Outdoor Living & Gardening
Get outside! Plant a garden! Explore nature! But before you go, prepare ahead with some reading on the great outdoors.
Our Green Heart
- Diana Beresford-Kroeger 
Hardcover
$35.00
Reader Reward Price: $31.50
In this inspiring culmination of Diana Beresford-Kroeger's life's work as a botanist, biochemist, biologist and poet of the global forest, she delivers a challenge to us all to dig deeper into the science of forests and the ways they will save us from climate breakdown--and then do our part to plant and protect them.
As the last child in Ireland to receive a full Druidic education, Diana Beresford-Kroeger has brought an unusual and ancient holistic attitude to the science of trees, which has led her to many fresh insights into how closely we are tied to one another and to the natural world. Her influential message is to pay rapt attention to trees, because they are the green heart of the living world. Forests are our lungs, our medicine, our oxygen and the renewal of our soil. Planting the right trees in the right places, protecting the last virgin forests and working to create new ones is our best means to ensure a future for our children and grandchildren on this burning earth.
Each of the essays gathered in Our Green Heart show us a slice of the natural world through Diana's unique lens, illuminating the way our health, individually and as a species, is tied to the health of the forest--a tie we ignore at our peril. She maps the science that still needs to be done--there is so much we don't know about the ways trees and forests work--but also, eloquently, shows us the path to survival that her own science has revealed, the "bioplan" or blueprint for the connectivity of life in nature. If we realize that even the flowerpot on our doorstep is a natural habitat, and plant it according to its bioplan, we will be aiding and abetting life rather than destroying it.
Bite
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Hardcover
$40.00
Reader Reward Price: $36.00
From three-inch fang blennies to thirty-foot prehistoric crocodiles, from gaboon vipers to Neanderthals, Bite is a fascinating journey through the natural, scientific, and cultural history of something right in front of--or in--our faces: teeth.
In Bite, zoologist Bill Schutt makes a surprising case: it is teeth that are responsible for the long-term success of vertebrates. The appearance of teeth, roughly half a billion years ago, was an adaptation that allowed animals with backbones, such as fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, dinosaurs and mammals--including us--to chow down in pretty much every conceivable environment.
And it's not just food. Tusks and fangs have played crucial roles as defensive weapons--glimpsing the upper canines of snarling dogs is all it takes to know that teeth are an efficient means of aggression. Vampire bats use their razor-sharp teeth to obtain a widespread but generally untappable resource: blood. Early humans employed their teeth as tools to soften tough fibers and animal hides. Our teeth project information and social status--the ancient Etruscans were the first to wear tooth bling, and it's doubtful that George Washington would have been elected president without the false teeth he wore.
So much of what we know about life on this planet has come from the study of fossilized teeth, which have provided information not only about evolution but also about famine, war, and disease. In his signature witty style, the author of Pump and Cannibalism shows us how our continued understanding of teeth may help us humans through current and future crises, from Alzheimer's disease to mental health issues. Bite is popular science at its best and will appeal to readers of Mary Roach, Merlin Sheldrake, and Ed Yong.
Fungal
- Ariel Gordon
Trade paperback
$22.00
Reader Reward Price: $19.80
Fungal is a wide-ranging collection from Ariel Gordon where she explores her fascination with all mushrooms, not just those you can eat. In these engaging essays she takes the reader through ditches and puddles in search of morels, through the hallways of a mushroom factory, down city sidewalks and beside riverbanks as she considers all things found and fungal. Along the way there are entertaining stories of the perils of mushroom identification, including mailed mushrooms that have liquefied, or terrifying thoughts of Canadian geese being fed hallucinogenic mushrooms, as well as a thoughtful analysis of the ways mushrooms knit our ecosystems together and the ways we knit our lives and communities together. Smart, funny and poetic, Gordon moves seamlessly from the natural world to the personal in these essays, examining the interconnectedness of all things and delighting in the rich variety of the world around her.
The Garden Against Time
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Hardcover
$36.99
Reader Reward Price: $33.29
In 2020, Olivia Laing began to restore an eighteenth-century walled garden in Suffolk, an overgrown Eden of unusual plants. The work brought to light a crucial question for our age: Who gets to live in paradise, and how can we share it while there's still time? Moving between real and imagined gardens, from Milton's Paradise Lost to John Clare's enclosure elegies, from a wartime sanctuary in Italy to a grotesque aristocratic pleasure ground funded by slavery, Laing interrogates the sometimes shocking cost of making paradise on earth. But the story of the garden doesn't always enact larger patterns of privilege and exclusion. It's also a place of rebel outposts and communal dreams. From the improbable queer utopia conjured by Derek Jarman on the beach at Dungeness to the fertile vision of a common Eden propagated by William Morris, new modes of living can and have been attempted amidst the flower beds, experiments that could prove vital in the coming era of climate change. The result is a humming, glowing tapestry, a beautiful and exacting account of the abundant pleasures and possibilities of gardens: not as a place to hide from the world but as a site of encounter and discovery, bee-loud and pollen-laden.
The Little Book of Trees
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Hardcover
$20.99
Reader Reward Price: $18.89
A charming, richly illustrated, pocket-size exploration of the world's trees
Packed with surprising facts, this delightful and gorgeously designed book will beguile any nature lover. Expertly written and beautifully illustrated throughout with color photographs and original color artwork, The Little Book of Trees is an accessible and enjoyable mini-reference about the world's trees, with examples drawn from across the globe. It fits an astonishing amount of information in a small package, covering a wide range of topics--from tree anatomy, diversity, and architecture to habitat and conservation. It also includes curious facts and a section on trees in myths, folklore, and modern culture from around the world. The result is an irresistible guide to the amazing lives of trees.
A beautifully designed pocket-size book with a foil-stamped cloth coverFeatures some 140 color illustrations and photosMakes a perfect gift
The Little Book of Spiders
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Hardcover
$20.99
Reader Reward Price: $18.89
A charming, richly illustrated, pocket-size exploration of the world's spiders
Packed with surprising facts, this delightful and gorgeously designed book will beguile any nature lover. Expertly written and beautifully illustrated throughout with color photographs and original color artwork, The Little Book of Spiders is an accessible and enjoyable mini-reference about the world's spiders, with examples drawn from across the globe. It fits an astonishing amount of information in a small package, covering a wide range of topics--from anatomy, diversity, and reproduction to habitat and conservation. It also includes curious facts and a section on spiders in myths, folklore, and modern culture from around the world. The result is an irresistible guide to the amazing lives of spiders.
A beautifully designed pocket-size book with a foil-stamped cloth coverFeatures some 140 color illustrations and photosMakes a perfect gift
The Little Book of Butterflies
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Hardcover
$20.99
Reader Reward Price: $18.89
A charming, richly illustrated, pocket-size exploration of the world's butterflies
Packed with surprising facts, this delightful and gorgeously designed book will beguile any nature lover. Expertly written and beautifully illustrated throughout with color photographs and original color artwork, The Little Book of Butterflies is an accessible and enjoyable mini-reference about the world's butterflies, with examples drawn from across the globe. It fits an astonishing amount of information in a small package, covering a wide range of topics--from anatomy, diversity, and reproduction to habitat and conservation. It also includes curious facts and a section on butterflies in myths, folklore, and modern culture from around the world. The result is an irresistible guide to the amazing lives of butterflies.
A beautifully designed pocket-size book with a foil-stamped cloth coverFeatures some 140 color illustrations and photosMakes a perfect gift
The Little Book of Beetles
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Hardcover
$20.99
Reader Reward Price: $18.89
A charming, richly illustrated, pocket-size exploration of the world's beetles
Packed with surprising facts, this delightful and gorgeously designed book will beguile any nature lover. Expertly written and beautifully illustrated throughout with color photographs and original color artwork, The Little Book of Beetles is an accessible and enjoyable mini-reference about the world's beetles, with examples drawn from across the globe. It fits an astonishing amount of information in a small package, covering a wide range of topics--from anatomy, diversity, and reproduction to habitat and conservation. It also includes curious facts and a section on beetles in myths, folklore, and modern culture from around the world. The result is an irresistible guide to the amazing lives of beetles.
A beautifully designed pocket-size book with a foil-stamped cloth coverFeatures some 140 color illustrations and photosMakes a perfect gift
Every Living Thing
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Hardcover
$42.00
Reader Reward Price: $37.80
An epic, extraordinary account of scientific rivalry and obsession in the quest to survey all of life on Earth--a competition "with continued repercussions for Western views of race. [This] vivid double biography is a passionate corrective" (The New York Times Book Review, Editors' Choice)
From the bestselling author of A Sense of the World comes this dramatic, globe-spanning and meticulously-researched story of two scientific rivals and their race to survey all life on Earth.
In the 18th century, two men dedicated their lives to the same daunting task: identifying and describing all life on Earth. Their approaches could not have been more different. Carl Linnaeus, a pious Swedish doctor with a huckster's flair, believed that life belonged in tidy, static categories. Georges-Louis de Buffon, an aristocratic polymath and keeper of France's royal garden, viewed life as a dynamic swirl of complexities. Both began believing their work to be difficult, but not impossible--how could the planet possibly hold more than a few thousand species? Stunned by life's diversity, both fell far short of their goal. But in the process they articulated starkly divergent views on nature, on humanity's role in shaping the fate of our planet and on humanity itself.
The rivalry between these two unique, driven individuals created reverberations that still echo today. Linnaeus, with the help of acolyte explorers he called "apostles" (only half of whom returned alive), gave the world such concepts as mammal, primate and homo sapiens--but he also denied species change and promulgated racist pseudo-science. Buffon coined the term reproduction, formulated early prototypes of evolution and genetics, and argued passionately against prejudice. It was a clash that, during their lifetimes, Buffon seemed to be winning. But their posthumous fates would take a very different turn.
With elegant, propulsive prose grounded in more than a decade of research, featuring appearances by Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin and Charles Darwin, bestselling author Jason Roberts tells an unforgettable true-life tale of intertwined lives and enduring legacies, tracing an arc of insight and discovery that extends across three centuries into the present day.
Medicine Wheel for the Planet
- Jennifer Grenz
Hardcover
$34.00
Reader Reward Price: $30.60
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
"This beautiful book can completely change how we approach science, using both Indigenous and Western perspectives, and how we can work collaboratively to help foster balance in nature." --Suzanne Simard, bestselling author of Finding the Mother Tree
A farm kid at heart, and a Nlaka'pamux woman of mixed ancestry, Dr. Jennifer Grenz always felt a deep connection to the land. Which is why, after nearly two decades of working as a restoration ecologist in the Pacific Northwest, she became frustrated that she and her colleagues weren't making the meaningful change needed for plant, animal and human communities to adapt to a warming climate. She began to question the central conceit of restoration ecology: that somehow, we must return the natural world to an untouched, pristine state, placing humans in a godlike role--a notion at odds with Indigenous histories of purposeful, reciprocal interaction with the environment. This disconnect sent Dr. Grenz on a journey of joining her head (Western science) and her heart (Indigenous worldview) to find a truer path toward ecological healing.
In Medicine Wheel for the Planet, building on sacred stories, field observation and personal experience, Dr. Grenz invites readers to share in the teachings of the four directions of the medicine wheel: the North, which draws upon the knowledge and wisdom of elders; the East, where we let go of colonial narratives and see with fresh eyes; the South, where we apply new-old worldviews to envision a way forward; and the West, where a relational approach to land reconciliation is realized.
Eloquent, inspiring and disruptive, Medicine Wheel for the Planet circles in on an argument that a multiplicity of worldviews are required to safeguard our Earth.
The Prairie Gardener's Go-To for Grasses
- Janet Melrose , Sheryl Normandeau
Trade paperback
$15.00
Reader Reward Price: $13.50
In the tenth book in the Guides for the Prairie Gardener series, lifelong gardeners Janet Melrose and Sheryl Normandeau take on the very prairie subject of grasses.
Was ever there a prairie-er subject than grass? Important providers of habitat and food for numerous wildlife species, grasses also serve an integral role in erosion control. For the gardener they can open up a bounty of landscaping options, from the lawn to the pond. In the tenth installment of their popular gardening guide series, lifelong gardeners Janet Melrose and Sheryl Normandeau give you the skinny on everything from sod to sedges and raking to rushes.
Following a primer on what exactly defines a grass, Sheryl and Janet take your questions on matters like clumpers vs spreaders, mulching and fertilizers, how to tackle problems like chinch bugs and fairy rings.
The pair dedicate a chapter to lawns, providing a wide selection of alternatives to the tried and true commercial lawn species and answer questions on raking, aerating, laying sod, mowing, and dealing with dogs and all the damage they seem hardwired to do.
Taking your questions on aquatic grasses, as well as edible species (like wheat, rye, and corn), and finishing up with a hall of fame of the best grasses for your every plan and purpose, the authors are sure to expand your knowledge on this truly homegrown topic!
The Prairie Gardener's Go-To for Herbs
- Janet Melrose , Sheryl Normandeau
Trade paperback
$15.00
Reader Reward Price: $13.50
In the ninth book in Guides for the Prairie Gardeners series seasoned gardeners Sheryl Normandeau and Janet Melrose take all your questions about growing and enjoying herbs.
If you've ever stood in the produce section of the grocery store trying to pick out the least wilty of those little plastic containers of herbs, you'll understand the appeal of growing your own. In the ninth installment of their prairie gardening series, seasoned (ahem) gardeners Janet Melrose and Sheryl Normandeau answer all your questions about growing these culinary, medicinal, and spiritually beneficial plants, including their potential for use in pest management and as hardy lawn replacements.
Beginning with the where (containers, raised beds, spirals, and more), the pair then provide guidance on choosing healthy plants, how to nurture herb seedlings, soil needs, watering, dealing with aggressive spreaders (hello, mint!), pest prevention, overwintering--including how not to kill that potted rosemary you brought inside for its own darn good--and lots of ideas for storing and enjoying your herbal goodies, from drying and freezing to making tasty infused oils, vinegars, and butters.
The final chapter is a roundup of herbs for all occasions and locations, including the pair's top choices for insect repellers, butterfly and hummingbird attractors, edible flowers, and ingredients for herbal tisanes.
Poor Deer
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Hardcover
$33.50
Reader Reward Price: $30.15
A wondrous, tender novel about a young girl grappling with her role in a tragic loss--and attempting to reshape the narrative of her life--from PEN/Faulkner Award nominee Claire Oshetsky
Margaret Murphy is a weaver of fantastic tales, growing up in a world where the truth is too much for one little girl to endure. Her first memory is of the day her friend Agnes died.
No one blames Margaret. Not in so many words. Her mother insists to everyone who will listen that her daughter never even left the house that day. Left alone to make sense of tragedy, Margaret wills herself to forget these unbearable memories, replacing them with imagined stories full of faith and magic--that always end happily.
Enter Poor Deer: a strange and formidable creature who winds her way uninvited into Margaret's made-up tales. Poor Deer will not rest until Margaret faces the truth about her past and atones for her role in Agnes's death.
Heartrending, hopeful, and boldly imagined, Poor Deer explores the journey toward understanding the children we once were and the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of life's most difficult moments.
The Treeline
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Trade paperback
$27.00
Reader Reward Price: $24.30
Winner of the 2023 Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism
"Original and readable." -Financial Times' Best Environmental Books of 2022
"Superb, inspiring." -Winner, National Academies of Science Schmidt Awards for Excellence in Science Communications
"Illuminating." --Silver Medalist, National Outdoor Book Awards
Longlisted for the American Library Association's 2023 Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction
Finalist, 2023 Banff Mountain Book Competition
Finalist, 2023 Dayton Literary Peace Prize
In the tradition of Elizabeth Kolbert and Barry Lopez, a powerful, poetic and deeply absorbing account of the "lung" at the top of the world.
For the last fifty years, the trees of the boreal forest have been moving north. Ben Rawlence's The Treeline takes us along this critical frontier of our warming planet from Norway to Siberia, Alaska to Greenland, Canada to Sweden to meet the scientists, residents and trees confronting huge geological changes. Only the hardest species survive at these latitudes including the ice-loving Dahurian larch of Siberia, the antiseptic Spruce that purifies our atmosphere, the Downy birch conquering Scandinavia, the healing Balsam poplar that Native Americans use as a cure-all and the noble Scots Pine that lives longer when surrounded by its family.
It is a journey of wonder and awe at the incredible creativity and resilience of these species and the mysterious workings of the forest upon which we rely for the air we breathe. Blending reportage with the latest science, The Treeline is a story of what might soon be the last forest left and what that means for the future of all life on earth.
This is a selection of our current Outdoor Living & Gardening titles. To find other titles or authors, or just to browse, please use the search box.
