Best Nature Writing Monographs & Collections (by a Writer)
Explore the best nature writing monographs and collections, featuring timeless classics like Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac and Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire—essential reads for nature writers and enthusiasts.
Book
Desert Solitaire
by Edward Abbey
“Rough, tough, combative . . . a passionately felt, deeply poetic book.”—Edwin Way Teale, The New York Times Book Review “This is not primarily a book about the desert,” writes Edward Abbey in his introduction. “In recording my impressions of the natural scene I have striven above all for accuracy, since I believe that there is a kind of poetry, even a kind of truth, in simple fact. But the desertis a vast world, an oceanic world, as deep in its way and complex and various as the sea. Language makes a mighty loose net with which to go fishing for simple facts, when facts are infinite. If a man knew enough he could write a whole book about the juniper tree. Not juniper trees in general but that one particular juniper tree which grows from a ledge of naked sandstone near the old entrance to Arches National Monument. What I have tried to do then is something a bit different. Since you cannot get the desert into a book any more than a fisherman can haul up the sea with his nets, I have tried to create a world of words in which the desert figures more as medium than as material. Not imitation but evocation has been the goal.”
Book
A Sand County Almanac
by Aldo Leopold
The environmental classic that redefined the way we think about the natural world—an urgent call for preservation that’s more timely than ever. “We can place this book on the shelf that holds the writings of Thoreau and John Muir.”—San Francisco Chronicle These astonishing portraits of the natural world explore the breathtaking diversity of the unspoiled American landscape—the mountains and the prairies, the deserts and the coastlines. Conjuring up one extraordinary vision after another, Aldo Leopold takes readers with him on the road and through the seasons on a fantastic tour of our priceless natural resources, explaining the destructive effects humankind has had on the land and issuing a bold challenge to protect the world we love.
