Here are 100 books that The Organic Machine fans have personally recommended if you like
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The natural world has been my solace and passion for my entire life. I also suffer from an insatiable curiosity as to how it came to be. While I am fascinated by natural history, my deficient math and analytical skills precluded a career in science, and so I turned to environmental history to explore how humans and nature have interacted over time.
While I’ve always known about John Muir, this book explores how he was a product of his evangelical Christian upbringing, and while Muir rejected much of that, he channeled his religious fervor into protecting nature. This is something that I never really thought about—how our background culture can have such a profound influence.
Donald Worster's A Passion for Nature is the most complete account of the great conservationist and founder of the Sierra Club ever written. It is the first to be based on Muir's full private correspondence and to meet modern scholarly standards, yet it is also full of rich detail and personal anecdote, uncovering the complex inner life behind the legend of the solitary mountain man. It traces Muir from his boyhood in Scotland and frontier Wisconsin to his adult life in California right after the Civil War up to his death on the eve of World War I. It explores…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
I grew up in rural Virginia on farms and in the forests where we used fire as a tool, and I loved it. In college, I become a wildland firefighter and squad boss for the US Forest Service, as well as “studying” the topic to augment my practical experience. This followed me into my current academic career that now includes research and teaching in several areas of wildland fire science and management: fire history and ecology, fuels management, ecological restoration, prescribed fire, and post-fire recovery and land management. My career now spans the timeline and societal change covered in several of these books, and I yearn to see a transition.
I found this book amazing in how it blends the story of a singular (historic) fire conflagration in 1910 with the formulation of land management practices and wildfire suppression policies that, in many ways, remain at the heart of the US Forest Service mission today.
I enjoyed this historian’s interweaving of those tales, including his take on the personal relationship between Gifford Pinchot, a wealthy conservationist and father of forestry in the United States, and President Teddy Roosevelt. I use the book as an assignment in one of my classes since it has plenty of narrative and action to keep college-level readers engaged while providing perspective on forest management and wildfire policy.
On the afternoon of August 20, 1910, a battering ram of wind moved through the drought-stricken national forests of Washington, Idaho, and Montana, whipping the hundreds of small blazes burning across the forest floor into a roaring inferno. Forest rangers had assembled nearly ten thousand men - college boys, day workers, immigrants from mining camps - to fight the fire. But no living person had seen anything like those flames, and neither the rangers nor anyone else knew how to subdue them. Egan narrates the struggles of the overmatched rangers against the implacable fire with unstoppable dramatic force. Equally dramatic…
The natural world has been my solace and passion for my entire life. I also suffer from an insatiable curiosity as to how it came to be. While I am fascinated by natural history, my deficient math and analytical skills precluded a career in science, and so I turned to environmental history to explore how humans and nature have interacted over time.
I love the grand sweep of the history of humans in North America. It strethes all the way from the Pleistocene to the 21st century. Dan Flores provides a thought-provoking assessment of the complex relationship Americans have with wild animals and puts this into the larger framework of environmental history.
In 1908, near Folsom, New Mexico, a cowboy discovered the remains of a herd of extinct giant bison. By examining flint points embedded in the bones, archeologists later determined that a band of humans had killed and butchered the animals 12,450 years ago. This discovery vastly expanded America's known human history but also revealed the long-standing danger Homo sapiens presented to the continent's evolutionary richness.
Distinguished author Dan Flores's ambitious history chronicles the epoch in which humans and animals have coexisted in the "wild new world" of North America-a place shaped both by its own grand evolutionary forces and by…
Sine, a professor of creative writing, accompanies Sam, a neuroscientist, on a conference trip to a Hotel Castle. Sam wants to present a new device, the "monitor." Sine hopes to recover from tending to her mother who just passed away.
When they arrive, Sine is in a dream-like state. Real…
The natural world has been my solace and passion for my entire life. I also suffer from an insatiable curiosity as to how it came to be. While I am fascinated by natural history, my deficient math and analytical skills precluded a career in science, and so I turned to environmental history to explore how humans and nature have interacted over time.
This really reshaped my thinking about Wilderness. I’d always thought that the main idea of Wilderness was to preserve a pristine environment, but Paul Sutter shows that the origins of the Wilderness movement were focused on getting away from cars—that the wilderness movement was more about providing a place to escape from modernity than preserving the ecosystem.
In its infancy, the movement to protect wilderness areas in the United States was motivated less by perceived threats from industrial and agricultural activities than by concern over the impacts of automobile owners seeking recreational opportunities in wild areas. Countless commercial and government purveyors vigorously promoted the mystique of travel to breathtakingly scenic places, and roads and highways were built to facilitate such travel. By the early 1930s, New Deal public works programs brought these trends to a startling crescendo. The dilemma faced by stewards of the nation's public lands was how to protect the wild qualities of those places…
I am a journalist, the author of 10 works of popular history, and, latterly, a playwright. For nearly 25 years, I have earned a living on the strength of my own writing. I have written one full-length play that was produced at an outdoor summer theatre in July 2023, and I have written three short plays for the Port Hope, Ontario Arts Festival. I now live in Peterborough, Ontario, about 90 miles northeast of Toronto, but have had a lifelong interest in the history of western North America by dint of having grown up in southeastern Saskatchewan and having worked as a journalist in Alberta in the early 1980s.
I love doing historical research, and nothing is more exciting than examining primary sources in which you can read the words of historical figures, either written or spoken. This is one such book.
The University of Calgary scholar Barbara Belyea has produced this annotated volume of David Thompson’s daily record of his exploration of the mighty, 1,200-mile-long Columbia River, which rises in southeastern British Columbia and drains into the Pacific Ocean near present-day Astoria, Oregon.
David Thompson (1770-1857) is considered by many to have been the most important surveyor of North America. His achievements -- mapping the Saskatchewan River, the great bend of the Missouri River, the Great Lakes and the headwaters of the Mississippi as well as the Columbia watershed -- are the stuff of legend. Late in life Thompson wrote a retrospective memoir of his explorations, but the best way to understand his years in the fur trade is by reading his journals.
In her new Preface to the Bicentennial Edition of Columbia Journals, Barbara Belyea considers the fur-trade context of journals, reports,…
Much of what Deb knows about writing, nature, and life she learned in Alaska, where she also mastered the art of hauling water and cooking ptarmigan. She loves characters who tug at the heart and stories that grab you from the opening line and never let go. Deb is the co-founder of Alaska’s 49 Writers, and she has been invited to join the faculty at several writers’ conferences. After 36 years in Alaska, she now lives on Oregon’s north coast, where you’ll find her strolling the beaches and forests with her husband and boxer dog.
One of my delights upon moving to the Oregon coast was learning that the venerable yet approachable biologist and writer Robert Michael Pyle lives right across the Columbia River. Eclectic, insightful, and never stuffy or overwrought, he’s on equally firm footing delving into the mysteries of butterflies and Sasquatches. No wonder he’s the subject of the recent feature film The Dark Divide. None of his books disappoint, but this recent essay collection is especially remarkable for its depth and breadth.
Nature Matrix is a gathering of some of Robert Michael Pyle’s most significant, original, and timely expressions of a life immersed in the natural world, in all its splendor, power, and peril
Nature Matrix: New and Selected Essays contains sixteen pieces that encompass the philosophy, ethic, and aesthetic of Robert Michael Pyle. The essays range from Pyle’s experience as a young national park ranger in the Sierra Nevada to the streets of Manhattan; from the suburban jungle to the tangles of the written word; and from the phenomenon of Bigfoot to that of the Big Year—a personal exercise in extreme…
In an age of splendor, a heretic king strips Egypt bare—forcing his queen to quell rebellion and plunging his children into a conspiracy against the crown.
Salvation in the Sun follows Nefertiti as she ascends the throne beside Pharaoh Amenhotep—soon to become Akhenaten—just as he declares war on Egypt’s ancient…
I am a coastal geologist with expertise in environmental issues related to coastal geomorphology, marine pollution, and coastal management. With a Ph.D. in Sea Sciences from the Universidad de Cádiz, I have contributed to the scientific community through my research, publication of over 100 scientific articles, and serving as the Editor of two international scientific journals—Ocean & Coastal Management and the Marine Pollution Bulletin. My research focuses on understanding and managing coastal hazards, marine pollution, and the impacts of human activities on coastal and marine ecosystems. Of particular importance in terms of beach safety was my recent co-authorship of the article Integrated Strategies for the Management and Mitigation of Beach Accidents.
This book is an update of Bascom’s bestselling classic that was first published in 1963 and updated in 1979. I had the pleasure of learning about Bill Bascom by reading the papers presented at a symposium in his honor at the University of California, Berkeley, just a few years before his untimely death.
Bascom was one of few people to use a DUKW boat to surf the big breakers at the Columbia River offshore shoals where the US Coast Guard cutters are intentionally rolled over in 20-30-foot breaking waves as a training exercise for new recruits (and to weed out those of faint of heart). His buddy Kim McCoy, who is an oceanographer, sailor, and freediver, has brought this book back to life with updates regarding climatic impacts on coasts and beaches.
While surfers and sailors will immerse themselves in this book, it vividly describes the struggle for supremacy between…
The Bestselling Classic Updated for Surfers, Sailors, Oceanographers, Climate Activists, and Those Who Love the Sea
First published in 1963 and updated in 1979, this classic was an essential handbook for anyone who studies, surfs, protects, or is fascinated by the ocean. The original author, Willard Bascom, was a master of the subject and included a wealth of information, based on theory and statistics, but also anecdotal observation and personal experience. It brought to the general public understanding of the awesome and complex power of the waves.
This revision from Kim McCoy adds recent facts and anecdotes to update the…
I love historical stories that challenge the status quo. To me, patriarchy shows up when dominant members of a single group (generally white cisgender men) fiercely grab and hold onto power by erecting systemic barriers based on gender, race, and class. It silences or cuts off anyone in these marginalized groups from having agency and treats these groups as “less than.” Historical stories that overturn patriarchy inspire me.
This expertly crafted historical thriller is a masterpiece of suspense, set against the backdrop of the Hanford, Washington, nuclear power plant and its recklessly dangerous expansion during the Cold War. The plant's actions poisoned the environment and led to the illness and deaths of local residents.
The story unfolds as we witness the characters' gradual progression from suspicion to evidence gathering, culminating in their decision to expose the perpetrators. It's a classic confrontation between the faceless, disdainful arrogance of the government—waving a patriotic flag to excuse its flagrant disregard for public safety—and a few determined, unlikely allies. This book is a true page-turner!
“In a well-crafted debut, Smith-Blum provides the reader a ringside seat to the birth of the nuclear age...a beautifully written, important story...Tangles packs a punch and hits close to home.” –Robert Dugoni, New York Times bestselling author of The Tracy Crosswhite Series
Oppenheimer was just the beginning.
When a harpooned whale offers proof the Hanford Nuclear Reservation is endangering all life in the Columbia River Basin, Luke Hinson, a brash young scientist, seizes the chance to avenge his father's death but a thyroid cancer diagnosis derails Luke's research. Between treatments, he dives back in, making enemies at every turn. On…
Once upon a time, I came to the realization that I had no idea what my parents were thinking, much less anyone else. This has turned into a life of repeated musing over how much I do and don't understand about other people. More recently, my mother's death brought to light the many different ways family and friends remembered her, with joy and pain, loss and wariness. I chose this topic for the list because these books help highlight and explore the mysteriousness of family and memory and how a person can be whole and complete and sure of what they've lived through, only to turn and see a new angle never before recognized.
I love how much Mercy learns about herself. I also really admire the time and space and, above all, respect Briggs's investments in Mercy's witting and unwitting explorations of her powers and heritage. And how Mercy reacts to revelations about her mother and mostly unknown father. I, at least, admire when Mercy is allowed to get cranky and try to pick and choose what she wants to keep or discard, approve or disapprove.
All this, and it's a heck of a roller coaster ride. I rode the slow build-up, increasingly bracing myself for the first big drop, and then whoop-whoop-whoop, I whirled up and down and sideways to the end.
The sixth novel in the international No. 1 bestselling Mercy Thompson series - the major urban fantasy hit of the decade
'I love these books!' Charlaine Harris
'The best new fantasy series I've read in years' Kelley Armstrong
MERCY THOMPSON: MECHANIC, SHAPESHIFTER, FIGHTER
Car mechanic Mercy Thompson has always known there was something different about her, and not just the way she can make a VW engine sit up and beg. Mercy is a shapeshifter, a talent she inherited from her long-gone father. And she's never known any others of her kind. Until now.
Born the heir of a master woodcutter in a queendom defined by guilds and matrilineal inheritance, nonbinary Sorin can’t quite seem to find their place. At seventeen, an opportunity to attend an alchemical guild fair and secure an apprenticeship with the…
I have always been fascinated by natural history and dreamed of becoming a paleontologist—until I took my first Japanese language class in college and got “hooked” on that. Eventually, I wound up with a doctorate in Japanese history and spent 30 years teaching at a university in Tokyo. At first, most of my research was on Japanese foreign relations. But I retained a strong interest in science and the environment. After a while, I realized that I could combine that with my love of history and that the result could be relevant to contemporary environmental problems. Serendipity at work! Currently, I’m editing a second book on Japanese environmental history, this one focusing on historical climate change.
This is not just one of my favorite books on Japanese history; it is one of my favorite books, period.
Written by a team of Japanese and American historians and geologists, it solves a three-hundred-year-old mystery: What caused the tsunami that struck northeast Japan, sans earthquake, in January 1700? (Spoiler alert: The culprit was an M9 temblor along the Pacific coast of North America, which left clues in the geological record and the historical memory of Native Americans.)
The book is profusely illustrated and extremely easy to understand, even for those without a background in the geology of Cascadia or the history of Japan. I can’t recommend it highly enough; I was completely blown away.
A puzzling tsunami entered Japanese history in January 1700. Samurai, merchants, and villagers wrote of minor flooding and damage. Some noted having felt no earthquake; they wondered what had set off the waves but had no way of knowing that the tsunami was spawned during an earthquake along the coast of northwestern North America. This orphan tsunami would not be linked to its parent earthquake until the mid-twentieth century, through an extraordinary series of discoveries in both North America and Japan. The Orphan Tsunami of 1700, now in its second edition, tells this scientific detective story through its North American…
