Books like Fighting for the Vaquita

Even before A Civil Action became a Hollywood film, the book’s characters pulled me into the true story of a whole town and the question of how so many families there were poisoned.

I loved the book because it told a real underdog story in a totally gripping way, through a main character I didn’t expect to like. I’ve given this book to friends.

It’s a stretch to call this true crime, but I found this a compelling detective story, wrapped in geological and human mystery. It felt like true crime.

Iconic author John McPhee tags along with geologist Eldridge Moores on field research trips, searching the rocks of the disruptive San Andreas fault for clues to where geological history and human history collide. I was driving through California myself while I was reading the book, and the chapters alternated deep geological time with the march of human time—the frenzy of the Gold Rush, the Donner Party disaster. McPhee pulls these together.

The story reaches a climax with a vivid, hair-raising account of one of the great earthquakes of our time and the overwhelming power of nature.

I picked up this book for its firsthand account of a young anthropologist in California who decides to go through the rigorous training to become a wildfire fighter.

But I kept on reading because the author’s vivid storytelling showed what it felt like to test yourself to your physical limits, interspersed with the history of fire traditions and fire suppresion. The author nearly died in a wildfire while working through one of the most devastating wildfire seasons in California’s history.

For days until I finished, I really couldn’t put this book down.

I love graphic memoirs and the scope they give for visualizing life and entire movements. 

I was surprised and thrilled to pick up Craig Thompson’s book Ginseng Roots. Craig grew up in the ginseng farming area of Wisconsin. His family and others—including some I interviewed myself two decades before—give a rich picture of the ups and downs. He tells a story of connections with that tradition from boyhood, and the dreams and mishaps that inspired.

His drawings are rich, imaginative, and precise at the same time. I found this to be a gripping account of life, death, nature, and connection.

The book captures the excitement of Steinbeck's research expedition with biologist Ed Ricketts to the remote Sea of Cortez, with all its hardships, failures, and thrills of discovery.

I felt that I was onboard the vessel, feeling the rhythmic rocking of the boat, the daily oppressive heat and humidity, and the mind-numbing routine of taking myriad samples and observations. I found myself nodding along with Steinbeck's assessment that though marine exploration can be tedious, the rewards lift up the human spirit.

If you ever wondered what would happen if a great writer and a hard-drinking, great marine biologist got together for some zoologizing, exploring, and idle conversation, this is a great pair of books to find out.

Yes, Ed Ricketts is the same author of Between Pacific Tides, the greatest guide to seashore life ever written. He also invented Ricketts’ Folly, a rather nasty alcoholic drink, which was brought to life in his writing of The Log. “It was said that the commanding officer of the unit, and he a major at that, after two drinks of it, had marched smartly and with no hint of stagger right into a wall and that he made a short heroic speech as he slithered into the ground.” The book revolves around two guys lying in a small boat, talking about the ocean. 

Kelsey’s book is a graceful mix of science and personal odyssey. She hangs out with whale scientists and asks smart questions. Her subjects are as much the scientists as the whales, including Chris Clark who studies the acoustics of whales and our increasingly noisy oceans. She takes us on her personal journey to the last page where she concludes that whales “inspire me to act more generously.”

When I heard an interview on NPR with Rachel Howzell Hall, I knew she needed to be on my list. Rachel is very prolific, so the book was a tough choice. Since I tend to prefer standalones over series, I picked They All Fall Down, a novel of suspense and a delicious take on the locked room mystery—in this case a luxurious remote private island in Mexico. Each of the seven guests has a dark past they would like to hide, including the narrator, Miriam Macy. Soon, the stranded guests are being outed and dispatched. Who will be next? We’re rooting for Miriam as her tale gradually unrolls. 

I loved this one because it’s a richly poetic book that manages to be at the same time a memoir, a novel, and a wonderfully instructive guide to nature in the Northwest of the USA. 

Overwhelmed by a series of bereavements, including her best friend and chief collaborator, the author looks outward for comfort and solace. 

It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read about the idea of ‘letting go,’ which I know from personal experience, is such an integral part of surviving grief and one of the hardest to achieve. It’s also one of the best stories of finding meaning, as the author eloquently puts it, “in the natural rhythms of dying and living, winter, and spring, bones and leaves."

It is often said that history is stranger than fiction and a disastrous French invasion of Mexico in 1862 to establish a European-style monarchy certainly fits the cliché. The then-French emperor, Napoleon III, rescued the Habsburg archduke Ferdinand Maximilian from a life as a dilettante in the shadow of his older brother, Franz Joseph, emperor of Austria. Maximilian was offered a throne propped up by French bayonets across the Atlantic. The only problem was that most Mexicans supported the legitimate president, Benito Juárez. After a vicious civil war and a desperate last stand, Maximilian was captured tried and executed in 1867. 

Months earlier, his wife, Charlotte, had broken down and lost her mind pleading for Catholic support in the Vatican before the Pope. Put simply, you couldn’t make it up and, for the most part, Fernando del Paso’s brilliantly researched and readable novel doesn’t. Having written my own non-fiction account… show more.