nature

How to Read Nature: Awaken Your Senses to the Outdoors You’ve Never Noticed

Tristan Gooley

The short, gentle one in Gooley’s run — an introduction rather than a manual, aimed at getting the senses back open. Fifteen short exercises, most taking a few minutes: Listen for the shape of a landscape in its sounds, notice…

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Annie Dillard

Annie Dillard spent a year watching the natural world around a creek in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. What she produced is less nature writing than nature theology — a mystic’s journal of attention so fierce it borders on violence. The…

World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments

Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Short essays, one animal or plant each, illustrated by Fumi Nakamura. The axolotl’s permanent smile. The corpse flower. The peacock she loved as a girl and the classmates who made that a problem. Firefly squid, whale sharks, cactus wrens, monsoon…