Books like One Midsummer's Day — picked by fans

I love first contact fiction. When I was a kid, my uncle once told me about seeing a UFO, a ship landing in the Varangerfjord in northern Norway. No one believed him, of course, but the way he told that story made me feel like I was right there with him.

These books pull me in because they highlight the difference between what we experience and reality. All of them left me with more questions than answers. I am a math teacher and an indie science fiction writer, and I'm still not entirely sure if that uncertainty is a good thing or a warning.

I was first a biologist, working with endangered species. Then I switched and spent fifteen years making nature documentaries with people like Greta Thunberg and David Attenborough. Then a humpback whale breached onto me when I was kayaking, this led to a life-changing adventure culminating in my becoming involved in efforts to use AI to translate the communications of whales! I wrote about this for my first book. My great passion was always reading and in becoming a writer I get to go deeper and more playfully into my favorite parts of filmmaking – following heroic and fascinating people on their adventures, reading hundreds of complicated scientific papers, and finding ways to connect these.

I was first a biologist, working with endangered species. Then I switched and spent fifteen years making nature documentaries with people like Greta Thunberg and David Attenborough. Then a humpback whale breached onto me when I was kayaking, this led to a life-changing adventure culminating in my becoming involved in efforts to use AI to translate the communications of whales! I wrote about this for my first book. My great passion was always reading and in becoming a writer I get to go deeper and more playfully into my favorite parts of filmmaking – following heroic and fascinating people on their adventures, reading hundreds of complicated scientific papers, and finding ways to connect these.

Learning to live and work sustainably is the greatest challenge of our times. In an age of global climate change, natural resource depletion, plummeting biodiversity, and “failing states” that can no longer meet their people’s basic needs, the only way we can rescue civilization and preserve the natural environment is to live sustainably. Notwithstanding common misperceptions, sustainability is not simply about preservation. Rather, sustainability requires both preservation and change. To be effective in our conservation efforts, we must become ever more creative and adaptive. Practicing sustainability entails managing the scale and speed of change so we can preserve our core values and relationships, both in nature and society.

I have been interested in natural history since my early childhood. A bit later I discovered photography and much later writing. Eventually I was lucky enough to combine the three and make a living from it. Over the past 20 years I have been working with conservation groups in Ireland, have published over 20 books, and more recently started developing and managing conservation projects. 

In Vermont’s Green Mountains, wildlife, forests, ponds, and rivers were a given. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love animals, exploring wild places, and, in my case, drawing. Inspiring eye rolls from my grandfather, when he took us fishing, I was often more interested in the Lilliputian worlds along the shorelines. That led to biology, and the rapid development Vermont experienced in the ‘60s stirred a deep concern for conservation. However, graduate school plans were sidetracked when my lab drawings unexpectedly launched me into art. Along the way, hiking, camping, canoeing, cross-country and track gave me the skills and conditioning to tackle big adventures – and here I am.

I am now considered by many as the expert on creating allergy-free and allergy-friendly gardens and landscapes. I have lectured on the subject all across the US and Canada, and also in Israel, Ireland, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia. For 30+ years now I’ve been researching the connections between urban landscaping and allergies and asthma. My articles have appeared in dozens of fine publications, including The New York Times, The London Times, The Guardian, The Los Angeles Times, Atlas Obscura, Scientific American, Der Spiegel, and The New Scientist. I have owned two nurseries and taught horticulture for twenty years. 

Nature has been a source of play, exploration, community, and solace for me since I was very young – as an adult, I find myself fascinated and alarmed by our species’ relations with the living world. Nature writing gives me a way of bringing my attention to this relationship and exploring it in a very close way. I often think of that well-worn phrase: We cannot protect what we do not love; we cannot love what we do not know. Literature, it seems to me, offers one route to better knowing and loving the world.

I grew up in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York and spent many weekends hiking, camping, and fishing with my parents. Identifying and understanding the plants and animals around me was always interesting, and this love of nature has stayed with me as an adult. I now live near Lake Michigan and am an avid hiker, birdwatcher, and an Indiana Master Naturalist. I take endless inspiration from the natural world in my illustration work and believe that co-existing with, respecting, and preserving the natural world is central not just to the integrity of our planet, but to our very humanity.

I'm a fifth-generation Arizonan, a former staff writer for the Arizona Republic, and a lifelong student of the Grand Canyon State. One of my very favorite things to do is travel the backroads of this amazing state and talk with the astonishing people who live there. Along the way, I wrote eight nonfiction books, including Island on Fire, which won the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award. My day job is at Chapman University, where I am an English professor.