The Greenhouse

Image by Penstones from Pixabay
Photo from the Eden project in Cornwall England

Welcome to the Greenhouse!

This is a place for us to post our reading about natural history, climate change, and the environment, whether fiction or nonfiction. To encourage us and remind us to post, I plan to do a post once a quarter with reading suggestions based around one of the four classical elements of earth, water, fire, and air.

Thanks to edwinbcn, who started this thread a couple years ago.

Please join me in posting about what you read in 2024.

Earth

Image by WikiImages from Pixabay

At the risk of falling down a rabbit hole, here are some definitions of earth

• The planet on which we live.


• The substance of the land surface: soil


• To cover the root and lower stem of a plant with heaped-up soil


• (in hunting) drive a quarry to its lair


• (in electricity) protecting against unwarranted spikes and bouts of electricity that can cause damage to life and property


• (earthing in medicine) electrically conductive contact of the human body with the surface of the Earth. See this article from the US National Library of Medicine.

Food and gardens are the first things that come to my mind. Junkyards and waste disposal. Forests, deserts, biomes, animals, geology . . . What are you interested in?

Here are some titles that I think sound intriguing.

Soil: the story of a black mother's garden, Camille T. Dungy
World in a grain of sand: the story of sand and how it transformed civilization, Vince Beiser
Paradise Falls: the true story of an environmental catastrophe, Keith O’Brien
Appleseed, Matt Bell
Queen sugar, Natalie Bazsile
Hill, Jean Giono
Ducks, Newburyport, Lucy Ellmann
Greenwood, Michael Christie
Regeneration: the rescue of a wild land, Andrew Painting
Rancher, farmer, fisherman: conservation heroes of the American heartland, Miriam Horn
The right to be cold: one woman’s fight to protect the arctic and save the planet from climate change,, Shelia Watt-Cloutier

What are you interested in?

Thanks for organizing this thread! Regeneration: The Rescue of a Wild Land sounds interesting to me. I really enjoyed reading Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm a few years ago, which sounds somewhat similar. Some books I'm considering for this year include the following: Rambunctious Garden, The Lost Rainforests of Britain, and Saving the Planet Without the Bullshit.

I recently picked up Buffalo for the Broken Heart: Restoring Life to a Black Hills Ranch by Dan O'Brien on a whim. Maybe I'll read that.

I received the book The Language of Butterflies by Wendy Williams for Christmas, and I'm reading it now.

>3 karspeak: I've heard that Wilding is good. I'm also intrigued by The last rainforests of Brittain.

Look forward to seeing what you read this year Karen.

>4 labfs39: Lisa, that sounds like a fun read. A re-wilding in a different part of the world.

>5 japaul22: Jennifer, I hope you enjoy it. I found parts of it fascinating last year.

I started Fen, Bog, Swamp by Annie Proulx a couple of months ago but it didn't allow me enough time to really think about what I was hearing so I went and bought a copy which I'm hoping to get to soon in 2024.

It's subtitled: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis.

>10 dudes22: That sounds interesting. Hope you'll share some of the highlights with us. I've had that problem with nonfiction audiobooks. Hope reading with your eyes works better on this one.

I'm currently reading Wild Fell by Lee Schofield, who is the manager of an RSPB project involving hill farming and habitat restoration in the Lake District, northern England.

My first book of the year fits this theme.

The Language of Butterflies by Wendy Williams

I had a lot of fun reading this book. I've been interested in reading this sort of nature/ecology book the past few years. This one was on the light side in terms of science, which made it easy and pleasurable to read, but I don't think I learned as much.

The author divides the book into three sections: past, present, and future. I loved the section about the past, learning about the beginnings of buttlerfly classification. I hadn't heard of Maria Sibylla Merian, a 17th century woman scientist who basically created the idea of scientific method and careful observation. She observed and notated through writing and art work every aspect of observable life for caterpillars and butterflies. I would like to read more about her.

The second and third section get a heavy focus on monarchs, one of the most studied butterflies. This info was all interesting, but I had learned most of it other places. Still, it was a nice synthesis.

Overall, this was a nice glimpse into what we currently know about butterflies - their life cycles, migration, and what we think they need to survive in the future.

>13 japaul22: I would like to read more about her.
Conveniently there's a biography: Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis by Kim Todd. I read it about a decade ago and my memory is sketchy but I wrote a review.

I finished Wild Fell: Fighting for Nature on a Lake District Hill Farm by Lee Schofield just before the new year. It's worth a read, very inspiring.

I've read a couple of bird-related books already this year - The Twelve Birds of Christmas by Stephen Moss, relating the well-known carol to twelve British birds, and incorporating information about the birds themselves, folk tales and literature featuring them, as well as looking at how they've been faring with habitat change, climate change etc. And Jennifer Ackerman's The Genius of Birds looked at the science looking at bird behaviour, development etc, considering topics like communication, navigation, social organisation etc. I'll never hear the term "bird brain" as an insult again!

>14 qebo: someone mentioned that you had read this biography on my thread and I already added it to my list! Thanks for the link to your review.

Thanks for continuing this thread. My new fulltime teaching job + postgrad course + volunteer job take so much time, that I rarely have time to comment on LT.

>17 edwinbcn: Thanks for stopping by Edwin. Drop in when/if you can.

Digressions

As they often do, the book I'm currently reading, Soil: the story of a black mother's garden by Camille Dungy, has offered up some other authors to check out, particularly the following

• Amy Irving Trespass: living at the edge of the promised land and Desert Cabal: a new season in the wilderness


• Pam Houston Deep creek: finding hope in the high country and, as editor, Women on hunting


• Kathryn Aalto Writing wild: women, poets, ramblers and maveriks who shape how we see the natural world & The natural world of Winnie the Pooh


• Ellen Meloy The last cheater's waltz, Eating stone


• Eva Saulitis Into great silence (memoir), Prayer in wind (poetry)

Anybody familiar with any of these?

>15 Jackie_K: Sounds like some great reading Jackie.

>19 markon: I have Soil: the story of a black mother's garden on the deck for next month.

I have done a couple of writing courses tutored by Kathryn Aalto, and I've read Writing Wild. It is very much an introduction to a large range of women writers who have written about the natural world - chapter-length bios of each. Actually it was one of those courses that introduced me to Camille T Dungy's poetry, one of the collections we studied was Trophic Cascade. I want to read The Natural World of Winnie the Pooh - Kathryn is a Board member of the Ashdown Forest Foundation which manages the forest, so she knows it well.

>19 markon: another beautiful list. These all appeal
>21 Jackie_K: Very interesting about Writing Wild

>22 dchaikin: Glad to add to the never ending TBR. :)

>21 Jackie_K: I've bumped up Writing wild on my list. It's cool that you got to take a writing class with Aalto.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts when you read Soil.

I've just finished a gorgeous coffee table book by Angela Harding, the printmaker who designed the cover for Raynor Winn's The Salt Path. A Year Unfolding is a seasonally-organised set of prints inspired by the landscape and nature near where she lives (in Rutland), or which she encounters further afield while sailing in her husband's boat. It was GORGEOUS.

>24 Jackie_K: Oh that looks beautiful—I really liked The Salt Path, and regretted a bit reading the ebook because I liked the cover so much (although it was a library book so I wouldn't actually have it anyway. The work reminds me a little of Mark Hearld's, which I really like.

Hmm... I just clicked through to the evil empire to look at the Harding book, and the Kindle version is inexpensive. Do you think it would be awful as an ebook, or worth a shot?

>25 lisapeet: Honestly? I am a HUGE ebook fan, and read as much as I can as ebooks (not least because of my eyesight and a weak wrist meaning holding heavy hardbacks can be quite painful), but if it's illustration or photo-heavy I always go for the paper book. For something like A Year Unfolding I would definitely hold out for a paper copy.

Books received for Christmas and so on my immediate reading list include:
Ten Birds that Changed the World by Stephen Moss
Mountains of Fire by Clive Oppenheimer
Birds and Us by Tim Birkhead
Wild Fell by Lee Schofield (set not far from here - know the area well)

I've a pretty massive pile of titles to work through, especially on the bird front. One essential book, as it's related to some volunteer work I'm doing, is Isabella Tree and Charlie Fielding's follow up to Wilding (one of the most inspiring books I've read in a while - certainly changed my life!), The Book of Wilding, although I'll be using it more as a reference book than for pure reading! Others at the top of the pile:

Restoring the Wild by Roy Dennis
Rebirding by Benedict Macdonald
The Ascent of Birds by John Riley
One Midsummer's Day by Mark Cocker
The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne by Gilbert White
The Bird Way by Jennifer Ackerman

They'll probably be replaced by others, but enough for now as a start!

>27 Willoyd: Looking forward to your reviews of all of those, especially the bird books!

>19 markon:
Wilding is excellent, one of the best I've read in years - changed the course of my life anyway! I know that part of the world quite well, so that helped I suspect.

Anybody familiar with any of these?
Yes, Kathryn Aalto's book on the Ashdown Forest - a lovely book about a place I love (although rarely get there nowadays as live in the north of the country). Recommended.

>26 Jackie_K: Yeah, that's generally my thought too. Though some visuals benefit from the ability to enlarge them—I read on an iPad, not dedicated ereader—generally images want paper in my reading too. I guess there's a reason the ebook version is only $3.99.

Also, from Literary Hub: For the Love of Plants: 11 Books on Nature and Conservation Coming Out in 2024. I have a few of these and am looking forward to them.

>30 lisapeet: Ooh, thank you for that Lithub article - I knew about a couple of them, but that's the wishlist enlarged and creaking at the seams even more!

>30 lisapeet: 11 Books on Nature and Conservation Coming Out in 2024
Ooh, thanks! Definitely a few to keep my eye on.

>29 Willoyd: Thanks for your input. I'll look forward to hearing about your reading.

In what way did wilding change your life?

>30 lisapeet: - My thanks too. I have a couple of people I give nature books to at Christmas and this will give me some new ideas.

And here are three awards I ran across on the '75ers nonfiction challenge thread this morning that will provide lists of books to read or gift:

• National Outdoor Book awards (sponsored by the National Outdoor Book Awards Foundation, Association of Outdoor Recreation and Education, and Idaho State University)


• Rachel Carson Environmental Book Award (sponsored by the Society of Environmental Journalists)


• The Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award (SONWA) (sponsored by the foundation with the same name, webpage is part of Northland College's website)

Just finished a fiction novel that had lots of ties to environment and ecology. Here's my review.

North Woods by Daniel Mason
I LOVED this book. It is a bit hard to describe, but a plot of land in Western Massachusetts anchors the stories as we learn about the lives of the people who lived there from the 1600s through the future. Each generation makes and experiences connections to the past and influences the future - sometimes through objects, sometimes through the environment, and sometimes through spiritual connections. At first, though the descriptions of the environment are beautiful, I didn't realize what a large part of the book the natural world would be. As the book progresses, that element of the story enlarges and becomes more meaningful.

I loved all the small details that connect each generation. I did a lot of rereading as I went through the book. Sometimes I'd think I remembered the reference, but wanted to go back and reread the section referred to and I'm glad I took the time to do that. The book is laid out in a manner that makes this very easy to do.

Highly recommended!

>36 japaul22: I started North Woods, had to put it down for work and book club reading and then a bunch of library holds came in, but once I'm finished with my last library book it's next. I loved the beginning, and I've been a fan of Mason's for ages.

I've just finished a lovely anthology, Nature Tales for Winter Nights, edited by Nancy Campbell (who wrote Fifty Words for Snow). Featuring authors ancient and modern, my favourite pieces were by Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, Sarah Thomas, Tim Dee, Damien Le Bas, and Marchelle Farrell.

>36 japaul22: North Woods is on my to read pile for this year.

>38 Jackie_K: This one looks tantalizing Jackie. Adding it to my stack of things I'm interested in. Might be a good winter/solstice read.

the earth is a living thing

is a black shambling bear
ruffling its wild back and tossing
mountains into the sea

is a black hawk circling
the burying ground circling the bones
picked clean and discarded

is a fish black blind in the belly of water
is a diamond blind in the black belly of coal

is a black and living thing
is a favorite child of the universe
feel her rolling her hand
in its kinky hair
feel her brushing it clean

Lucille Clifton from The book of light & as an epigraph in Wild girls by Tiya Miles which I just started reading. The book is singing.

And here's a book published last fall I'm putting on my list for someday: Crossings: how road ecology is shaping the future of our planet by Ben Goldfarb. (Also the author of Eager: the surprising, secret life of beavers and why they matter.)


I think my next read may be Wild girls: how the outdoors shaped the women who challenged a nation byTiya Miles

I've finished Soil: the story of a black mother's garden, but it will take a minute to figure out what I want to say about it.

There's a lot to like about Soil: the story of a black mother's garden, written by Camille T. Dungy. While it seems simple on the surface, it is a complex interweaving stories. It's the story of the author and her husband and daughter working to replace their sod, monocultural lawn in Colorado with a diversity of drought resistnat plants, including many that are native to the area.

It's also the story of the author's extended family, including the lynching of a great-great uncle because he had a car that was too nice and new, sending her great-great grandfather out of Louisiana except for visits to family. Her grandparent's teaching in a black school in Lynchburg, VA, where the only blacks allowed on the Randolph Macon campus were workers – cooks, cleaners, gardeners, maintenance, etc. And Camille's tenure there at, teaching at the college. Of her grandfather's brother Hugh traveling to Colorado Springs in the summers to attend what became the University of Colorado since he wasn't allowed attend college in his home state. Of her parents moving there from California, and Roy and Camille and their daughter moving there for university jobs in 2013. And it's the story of how this family, and African-Americans more generally, are treated in the past and the present, including the fear Roy and Camille felt and the harrassment of African-American students on their way to class in Colorado Springs after the 2016 Presidential elections.

And it's the story of 2020, the year Dungy was planning to spend working on her poetry via a Guggenheim fellowship, which changed completely with COVID since she had a daughter whoose schooling at home she needed to supervise, which led to her reflection on how much nature writing was about nature with no people and no families in it, and some of the women who are writing their families into their nature writing.

This won't be my favorite books of the year, but I wish I'd purchased this one to be able to look back at.

There's a lot to like about Soil: the story of a black mother's garden, written by Camille T. Dungy. While it seems simple on the surface, it is a complex interweaving stories. It's the story of the author and her husband and daughter working to replace their sod, monocultural lawn in Colorado with a diversity of drought resistant plants, including many that are native to the area.

It's also the story of the author's extended family, including the lynching of a great-great uncle because he had a car that was too nice and new, sending her great-great grandfather out of Louisiana except for visits to family. Her grandparent's teaching in a black school in Lynchburg, VA, where the only blacks allowed on the Randolph Macon campus were workers – cooks, cleaners, gardeners, maintenance, etc. And Camille's tenure there at, teaching at the college. Of her grandfather's brother Hugh traveling to Colorado Springs in the summers to attend what became the University of Colorado since he wasn't allowed attend college in his home state. Of her parents moving there from California, and Roy and Camille and their daughter moving there for university jobs in 2013. And it's the story of how this family, and African-Americans more generally, are treated in the past and the present, including the fear Roy and Camille felt and the harassment of African-American students on their way to class in Colorado Springs after the 2016 Presidential elections.

And it's the story of 2020, the year Dungy was planning to spend working on her poetry via a Guggenheim fellowship, which changed completely with COVID since she had a daughter whose schooling at home she needed to supervise, which led to her reflection on how much nature writing was about nature with no people and no families in it, and some of the women who are writing their families into their nature writing.

This won't be my favorite book of the year, but I wish I'd purchased this one to be able to look back at.

“ which led to her reflection on how much nature writing was about nature with no people and no families in it, and some of the women who are writing their families into their nature writing.”

This comment struck me. Enjoyed your review

>44 dchaikin: Thanks Dan.

Princeton University Press is having a 75% off sale. (Thanks, I think, SassyLassy). The book related to climate that I'm most tempted by is When the Sahara was green by Martin Williams (most likely M. A. J. Williams?)

According to PUP,
Winner of the ASLI Choice Award, Atmospheric Science Librarians International
Winner of the PROSE Award in Earth Science, Association of American Publishers
Winner of the Special Book Award, Gourmand World Cookbook Awards
Winner of the Award of Excellence in Plants and Environmental Change, Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries

Who am I kidding? I'm buying it.

I just finished this biography of Maria Sybilla Merian. She lived in the 17th and early 18th century and her passion was studying the life cycle of caterpillars.

Here's my review
Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis by Kim Todd

Earlier in the year I read a nonfiction book about butterflies that referenced Maria Sibylla Merian, and I immediately knew I wanted to know more detail about this 17th century woman's life. Kim Todd's biography of Merian is fantastic - delving into what is known of Merian's life and solidly placing her in context of the world and times she lived in. It's also a beautiful book that includes Merian's artwork throughout.

Merian was a German woman whose father was a printer. From early in childhood she was involved in printing and engraving, which set the stage for her forays into portraying the life cycles of the caterpillars she was obsessed with. She published 3 books with colored plates depicting the life cycle of butterflies, based on her detailed and laborious work studying the insects. As an adult, Merian was part of a Labadist movement - a religious sect that encouraged a direct connection of each person with the Bible and God and tried to remove the distractions of possessions. The Labadists had connections with a colony in Surinam in South America and at the grand age of 52, Merian decided to make a trip there with her daughter to study the insects and animals of the region. While she was there, she ran up against many problems, one being the sheer volume of insects. Also, it was dangerous to spend time in the rain forest collecting and observing. There was also the excessive heat, enslaved people in revolt, and disease to contend with. Nonetheless, she collected many specimens, created many notebooks and journals of observations and studies, and spent time with the native people learning from them what they already knew of the wildlife of the region. After two years she returned to Europe and put together another book, based on her studies in Surinam.

Merian was a trail blazer in the idea of studying insects in their own environments and following one insect through its life cycle. Her exquisite art work generally shows all stages of the insect's life. She'll draw the plant it feeds on, show the caterpillar munching away, include the pupa, larvae, and emerged butterfly as well. This was not something that others in the field were doing. In the last chapters, Todd explores why Merian's work has been discounted and overlooked and how that is beginning to change.

I really enjoyed this biography and high recommend it.

Now I'm off to check out that Princeton University Press sale!

>45 markon: Great sale, but very clunky website.

>45 markon: goodness, I’m ready to buy it now. (Sadly I probably won’t)

>46 japaul22: oh, you followed up. Sounds fantastic!

>45 markon: Thank you for that piece of enabling, well done! ;) I did restrict myself to just one book (helped by the fact that I'm in the UK so I suspect many of the titles were unavailable to non-US customers), How to be an Urban Birder.

>46 japaul22: This one is on my list, but I'm not sure when I'll get to it. Did you make any purchases on that clunky webiste?

>51 Jackie_K: You're welcome Jackie:)

>52 markon: haha, no purchases from the clunky website yet! I think the sale goes through this weekend, and if so I'll probably spend some time on it then.

I just finished Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden and although it's very early in the year I think I might have found my book of the year. I thought this was amazing. Blending nature, memoir, family and social history, poetry, the author makes links between the work she does in her garden to encourage more native plants, her family history, the history and contemporary reality of race relations in America, and environmental discovery and protection. The best book I've read in ages.

>54 Jackie_K: That sounds very intriguing. My library has it, so I'll put it on hold.

I finally finished How the World Really Works. The author Vaclav Smil is a scientist and policy analyst, particularly for energy studies. Bill Gates is a huge admirer of Smil's. I read Gates' book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster a few years ago, and I realize now that the most interesting (to me) parts of it were drawn directly from Smil's work. Smil is a science and numbers guy, and he does not see a way for the world to rapidly move away from dependence on fossil fuels for what he calls "the four pillars of modern civilization": ammonia (for fertilizer), plastics, steel, and concrete. In Smil's chapter on "Understanding the Environment," he lists the nine categories of critical biospheric boundaries: climate change, ocean acidification, depletion of stratospheric ozone, atmospheric aerosols, interference in nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, freshwater use, land use changes, biodiversity loss, and various forms of chemical pollution. But then he states that he will "focus on just a few key existential parameters...--breathing, drinking, and eating." Hmm.

Smil is highly informative on the topics that he has studied for decades, namely the energy needs for a growing (or stagnating) society. He is also good at analyzing data sets. But I was hoping for much more information and insight on various issues involved with global warming and our environment. And I was really disappointed with the way he brushed by those topics, especially biodiversity loss.

>56 karspeak: that was an interesting review. Too bad about the book

>56 karspeak: Karen, that sounds really interesting in terms of understanding his "four pillars of modern civilization" and the biospheres. Sorry it was low on insight on how to deal with various environmental issues.

>58 markon: Yes, that part was excellent.

Had an interesting experience last night when I started listening to a mystery, Missing pieces by Peter Grainger. This series is set in Norfolk, England, and the first scene in the book takes place in the Brecks, so I had to look that up.

https://www.visitnorfolk.co.uk/post/the-brecks

Turns out it was a location of flint in what we call prehistoric times. The word breck comes from Medieval English, a word used to refer to heathland that would be farmed until it wore out and then allowed to lie fallow until it was usable again. There were also large rabbit warrens, introduced by the Normans. Sandstorms were a common occurrence because this area is quite dry and the soil was worked so hard. In the 19th century rows of Scots Pines were introduced to provide windbreaks. Post World War I land was acquired by the forestry commission and various conifers were planted as a wood reserve, creating the Thetford forest. This improved the soil and provided habitat for a variety of life, including woodlarks, nightjars and Stone curlews.

I'm not sure I would have looked this up if it wasn't for this thread. It's inspiring me to pay attention to setting.

>60 markon: What are the perfectly round ponds? Or maybe why?

I was wondering that too, Lisa, the round pond.

Ardene - fascinating history

Dan & Lisa - The round ponds are pingo ponds (or kettle lakes), formed at the end of the last ice age. According to this site, As the glaciers retreated they left hard lenses of ice pressed into the ground, with soil over the top of them. When things warmed up it caused the lenses to melt forming a depression filled with water - a pingo pond.

>63 markon: couldn’t help myself and googled

https://jemimapett.com/blog/2015/04/13/kettle-holes-and-pingo-ponds/

>63 markon: Fascinating. Thanks!

Edited to add: Sorry, premature enter. I meant to add that I was amazed at how perfectly round they are.

>60 markon: >63 markon: Fascinating!

I want to thank Tiya Miles for her book Wild Girls: how the outdoors shaped the women who challenged a nation, a short (128 pages) introduction to a combination of African American, Native American and European women of the 1800s in what has become the United States of America. According to Miles these women used their experiences in nature as well as their communities both to challenge & organize these communities. I'm not sure that academia would call Mile's book a strong thesis, but I enjoyed reading about these women and their experiences. A few of them I had heard of; many I had not.

For me, the most intriguing section was “Game Changers” (Chapter 3) which focused on the development of federal boarding schools for Native American children (prefigured, according to the author, by Sacajewea's travels with the Lewis & Clark expedition.)

The conclusion, “Blue Moons” focusses on a few women in the twentieth century: Grace Lee Boggs (Chinese American, memoir Living for Change) who became an advocate of urban farming & cooperative community in Detroit; Delores Huerta, Mexican American labor activist; and Octavia Butler, African American speculative fiction writer. I think I may be due a reread of her Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents.

I already had The lost journals of Sacajewea by Debra Magpie Earling lined up for reading this month. I purchased a copy of Lemon Swamp and other places by Mamie Garvin Fields and her grandaughters on my trip to South Carolina early this month. And now I'm intrigued by Miles revised and reissued novel, The Cherokee rose set on the Vann plantation in Georgia, which arose out of her researched nonfiction publication The house on diamond hill. (I have not read Miles National Book Award winning nonfction, All that she carried. Have any of you?

>67 markon: No but I have a copy on my read-sooner-rather-than-later shelf.

Water treatment plant by u_nnjglrk13q from pixabay.com


Beach by by u_nnjglrk13q from pixabay.com

For our second quarter, I’m suggesting a focus on water.

Noun

• a colorless, transparent, odorless liquid that forms the seas, lakes, rivers, and rain and is the basis of the fluids of living organism.


• a stretch or area of water, such as a river, sea, or lake.

Verb

• Pour or sprinkle water over (a plant or an area) in order to encourage plant growth.


• (of the eyes) become full of moisture or tears.

Some suggested reading in this area:

• Thrust by Lidia Yuknavitch


• The adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain


• Eager: the surprising secret life of beavers by Ben Goldfarb


• The death and life of the great lakes by Dan Eagan


• Mudlark: in search of London’s past along the River Thames by Lara Maiklem (first published in Englad as Mudlarking: lost and found on the River Thames)


• Fathom: the world in the whale by Rebecca Giggs


• The sea around us by Rachel Carson


• Sharks in the time of saviors by Kawai Strong Washburn


• The covenant of water by Abraham Verghese


• The waters by Bonnie Jo Campbell

Of course, we want to hear about anything you read where the natural world is featured, whether it’s fiction, nonfiction, or poetry.


Image by ThuyHaBich from pixabay.com

Edited to get photos and links to connect properly.

I've been reading about the Chinese famine of 1958-1962 in both Hungry Ghosts and now Mao's Great Famine. I had no idea the impact agricultural policies at the time had on the environment for decades to come. The water projects such as the Three Gate Gorge Dam and the Ming Tombs Reservoir highlight how difficult and expensive (especially in terms of human capital) these projects were, how utterly useless (both were abandoned after a few years), and how devastating environmentally. But tens of thousands of these dam and irrigation projects were undertaken and most were utter failures and often resulted in loss of life when they failed, as well as environmental issues, like salination. Policies such as deep ploughing and crop changes effected the fertility of the soil for decades. Deforestation to fuel backyard smelters, destruction of pastureland on the steppes, the list goes on and on.

Water (or bathwater, to be exact) is the subject of Eric Talmadge's book about bathing culture in Japan. A lot of the water used for hot spring resorts in Japan (and, for that matter, in countries like Iceland) is geothermally heated. It makes total sense given that the land sits atop several active fault lines that form part of the Pacific Ring of Fire. To introduce the Japanese bath, Talmadge addresses geology, mythology, as well as balneology (or the study of the therapeutic effects of bathwater).

I am currently reading Moby Dick, but I haven't yet set sails. It’s a slow but surprisingly enjoyable read. After that I have Ahab’s Rolling Sea: A natural History of Moby Dick lined up on my reader.

>70 labfs39: I'm currently slowly making my way through Mao's War against Nature which details a lot of these and other policies.

>72 FlorenceArt: It's fascinating. I will look for Ahab's Rolling Sea.

>69 markon: A water book and more I see on my shelves, unread as yet, is The Sea is not Made of Water, which I see is also called Life between the Tides, the subtitle of the edition I have. This would be a good quarter to read it.

I could also finish Life and Death of the Salt Marsh, since I live on one.

All this is said as the garden is coming to life, so who knows what will be achieved?

>73 SassyLassy: I found the destruction of the steppes to be particularly heartbreaking. Settling the nomads, turning their pastures into farmland to the extent that their animals died, and making them grow wheat instead of barley. I'll look forward to your review of the Shapiro book.

>70 labfs39: Wow, Lisa! I had not thought about (and did not know about) this part of history in China.

>71 icepatton: Getting wet: adventures in the Japanese bath sounds intriguing.

>72 FlorenceArt: I'm glad to hear you're enjoying Moby Dick. And I'll look forward to hearing about Ahab's rolling sea when you get to it.

>73 SassyLassy: All this is said as the garden is coming to life, so who knows what will be achieved?
I hear you. I started conditioning 6 straw bales this year instead of the three I did last year, and hope to plant sometime around our frost-free date, April 15. I also picked up and dragged to the curb this morning 5 containers of leaves, fallen branches, honeysuckle, etc. that I don't want in the yard. And there's lots more to come.

I also found this interesting article on the best five books website: The best five books on China's environmental crisis recommended by Isabel Hilton. It contains both the title you're reading (Mao's war against nature) and one Lisa read, Hungry ghosts.

>75 markon: Thanks for the link to best books on China's environmental crisis. Interesting interview there too.

>75 markon: Thanks for this list - interesting website. I read Hungry Ghosts too, back when it was first published, as well as Wolf Totem, which I was going to mention on >76 labfs39: 's thread.

Should also note that agricultural practices on the prairies of North America led to the Dust Bowl, that still threatens to reappear today. We also have no idea of the long term farming consequences of what is being done along the Amazon these past years.

In terms of running out of water, Mexico City has actually set a date for when it believes it will run out, June 26th this year (interview on CBC radio this morning).

Do you have an area to compost all those leaves and other matter? Do you need them as mulch in winter where you live?

Straw bale planting is really interesting. I would like to experiment with it, but fear I would be providing food and lodging for all kinds of critters. Have you had any problems this way?

>77 SassyLassy: Wolf totem sounds interesting to me.

The dust bowl was definitely a consequence of plowing the prairie. I sometimes wonder if we're slowly creating a desert with our plowing and fertilizing and using up the ground water for irrigation. And don't get me started on water issues in Georgia!

I could compost my leaves, and some years I try to. But the compost pile often ends up as a pile of English ivy, so sometimes I send it to the county. They at least try to compost it, although the compost they provide (free for residents to pick up) doesn't look like any compost I've ever seen (It isn't broken down - it looks kind of like pine bark, and often has bits of plastic mixed in.)

Re straw bale gardening: the only critters I had a problem with last year was birds taking a peck out of some of the cherry tomatoes, and I still got enough for myself and to share with co-workers. One plant took up 2.5 bales! This year I'm going to add pole beans. I may be overrun, but I'll share them with friends, and perhaps blanch and freeze some.

One of Singapore's Botanic Gardens had a special Sakura (cherry blossom) event in honour of spring. Although I've read extensively about this in Japanese literature and poetry, this was my first time really experiencing it. I was completely mesmerised, but everyone around me was talking selfies rather than actually look at the flowers. Some had come equipped with tripods: took their photos and left without spending even a minute to just breathe in the scent, enjoy the colours, the blue sky. I don't want to sound like a grumpy old person, but it made me sad. Anyhow, here's some haiku on point:

The cherries’ only fault:
the crowds that gather
when they bloom
- Saigyo Hoshi

A Spring breeze is blowing
I’m bursting with laughter
— wishing for flowers
- Matsuo Basho

In this world
we walk on the roof of hell,
gazing at flowers.
- Kobayashi Issa (translated Robert Haas)

Under the cherry blossoms
strangers are not
really strangers
- Kobayashi Issa

Source and translation info here: https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/books-and-literature/cherry-bloss...

>79 rv1988: Thank you for sharing. I like the third haiku you've posted here.

>79 rv1988: I'm glad you were able to enjoy the Sakura event, even if those around you were annoying. The haiku are wonderful. Maybe I'll have my niece write some more. She enjoyed it when we did it previously (writing them is a great way to learn how to count syllables).

The Sakura sounds lovely. Thanks for sharing the haiku.