Books like Stars Above, Earth Below — picked by fans

This book helped me release shame after a colleague of mine told me my work wasn’t “science.”

Here’s the truth: to create a healing platform, I needed to tap into ways of thinking that academia sees as “woo woo” and “savage.” I looked to the stars. I meditated. I did rituals and read myths.

Dr. Kimmerer, trained as a traditional botanist, realized that the Indigenous myths and stories she was told as a child contained scientific knowledge passed down for generations by her tribe.

She realized there were scientific truths her community knew for millennia that traditional scientists only discovered within the last 100 years. This is the power of Ancestral Intelligence, disregarded by the same science that ultimately created AI.

What stories, fables, and myths have taught you valuable lessons about the world?

After hearing Mary Roach describe research for this book during an NPR interview, I couldn’t wait to hear more of her bizarre, funny, sometimes unbelievable stories about animals “breaking the law.”

These are human laws, of course, that animals are heedless of and not bound by; however, human-animal conflicts are on the rise, and we must be aware of how to lessen negative interactions as we continue to move into territory where animals previously roamed freely. Humans are more often the problem in these encounters, but we can provide solutions too.

A must-read for all who love wildlife and spend time in nature!

If you’re taking a road trip through any of the fifty states, you’ll want to grab the relevant copies of the Roadside Geology series. It’s especially fun to read aloud in the car as the geology flies by your window.

We’re highlighting Oregon here because it’s by badass author, geologist, and photographer Marli Miller, but the whole series is gold. One favorite memory from our 2018 book-writing research trip: this guide helped us spot the very impressive band of ash from the Crater Lake (Mount Mazama) Eruption in a road cut on the highway south of the park. 

Lulu Miller is a woman looking to the past, and specifically to an early 20th century taxonomist, for inspiration in the face of disappointment in her own life. As someone who also looks to historical figures for inspiration, this premise always gets me.

Miller, however, gets more than she bargained for in learning about the life of this taxonomist and spends the rest of her book grappling with the good and evil that can reside within the same person, alongside her exploration of the science of time.

This book was so unique and entrancing that I couldn’t put it down. A must-read for those with an interest in science history.

A simple, yet profound idea forms the basis for geologist Keith Meldah’s first book: how did geology influence the gold rush pioneers. Weaving pioneer accounts, modern science, and field exploration, he paints a unique and compelling picture of western migration and how the vagaries of the dramatic landscape played out in both small and large ways. Although gold was what drove many of the argonauts, they soon learned that the rocky world would affect them far before they reached their hoped-for destination.

This book was sponsored by the National Trust and has the high quality that one expects of that organisation. 

It is a very readable account of the geology and geography of rivers. It has helped me to understand what I see when I look at rivers and it encourages me to go to new places to learn more. Although it was written nearly 40 years ago, it is very relevant to the present times when rivers in many countries suffer from mismanagement of the environment. 

The lovely photographs show how much there is that is worth better care.  

This book tries to answer one of those vital questions that we have asked ourselves since we were children and that, at least in my case, continues to be part of my interest as an adult: Why don't we have any real proof of the existence of other civilizations beyond Earth?

This question has its own name: the Fermi Paradox, the apparent contradiction between the high probability of extraterrestrial life and the lack of evidence for alien civilizations. I enjoyed how the author, Stephen Webb, goes over all the possible solutions to this paradox that science has been able to imagine. In the end, Webb gives his own solution (which does not match mine).

This book was first published in 2009, so you might think it would feel a bit out of date, but it still feels relevant, especially for kids who might be dreaming of space travel and a trip to the Red Planet. The digital images give a photorealistic feel for what it might actually look and feel like to stand on Mars, even as the more technical aspects of the journey are detailed. Given that travel to Mars seems to be a future possibility, this book gives children the chance to experience the journey now with every read.

Fortey is a literary, opinionated, and very engaging science writer.

One of the foundational books for my book was a geological walk across the Great Britain called The Hidden Landscape which was a revelation when I first read it (I can’t believe it’s now 30 years old!).

I’m a keen walker and know many of the landscapes he described in the book – learning about the rocks far beneath my feet, the forces that had formed them and the impact they had on the history of each region really transformed my relationship to the landscape.

For anyone looking for a global perspective, his more recent book Earth: An Intimate History is also an excellent and illuminating read.

Humor and poetry brought to the natural wonders of earth? Wow! This book has twenty-two poems such as “Recipe for Granite,” “Obituary for a Clam” and “Instructions for the Earth’s Dishwasher.” A favorite is a plea for a glacier, so sluggish and slow. “Just once, when no one is looking, peel out!” The illustrations are bright and fun and the endnotes provide extra information.