood Krutch
NATURAL HISTORY •
2010 •
PAPER
• 272 PAGES
Joseph Wood Krutch celebrates the austere beauty, rugged plants and many animals of American Southwest in this classic account of his first year in Arizona, winner of the 1954 John Burroughs Medal for a Distingushed Book of Natural History -- and as enchanting today. With 33 original illustrations by Rudolf Freund.
(USW652, $19.95) |
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Eating Stone, Imagination And the Loss of the Wild
• Ellen Meloy
NATURAL HISTORY •
2006 •
PAPER
• 352 PAGES
Meloy writes endearingly of her time spent studying bighorn sheep in the canyonlands of Utah.
(SWU219, $15.00) |
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Eye of the Albatross, Visions of Hope and Survival
• Carl Safina
NATURAL HISTORY •
2003 •
PAPER
• 377 PAGES
A passionate tribute and clarion call for the albatross and its watery habitat. Safina (Song of the Blue Ocean) focuses on Hawaii National Wildlife Refuge's Black-footed and Laysan albatross -- and more specifically, on a nesting Laysan albatross he names Amelia.
(BRD14, $18.99) |
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The Fragile Edge, Diving and Other Adventures in the South Pacific
• Julia Whitty
TRAVEL NARRATIVE •
2008 •
PAPER
• 304 PAGES
Whitty (A Tortoise for the Queen of Tonga) illuminates coral reefs and their inhabitants and the pleasures of diving in this memoir of underwater adventures in Rangiroa, Tuvalu and Moorea. Winner of the 2008 Kiriyama Prize and John Burroughs Medal.
(PAC173, $14.95) |
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Gathering the Desert
• Gary Paul Nabhan
NATURAL HISTORY •
1985 •
PAPER
• 209 PAGES
An ecologist with a particular interest in the origins of foodstuffs, Nabhan interweaves ethnography, biochemistry, natural history and journalism to document traditional uses of 12 Sonoran desert plants: the creosote bush, palm, mescal, sandfood, organpipe cactus, amaranth, tepary bean, chile, devil's claw, panicgrass, and wild gourds.
(USW120, $22.95) |
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Into Africa, With a New Postcript
• Craig Packer
NATURAL HISTORY •
1996 •
PAPER
• 292 PAGES
A field biologist since 1972, Packer began his work studying primates at Gombe and then the lions of the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Crater with his wife and colleague Anne Pusey. Here, he introduces us to the real world of fieldwork—initiating assistants to lion research in the Serengeti, helping a doctoral student collect data, collaborating with Jane Goodall on primate research.
(EAF77, $27.50) |
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The Island Within
• Richard Nelson
EXPLORATION •
1991 •
PAPER
• 284 PAGES
A beautifully written tribute to the Pacific Northwest. Drawn from the author's journals, this is an account of the natural and cultural history of an island in the waters of Haida Strait, focusing on geology, marine life, wildlife, habitats and Koyukon heritage. Much in the tradition of Barry Lopez, the author focuses on the relationship between people and the land.
(ALA17, $17.00) |
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The Klamath Knot
• David Rains Wallace
NATURAL HISTORY •
2003 •
PAPER
The 20th-anniversary edition of Wallace's celebrated meditation on the natural history, myth and meaning of the Klamath mountains of northern California and southern Oregon. Winner of the John Burroughs Medal for Nature Writing, the Commonwealth Club Silver Medal for Literature 1984, and named one of the twentieth century's best nonfiction books by the San Francisco Chronicle, "The Klamath Knot," originally published by Sierra Club Books in 1983, is a personal vision of wilderness in the Klamath Mountains.
(CAL251, $21.95) |
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Of Wolves and Men
• Barry Lopez
NATURAL HISTORY •
2004 •
PAPER
• 302 PAGES
An eloquent, powerful book, that is an outstanding overview of the wolf, as well as a survey of wolf mythology and its relationship to human society. First published in the 1980s, it has been reprinted with a new afterword by the author.
(BST31, $20.00) |
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A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There
• Aldo Leopold
NATURAL HISTORY •
1968 •
PAPER
• 228 PAGES
Leopold memorably opens this much-loved, essential collection of essays on land, nature and his farm in Wisconsin, first published in 1948, with the statement: "there are some who can live without wild things and some who cannot." The book has lost none of its power or beauty over the years.
(NAT02, $15.95) |
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Sand, The Never-Ending Story
• Michael Welland
NATURAL HISTORY •
2010 •
PAPER
• 343 PAGES
Deserts, dunes, tides, storms, sand in our lives -- and between our toes -- is all covered in this digressive, John Burroughs Medal-winning series of essays.
(NAT200, $19.95) |
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The Sea Around Us
• Rachel Carson
NATURAL HISTORY •
2003 •
HARD COVER
• 288 PAGES
An illustrated commemorative edition of Carson's influential, hugely popular paean to the sea and the interconnectedness of nature, featuring 130 color photographs. Carl Safina provides the forward.
(OCE05, $75.00) |
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The Singing Life of Birds, The Art and Science of Listening to Birdsong
• Donald E. Kroodsma
NATURAL HISTORY •
2007 •
PAPER
• 482 PAGES
An account of a life in the field organized around an illuminating, personal analysis of the songs of 30 North American birds (with accompanying CD). With line drawings, tables, charts and sound spectrograms. Kroodsma, professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, is especially interested in geographic variation in songs. Don Stap wrote about Don Kroodsma and his work in Birdsong.
(BRD22, $16.95) |
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The Song of the Dodo
• David Quammen
NATURAL HISTORY •
1997 •
PAPER
• 700 PAGES
This far-ranging book is part travelogue, part natural history essay and an excellent example of science reporting. Not just a book of intellectual adventure, it is a superb, detailed overview of the science of island biogeography. A talented writer and formidable researcher, Quammen is a master at explaining complex evolutionary phenomena with humor, wit and understanding. In this book, Quammen takes us from university offices to the rain forests of Brazil, the island of Komodo in Indonesia, among the lemurs in Madagascar and, perhaps most memorably, to the island of Mauritius where the dodo once roamed the forest floor. Eight years in the making, Song of the Dodo is a masterwork: forceful, clearly written and engaging.
(CON05, $22.00) |
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Water, Ice and Stone, Science and Memory on the Antarctic Lakes
• Bill Green
NATURAL HISTORY •
2008 •
PAPER
• 283 PAGES
This lyrical memoir of life and work in Antarctica is an excellent introduction to the 1,000-square-mile McMurdo Dry Valleys and modern research. Winner of the John Burroughs Medal in Nature Writing.
(ANT42, $15.95) |
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