Engaging Reads about Natural History

August 9, 2021 10:47 AM

Please recommend some fun, engaging nonfiction books to help me learn more cool stuff about animals, plants, etc. Specific details under the cut.

- Books only, please. I'm not currently looking for stuff to watch or listen to.

- I am currently most interested in arthropods, mollusks, and fungi, but I am open to learning cool stuff about all kinds of organisms.

- I would prefer to avoid the kind of natural history nonfiction that is actually half a memoir. Right now, I am looking more for "here are some cool things about this organism" and less for "this is what I learned about myself via observing this organism."

Thanks!

posted by darchildre to Science & Nature (19 answers total)

I *think* Joan Maloof hits the third point probably? Nature's Temples will scratch the fungi itch at least.
posted by Press Butt.on to Check at 11:08 AM on August 9, 2021

You might enjoy The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch in Nature, in which David George Haskell visits the same spot in a old-growth forest throughout the year and writes about what he sees. The content is very interesting and his writing is absolutely scrumptious.
posted by DrGail at 11:09 AM on August 9, 2021 [2 favorites]

In my limited experience, all mushroom books are written by unhinged mycologists (possibly this phrasing is redundant). Pick up a mushroom guide, who knows what you'll learn! (Specifically, All That the Rain Promises by David Arora)

There is a book called The Amateur Naturalist by Gerald Durrell that is a gentle introduction to the supplies you may need to begin your own practice of observation and collecting. I liked it as a kid, even though the species that he described as common were not present in my local biome.

Bernd Heinrich's books about ravens and other corvids are beautiful and sensitive, and while they might edge into memoir occasionally, they are actually pretty solidly focused on his long term observations and connected to data.

Franklin Russell wrote a couple of books, The Secret Islands and Watchers at the Pond, that are about, respectively, small islands off the north Atlantic coast of Canada and a seasonal account of life around a small pond. The latter's description of the incredible proliferation of insect and small life in the spring stays with me, it is intense and overwhelming. They may be out of print.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 11:10 AM on August 9, 2021 [2 favorites]

The Secret Life of Lobsters by Trevor Corson is half lobster information (such weird amazing little animals) and half history of the lobster-fishers on a single island in Maine and the scientists making the discoveries. No memoir aspects.
posted by esoterrica at 11:21 AM on August 9, 2021

I'll pass on s recommendation I think I got from Metafilter, for Asher Treat's Mites of Moths and Butterflies.
posted by away for regrooving at 11:24 AM on August 9, 2021

Mycology textbooks are often far more engaging than your might expect a textbook to be, I like Alexopoulos, Mims, and Blackwell, but see what you can find cheap used.
posted by away for regrooving at 11:28 AM on August 9, 2021

I'm currently reading Entangled Life, which is about fungi. There are many interesting facts about fungi, and not much memoir stuff (but I'm only about halfway through.)

You may also enjoy A World On the Wing, which is about migratory birds. The author writes about going places to see birds, but it's mostly focused on bird facts.
posted by Lycaste at 11:30 AM on August 9, 2021 [1 favorite]

A friend has recently been enraptured by Entangled Life, by Merlin Sheldrake, which she loved for describing the biology of fungi with insight from diverse fields like urban planning, organizational psychology, etc., and an engaging writing style.
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 11:32 AM on August 9, 2021

A Wonderful Life by Steven Jay Gould comes to mind because it's one of the few natural history books (though it is actually palaeontology) I've read since becoming an adult. I enjoyed it very much and will be following the other answers here.
posted by bonobothegreat at 11:52 AM on August 9, 2021

Not sure if this is outside your interest... I highly recommend "The Invention Of Nature", a biography of "the visionary German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) and how he created the way we understand nature today. Though almost forgotten today, his name lingers everywhere, from the Humboldt Current, the Humboldt Glacier, the Humboldt penguin, to Humboldt County CA."
posted by TDIpod at 11:52 AM on August 9, 2021 [3 favorites]

I absolutely loved reading Animal Architecture by Karl von Frisch Especially the first few chapters on solitary bees, wasps, termites, ants, and spiders. It is utterly fascinating. Especially the descriptions of the experiments that scientists set up to, for example, test whether a wasp knows what it's doing or is acting purely on instinct. The section describing exactly how an orb spider constructs its web is just fascinating. So amazing how something I took for granted can be so complex and so clever.
posted by Zumbador at 11:55 AM on August 9, 2021

Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer is amazing. Moss isn't fungi, but they are super interesting to learn about and she's a fantastic writer/scientist (best known for Braiding Sweetgrass which is also recommended). (edited to add: maybe her writing is too much on the memoir side of what you are looking for).
posted by Pineapplicious at 12:07 PM on August 9, 2021

I would NOT shut up about Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers for several months after reading it. It was so much more enjoyable than I expected it to be.

Hidden Life of Trees is my go-to book gift for "you seem like you might like nature" types.
posted by House of Leaves of Grass at 12:11 PM on August 9, 2021 [4 favorites]

"here are some cool things about this organism" -- That is the whole point of this book: In Defense of Plants by Matt Candeias. It's a short, easy and fun read. A lot of the cool things he describes have to do with the interaction of plants with non-plants.

I know you said books only, but just a bit more about the author -- his podcast of the same name is on its 329th episode and he makes blog posts there too.
posted by bread-eater at 12:36 PM on August 9, 2021 [1 favorite]

Many of Bernd Heinrich's books would fit the bill. I recommend starting with Winter World and Summer World. Robbin C. Moran, A Natural History of Ferns, is engaging.

There are a lot of good books on arthropods—I'm currently working on a scholarly book on the history of entomology, and while my focus is on the period c. 1550-1763, I've dipped into a number of books that have a contemporary focus, including those that discuss insect-human interactions and insects in culture. (Not so much "here's what I learned about myself" as "here's how insects have become a part of our lives, and how we have seen them.") A few suggestions in that area:

Anne Sverdrup-Thygesen, Extraordinary Insects: The Fabulous, Indispensable Creatures Who Run Our World - accessible overview. Note that the hardcover was published under another title (Buzz, Sting, Bite: Why We Need Insects).

Rob Dunn, Never Home Alone – how our domestic spaces have been colonized by a range of creatures, including some that aren't found "in the wild."

Hugh Raffles, Insectopedia – essays on insects and their intersections with human culture, from plagues of locusts to beetle fighting.

Thomas Eisner, For Love of Insects - a fascinating and accessible book on chemical ecology: how insects and other creatures use chemicals for defense and communication.

Wendy Williams, The Language of Butterflies - addresses natural history, evolution, and conservation.

Mark W. Moffett, Adventures among the Ants: A Global Safari with a Cast of Trillions – accessible book on ants.

Jeffrey Lockwood, The Infested Mind: Why Humans Fear, Loathe, and Love Insects – engaging if not always persuasive.

Scott Richard Shaw, Planet of the Bugs: Evolution and the Rise of Insects - accessible overview of the subject. Grimaldi & Engels, Evolution of the Insects, is far more technical.

And if you want absolutely stunning photos of insects and other small creatures, here are a couple of books:

Piotr Nasrecki, The Smaller Majority - great macrophotography.

Microsculpture: The insect photography of Levon Biss – catalogue of an exhibition at the Oxford Natural History Museum in 2016, but you might find other examples of his work. He joins multiple photos to create ultra-high-resolution images.

And one last suggestion, the biography of an extraordinary early entomologist: Kim Todd, Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis. It's a bit romanticized but generally reliable.

I could go on, but this is enough for a good start.
posted by brianogilvie at 2:16 PM on August 9, 2021 [3 favorites]

+1 for Entangled Life. There is a bit of personal memoir but it's mainly fungus facts
posted by crocomancer at 2:39 PM on August 9, 2021

A Fanfare review I did a while back Immersion The Science and Mystery of Freshwater Mussels. A lot of on-the-ground exploration of America FW mussels and how they are early warnings of changes to our world, very robust science, highly readable, and compact for travelling with.
posted by unearthed at 3:43 PM on August 9, 2021

I would NOT shut up about Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers for several months after reading it.

I was the same about The Most Perfect Thing: Inside (and Outside) a Bird’s Egg by Tim Birkhead. Also Floating Gold: A Natural (and Unnatural) History of Ambergris by Christoper Kemp may have a bit too much personal exploration in it but it's not about the guy, he just figures as a character in it. This one is kind of lateral but Field Notes on Science & Nature by Michael Canfield about how naturalists keep field notes is interesting AND gorgeous
posted by jessamyn at 4:17 PM on August 9, 2021

E.O. Wilson and Bert Hölldobler's Journey to the Ants is the layperson's companion to their Pulitzer-winning textbook The Ants. I've read Wilson's Naturalist, which is more of a memoir, but he was especially engaging when talking about the science.

If behavior and cognition might interest you at all, I highly recommend The Bird Way: A New Look at How Birds Talk, Work, Play, Parent, and Think by Jennifer Ackerman.
posted by hydrophonic at 7:19 PM on August 9, 2021