Here are 100 books that The Other Forest fans have personally recommended if you like
The Other Forest.
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I love our planet. That’s the long and short of it. I have stretched belly-down upon the earth and hugged this whole world as if it is an extension of myself, or I am an extension of it. We are one, as I think we all are, with this world that is our home. After receiving my Master's in Nature Study and Environmental Education, I taught grade school for many years, spending as much time outside with the students as I could. At the same time, I have been writing stories and loving nature, loving our world, and working on stewardship. Eco-fantasy is a genre that just seems natural to this mission.
This was one of the first books to open my mind to the possibility of a country that would put social responsibility and ecological sustainability at the forefront of its goals.
Ernest Callenbach’s story is told through the journalist reports and personal writings of William Weston, who visits Ecotopia to report on this unique country, originally the Pacific Northwest and Northern California.
I love how Weston’s skepticism turns toward understanding. He eventually embraces what Ecotopia stands for and decides to live there himself to be a conduit of connection to the world outside of Ecotopia.
I was so moved by how a fictional story could so illuminate our own fears, our own hopes, and the possibilities of our future, that my own writing turned toward eco-fantasy after reading this book.
Twenty years have passed since Northern California, Oregon, and Washington seceded from the United States to create a new nation, Ecotopia. Rumors abound of barbaric war games, tree worship, revolutionary politics, sexual extravagance. Now, this mysterious country admits its first American visitor: investigative reporter Will Weston, whose dispatches alternate between shock and admiration. But Ecotopia gradually unravels everything Weston knows to be true about government and human nature itself, forcing him to choose between two competing views of civilization.Since it was first published in 1975, Ecotopia has inspired readers throughout the world with its vision of an ecologically and socially…
The Drum Tree explores an Earth equivalent world at the cusp of ecological and economic uncertainty through the discoveries and explorations of four exceptional teens and their families.
In this book, you will meet Delan—a drummer and forest wanderer, Hali—a dancer and free spirit, and Jase—a blacksmith and martial artist.…
I love our planet. That’s the long and short of it. I have stretched belly-down upon the earth and hugged this whole world as if it is an extension of myself, or I am an extension of it. We are one, as I think we all are, with this world that is our home. After receiving my Master's in Nature Study and Environmental Education, I taught grade school for many years, spending as much time outside with the students as I could. At the same time, I have been writing stories and loving nature, loving our world, and working on stewardship. Eco-fantasy is a genre that just seems natural to this mission.
Ursula K Le Guin does not pull any punches in The Word for World is Forest, placing the peaceful nature-oriented inhabitants of the planet Athshe firmly in the grips of the callous colonists from Terra. The Athsheans find no alternative but to fight back and reclaim their world and their forests.
I was inspired by this book, which Le Guin wrote before the environmental dangers we acknowledge today became so blatantly evident. As an author, she was prophetic and brave, the kind of author I can only aspire to be.
The Athshean characters that she creates are also courageous, reclaiming their world by forcing the Terrans to retreat from the planet. I would so dearly love to feel as connected to our planet as the Athsheans do to theirs.
When the inhabitants of a peaceful world are conquered by the bloodthirsty yumens, their existence is irrevocably altered. Forced into servitude, the Athsheans find themselves at the mercy of their brutal masters.
Desperation causes the Athsheans, led by Selver, to retaliate against their captors, abandoning their strictures against violence. But in defending their lives, they have endangered the very foundations of their society. For every blow against the invaders is a blow to the humanity of the Athsheans. And once the killing starts, there is no turning back.
I love our planet. That’s the long and short of it. I have stretched belly-down upon the earth and hugged this whole world as if it is an extension of myself, or I am an extension of it. We are one, as I think we all are, with this world that is our home. After receiving my Master's in Nature Study and Environmental Education, I taught grade school for many years, spending as much time outside with the students as I could. At the same time, I have been writing stories and loving nature, loving our world, and working on stewardship. Eco-fantasy is a genre that just seems natural to this mission.
In this book by Starhawk, I picture backyard gardens, food for all, streams that wash through what used to be modern city of San Francisco, a place where meeting the needs of all the people is the responsibility of everyone.
This book has so much story to tell. It is a woman-centered book that imagines the violence of an imposing army turning on itself, a book in which the people of San Francisco stand true to themselves, even inviting opposing soldiers to join them and eat food in a nurturing environment.
I love the women in this book, especially Maya and her granddaughter Madrone. Madrone is a healer who offers to treat the opposing General. People caring for people and their environment is what I love about life.
An epic tale of freedom and slavery, love and war, and the potential futures of humankind tells of a twenty-first century California clan caught between two clashing worlds, one based on tolerance, the other on repression.
Declaration of the Four Sacred Things
The earth is a living, conscious being. In company with cultures of many different times and places, we name these things as sacred: air, fire, water, and earth.
Whether we see them as the breath, energy, blood, and body of the Mother, or as the blessed gifts of a Creator, or as symbols of the interconnected systems that…
The Drum Tree explores an Earth equivalent world at the cusp of ecological and economic uncertainty through the discoveries and explorations of four exceptional teens and their families.
In this book, you will meet Delan—a drummer and forest wanderer, Hali—a dancer and free spirit, and Jase—a blacksmith and martial artist.…
I love our planet. That’s the long and short of it. I have stretched belly-down upon the earth and hugged this whole world as if it is an extension of myself, or I am an extension of it. We are one, as I think we all are, with this world that is our home. After receiving my Master's in Nature Study and Environmental Education, I taught grade school for many years, spending as much time outside with the students as I could. At the same time, I have been writing stories and loving nature, loving our world, and working on stewardship. Eco-fantasy is a genre that just seems natural to this mission.
In this book, I am again inspired by the conflict of colonist off-worlders with the native species who are incomprehensible to humans.
I am always amazed by Orson Scott Card’s imagination. In this book, not only are the forests integral to the native ecology of the planet, they are also completely interconnected with the life cycle of the plants and intelligent indigenous species. I did not see that one coming!
To me, this book speaks to the core of life, in all of its raw and tragic beauty.
'There aren't too many recent sf novels we can confidently call truly moral works, but Speaker for the Dead is one. It's a completely gripping story.' - The Toronto Star
'Achieves and delivers more than almost anything else within the science fiction genre, Ender's Game is a contemporary classic' - New York Times on Ender's Game
A FALLEN HERO - HAUNTED BY HIS PAST, BUT CAN HE CHANGE THE FUTURE?
Ender Wiggin was once considered a great military leader, a saviour for mankind. But now history judges his destruction of an alien race as monstrous rather than heroic.
I come from a family of some of the earliest big-game hunters turned conservationists of India and grew up treading jungles with my naturalist father. As a child, I was often found trying to catch a snake or spin a yarn or reading from the collection of wildlife and natural history books at home. Jungles were as much a part of growing up as was going to school, and I learnt precious life lessons from them. To pursue the cause of conservation, I’ve written several fiction and non-fiction books, as well as articles in national dailies/magazines on wildlife and nature, and I was appointed the Honorary Wildlife Warden of Udaipur, India.
Another book (1958 edition) from my father’s fascinating library.
When I began penning my first book, I wanted to be as true as I could to a rainforest and bring forth the actual characteristics and legends of the jungles. On the Track of… gave me ideas for unusual creatures, instead of the normal elves and dwarves and fairies of fantasies. I came to know about the less-known local legends, ‘hidden’ animals, and strange creatures from the remote wild corners of our planet, be it tatzulwurms or Kongamato, the last flying dragon.
The author has combined zoology and cultural anthropology in a captivating account.
Ever since my parents gave me a copy of Dorothy Aldis’ The Secret Place and Other Poems, I have enjoyed a lifelong love of poetry. Now, as a traditionally-published children’s author, I have had numerous books and poems published over the years, including books that began as poems, like Flashlight Night (Astra Young Readers, 2017) and Once Upon Another Time (Beaming Books, 2021). My poems can be found in various anthologies including The National Geographic Book of Nature Poetry (National Geographic Children's Books, 2015).
Amy has a way of making every poem feel personal, not just in the way the reader connects with the words, but in the way the subjects are presented. The poems are intimate, friendly, surprising, and comforting, whether they are written from a third-person perspective or from the point of view of the animals themselves. Beautiful to read, and beautiful to look at, readers will never look at the forest the same way again.
A spider is a “never-tangling dangling spinner / knitting angles, trapping dinner.” A tree frog proposes, “Marry me. Please marry me… / Pick me now. / Make me your choice. / I’m one great frog / with one strong voice.” VanDerwater lets the denizens of the forest speak for themselves in twenty-six lighthearted, easy-to-read poems. As she observes, “Silence in Forest / never lasts long. / Melody / is everywhere / mixing in / with piney air. / Forest has a song.” The graceful, appealing watercolor illustrations perfectly suit these charming poems that invite young readers into the woodland world…
My love since childhood for the natural world made me use my art to speak for those who don't have a voice to fight back: the animals who are losing their habitat daily, the old-growth forests getting cut down, and the waters that are polluted mindlessly. When my partner and I adopted our puppy, Reynard, we were so obsessed with him that we decided to write and illustrate a book about his adventures, and naturally, it ended up also touching on different environmental topics. Our art endeavors also inspired us to begin a movement to stop a toxic sulfide mine from being built next to Lake Superior and the Porcupine Mountains in Michigan.
This almost dialogue-free graphic novel brought me closer to Nature, giving me an opportunity to stop and listen, to admire, and to be more present.
The beauty and intricacy of the illustrations reminded me of why I enjoy being in the woods so much – the unexpected animal encounters, the surprising small changes in the plants around me, the different speed of life.
To expand our compassion (and our own world), we have to recognize that there are more than Human characters and stories that need to be heard.
Poppy's mother hasn't been the same since Gran passed away. She stays inside and watches TV, unable to leave the couch. So maybe that's why Poppy has started spending more time outside, taking her dog Pepper for walks around the neighborhood. When Pepper leads Poppy through a hole in the fence, she finds a forgotten forest that's been there all along, as well as a new friend named Rob.
I've been the resident playwright at First Stage Children’s Theater in Milwaukee for over twenty years. I began my career by adapting classic titles for the stage: Little House Christmas, Treasure Island, Huck Finn, Through the Looking Glass, Tom Sawyer. As I researched previous adaptions of these novels, I discovered how so many of them were quite different from the author’s original intentions. I don’t feel these adaptations are 'bad,' by any means—in fact, I believe you have to break free of a novel to truly adapt it for a different medium—but often the 'adaptation' is the only part of the story that gets passed down to us.
I remember the first time someone told me to read this book, and I replied, “Bambi? Really? No thank you.” I, of course, had only known the Disney-ized version of the story. I assumed it was a book for toddlers, with cute little bunny rabbits and birds singing in the trees. I was very wrong. It is a profound coming-of-age story dealing with family, love, parents, adulthood, loss, intolerance, death, betrayal, and the horrors which humans can inflict on both the environment and each other. It was banned and burned in Germany in 1936 as it was seen as a political allegory of the Nazi Party. A powerful book, and, unfortunately, still a very timely one.
Immerse yourself in a young deer's world in this resplendent, collectible edition of the richly imagined and vividly illustrated masterpiece that inspired the beloved Disney film.
Bambi lives in a thicket in the forest. From his kind and caring mother, to all the friends he makes among the forest's inhabitants, to his twin cousins Faline and Gobo, he is surrounded by animals who wish him well. But there are dangers within and surrounding the forest, and all too soon they will make themselves known.
A beautifully written and critically acclaimed classic that has been translated into more than twenty languages…
As a child, I enjoyed a special relationship with an oak tree in my backyard. My father indulged my love of nature with backpacking trips in the mountains of California. In my teens, he published my booklet on edible wild plants. My maternal grandmother encouraged my interest in Indigenous uses of plants with books, field trips, and stories from her anthropology studies at UC Berkeley. My mother cultivated my creativity with ferocious intensity and supported my desire to earn a Ph.D. I landed my dream job at an alternative, interdisciplinary, small, public liberal arts college and have taught botany there for nearly 30 years. I love teaching plant-centric environmental history.
Michael Williams’ nearly 600-page tome is a classic must-read for anyone seriously wanting to learn about American forest history. It's richly illustrated with 159 figures and plates, plus numerous tables.
I love how he uses historic photos and illustrations in addition to quantitative data to build a grounded understanding of Americans’ shifting relations with trees. The book spans roughly 400 years, with an emphasis on the 1800s and early 1900s.
I enjoyed learning about a wide variety of trees that have played important roles in U.S. history. I also appreciated how Williams explores the cultural influences on people’s attitudes and behaviors towards forests, including religion.
When Europeans first reached the land that would become the United States they were staggered by the breadth and density of the forest they found. The existence of that forest, and the effort either to use or subdue it, have been constant themes in American history, literature, economics, and geography up to the meaning of the forest in American history and culture, he describes and analyzes the clearing and use of the forest from pre-European times to the present, and he traces the subsequent regrowth of the forest since the middle of the twentieth century. Dr Williams begins by exploring…
I’ve been fascinated with forests ever since running wild as a kid in the Appalachian woods of Pennsylvania. Now living at the edge of the Pacific in the Coast Range in Oregon, I’ve engaged with a host of forest issues involving watershed health, wilderness protection, fire management, and fish. Among the 30 books I’ve written, three are germane here: Trees and Forests of America, Twilight or the Hemlocks and Beeches, and America’s Great Forest Trails. I’m always learning more by reading everything I find about forests. For my afternoon break and exercise I typically work on my own 8-acre wooded parcel where I maintain trails, eradicate exotic invaders, and restore native trees.
This book moves me more than any other regarding the climate crisis and the essential need to protect remaining old-growth forests, especially in the Pacific Northwest. Living there myself, I especially appreciate the work of Paul Koberstein and Jessica Applegate. They make clear that we must address a fundamental need regarding the heating of our planet: to leave intact the forest ecosystem that helps us the most.
"Trees are crucial in preserving a liveable future. Canopy of Titans makes an eloquent plea for saving one of North America's last great forests." - Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History
Canopy of Titans examines the global importance of the Pacific Coastal Temperate Rainforest that stretches from Northern California to Alaska and catalogs the threats to this vital environmental resource.
The product of years of on-the-ground reporting, this richly illustrated book celebrates the beauty and complexity of one of the world's great forests. It provides readers with easy-to-grasp insights into the science behind carbon sequestration and…
