100 Books Like Leave It As It Is

I read this book on a 2-week river trip down the Colorado, which made the read all the more gripping. The Grand Canyon is awe-inspiring even if you’re only gazing into its beguiling depths from a vista point—moreso if you’re accompanying seasoned river runner Kenton Grua in his attempt to smash a speed record riding a storm-swollen, raging Colorado in a wooden dory.

The drama of Grua’s determination and daring kept me turning pages, but I also loved learning about the history of the Canyon, its great river, and its dedicated and colorful tribe of river runners. My copy is tattered from being stuffed in my dry bag, but the book’s imagery and energy don’t fade.

Since Yellowstone is within a day’s drive, I’ve visited it many times in all seasons. While it’s a fave for volcanic activity and abundant wildlife, its unnaturally straight boundaries are at odds with topography and animal needs. With stunning photography, David Quammen dives into the complexities of how everything in the national park expands into a greater interconnected ecosystem. Nothing shows it better for Yellowstone than his stories of the annual elk migrations, the return of wolves, and the intricacies of food webs. In short, no parks, including Yellowstone, are islands unto themselves, and their preservation means looking at the bigger picture. Quammen addresses the issues with skill from his decades as a science writer for National Geographic and his personal witness of living in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

Every national park bookstore has coffee table books full of stunning photos, and I certainly own my share of them—mostly gathering dust. But this book, a gift from my mom, is one of the most perused and interactive books in my collection. The pop-up art captivates all ages with attention to small details of each national park. The accompanying text seeks to educate while being inventive in its delivery. While the book doesn’t cover every national park, the biggies appear in two-page pop-up glory, including Great Smoky Mountains, Everglades, and Glacier, to name a few. Everyone who visits our house ends up perusing this book. It’s just downright fun.

Last month, descending on the tour again of Lehman Caves at Great Basin National Park, I immediately felt the terror in Blind Descent creep into my head. Then, the park naturalist turned off the lights so we could experience utter black darkness—and my own dread grew larger. Barr’s mystery-thriller digs into the real fear in the cave depths, not like controlled spookiness on a tour. A fun read, Barr’s book captures what caving is all about…and the hidden dangers. If you plan on visiting Carlsbad Caverns, where this story is set, it’s a must-read. But it’s also equally good if you plan on touring caves at Mammoth, Great Basin, Sequoia, or Wind Cave National Parks. Once you’ve read it, the story will haunt you on every underground exploration.

While there has been some controversy about the science in Simard’s book, there’s no doubt that it’s a great read that juxtaposes Simard’s personal life with her scientific life.

I was drawn to her personal story, which takes place in both government and academic spheres. I cried with her when her brother passed away, and I was proud with her when her daughter said she might want to study forestry at university.

The mix of science and memoir works well in this book, showing how the two are inextricably entwined. I was impressed by how hard Simard worked to keep her family together, particularly when she was a professor at UBC in Vancouver, and they were living in Nelson.  

European settlers brought the ancient tradition of the forest commons, in which peasants could gather firewood, hunt small game, and cut forage for livestock regardless of what aristocrat owned the land. It was a matter of survival.

I’ve heard Appalachians be accused of anti-environmentalism, but through interviews, attending meetings and protests, and deep research, Newfont shows how people of the Blue Ridge see national forests as a commons, and have fought to preserve those forests against destructive practices such as clear-cutting and oil and gas development.

This book helped me understand that the national forests are a modern commons, providing enormous benefits like clean air and water to all of society. 

I discovered Wohlleben’s book when I was writing about my own emergent relationship with trees. I was learning to think with quantum field theory and new materialism, and very conscious of the way some of my writing was sounding like I was teetering on the edge of madness.

Wohlleben offered me insights into my own relations with trees, and he enabled me to articulate not only my love of trees but the Earth’s dependence on them as they grow together in old-growth forests. At the same time, Wohlleben makes horribly clear the motivation of politicians globally to destroy old-growth forests out of their own ignorance and greed, intensified by the loggers who lie to them and hide the truth from them. 

I really like wordless books, and I find this one of the most beautiful and enjoyable in this genre. The topic of a day trip in nature is suitable for the concept of a wordless book because it conveys the silent yet powerful experience of exploring nature.

I loved the range of emotions that the book sparked in me, which are very familiar to me from my own hikes–the excitement of discovering a wild animal, the sense of wonder in front of a breathtaking view, the fear of a challenging moment like crossing a stream over a log, the satisfaction of success when conquering the fear, and the pleasure of sharing the trip with someone you love.

The illustrations are charming and full of hidden details to discover.

Reading this book was an act of both admiration and agony, admiration for the courage of the author to look where no one else was looking, to take huge physical risks, and to prevail, and agony because I longed every moment to have the ability to myself ascend the world’s tallest trees and meet the life that lives, separated forever from the ground, at their very tops.

Everything about this book is poetry of the best kind because it’s also true.

Helm is an Oxford University economist, a wildlife enthusiast, and former chair of the UK’s Natural Capital Committee. He is an outsider inside the system.

Should we put an economic value on nature? If you worry about this then you must read this book.

If you know a bit more than Helm does about wildlife, as I think I do, then he trips now and again (but never falls flat on his face) whereas if you know less about economics than Helm does (as I certainly do) it is difficult to detect whether or not he gallops sure-footedly across the terrain.

This book, though, is a very good read - I agreed with much of it and was interested by all of it.