Best Nature Books

"We can place this book on the shelf that holds the writings of Thoreau and John Muir." San Francisco ChronicleThese astonishing portraits of the natural world explore the breathtaking diversity of the unspoiled American landscape the mountains and the prairies, the deserts and…

A hymn to walking, the mechanical magic at the core of our humanity.Walking upright on two feet is a uniquely human skill. It enabled us to migrate out of Africa and to spread as far as Alaska and Australia.

Barry Lopez's National Book Awardwinning classic study of the Far North is widely considered his masterpiece.Lopez offers a thorough examination of this obscure worldits terrain, its wildlife, its history of Eskimo natives and intrepid explorers who have arrived on their icy…

Nature has many gifts for us, but perhaps the greatest of them all is joy; the intense delight we can take in the natural world, in its beauty, in the wonder it can offer us, in the peace it can provide feelings stemming ultimately from our own unbreakable links to nature, which…

National BestsellerWith his unique blend of intrepidity, tongueincheek humor, and wideeyed wonder, Ian Frazier takes us on a journey of more than 25,000 miles up and down and across the vast and mythinspiring Great Plains.

One of the great works of American exploration literature, this account of a scientific expedition forced to survive famine, attacks, mutiny, and some of the most dangerous rapids known to man remains as fresh and exciting today as it was in 1874.The Exploration of the Colorado…

Because of an acorn, a tree grows, a bird nests, a seed becomes a flower. Enchanting diecuts illustrate the vital connections between the layers of an ecosystem in this magical book.

Reissued on the tenth anniversary of its publication, this classic work on our environmental crisis features a new introduction by the author, reviewing both the progress and ground lost in the fight to save the earth.This impassioned plea for radical and liferenewing change is…

The age of exploration is not over. When Adam Shoalts ventured into the largest unexplored wilderness on the planet, he hoped to set foot where no one had ever gone before. What he discovered surprised even him. Shoalts was no stranger to the wilderness.

Every fall, spectacular orange and black clouds of monarch butterflies fill the skies as they migrate from across North America to Central Mexico. West Coast populations make a similar though much shorter trip to coastal California.

This lush book of photography represents National Geographic's Photo Ark, a major crossplatform initiative and lifelong project by photographer Joel Sartore to make portraits of the world's animalsespecially those that are endangered.

"Building on a rhyme that will be familiar to many children, authorillustrator Cole creates an enticing guide to creating a garden.

The ultimate guide to nature drawing and journaling. This is the howto guide for becoming a better artist and a more attentive naturalist.

Russell Page, one of the legendary gardeners and landscapers of the twentieth century, designed gardens great and small for clients throughout the world.

Brightly illustrated and organized as information charts, Curiositree reads like a visual primer for young naturalists. What works best is its approachable snapshots of adaptations—clear labels, playful art and side-by-side comparisons make concepts like camouflage, feeding strategies and reproduction tangible without lengthy prose. Limitations: text is terse and general, so older kids or adults seeking depth will find it skimpy, and the chart format occasionally repeats the same layout until it feels formulaic rather than exploratory.

Animalium arranges over 200 full-color specimens on museum-style double-page 'walls,' pairing lush, detailed illustrations with short caption-style labels. Reading it is like wandering a curated gallery: spreads are visually striking and mostly self-contained, easy to dip into or share aloud. The book's strength is visual reference and decorative specimen plates; its limit is the concise, descriptive text, which seldom expands into narratives or deep taxonomic detail. Readers seeking long-form natural history or field-guide precision will likely find it too thin.

In this dazzling book of visual wonders, National Geographic reveals a world very few will have the chance to see for themselves.

Imagine what you could do with eighteen delicious new greens in your dining arsenal including purslane, chickweed, curly dock, wild spinach, sorrel, and wild mustard. John Kallas makes it fun and easy to learn about foods you've unknowingly passed by all your life.

Featuring fascinating, fishy fun facts accompanied by bright, bold, and beautiful illustrations, this book takes children on a journey through the sea and all its zones.

Includes: Trees, Leaves and Bark; Caterpillars, Bugs and Butterflies; Tracks, Scats and Signs; Rabbits, Squirrels and Chipmunks; Snakes, Salamanders and Lizards; and Frogs, Toads and Turtles.

See the world in a new way! Acclaimed illustrator Julia Rothman celebrates the diverse curiosities and beauty of the natural world in this exciting new volume.

The first edition of Gaia's Garden sparked the imagination of America's home gardeners, introducing permaculture's central message: Working with Nature, not against her, results in more beautiful, abundant, and forgiving gardens.

Crinkleroot invites youngsters to come along as he walks through hard and softwood forests. How do you tell the difference Crinkleroot knows: it's the light and the air. His charts show the leaves, stems, and seeds that help young readers identify trees.

Derick Lugo had never been hiking. He didn't even know if he liked being outside all that much. He certainly couldn't imagine going more than a day without manicuring his goatee.

This stunningly beautiful and wonderfully informative book from awardwinning artist Sylvia Long and author Dianna Hutts Aston makes for a fascinating introduction to the vast and amazing world of eggs.

Ever since Richard Louv diagnosed naturedeficit disorder in his classic book "Last" "Child in the Woods," parents and teachers have been looking for more ways to connect children with the outdoors.

More than 370 edible wild plants, plus 37 poisonous lookalikes, are described here, with 400 drawings and 78 color photographs showing precisely how to recognize each species.

"An eloquent (and compulsively readable) reminder that, though we're laying waste the world, nature still holds sway over much of the earth's surface."Bill McKibben Are there any genuinely wild places left in Britain and Ireland That is the question that Robert Macfarlane poses…

The awardwinning duo of Dianna Hutts Aston and Sylvia Long team up again, this time creating a gorgeous look at the fascinating world of beetles. From flea beetles to bombardier beetles, an incredible variety of these beloved bugs are showcased here in all their splendor.

Plant a pumpkinseed with a child, and cultivate wonder. This simple act of reconnecting with children with nature is Sharon Lovejoy's purpose and joy and gift.

Awardwinning artist Sylvia Long and author Dianna Hutts Aston have teamed up again to create this gorgeous and informative introduction to seeds.

A fully illustrated wilderness survival guide perfect for seasoned and novice outdoors enthusiasts alike. Here, in one essential volume, are the basics of wilderness survival.

When Jenny Wren learns that Peter Rabbit would like to know more about the fourfooted friends who share the Green Meadows and Green Forest with him, she encourages him to speak with Old Mother Nature who is only too happy to help.

Bold, true-to-life illustrations and very short labels make this an easy entry point for young children learning to notice nests, eggs, and common birds. Scrapbook pages provide space for sketches or quick notes, keeping outings active rather than passive. Practical for short neighborhood walks and early nature units, it intentionally stays at an elementary level and avoids long natural-history text. Adults seeking photo-based IDs, technical species detail, or structured lesson sequences will find the coverage light and the layout repetitive after a few pages; the book also lacks hands-on exercises.

A Sting in the Tale stitches together childhood mischief, hands-on fieldwork, and straightforward conservation advice into an accessible, often funny portrait of bumblebees and why they matter. The book’s useful part is turning obscure insect lives into memorable scenes and small, actionable steps for gardeners and nature lovers. Its main limitation is uneven depth and occasional repetition: passages that charm can be followed by long lists or procedural descriptions that slow the narrative for readers seeking lean, data-rich prose.

A collection of stories that inspires unforgettable adventure. Beautiful, empowering and exhilarating: She Explores is a spirited celebration of female bravery and courage, and an inspirational companion for any woman who wants to travel the world on her own terms.

This is the story of Alaska and the Alaskans. Written with a vividness and clarity which shifts scenes frequently, and yet manages to tie the work into a rewarding whole, McPhee segues from the wilderness to life in urban Alaska to the remote bush country.

Outdoor Survival Skills has taught three generations of wilderness adventurers how to survive in nature without expensive purchased equipment, instead drawing on knowledge of the land and carefully tested techniques, many of them ancient, for finding or creating shelter, fire,…

The classic novel of fly fishing and spirituality republished with a new Afterword by the author. Since its publication in 1983, The River Why has become a classic.

Robert Macfarlane travels Britain's ancient paths and discovers the secrets of our beautiful, underappreciated landscape.Following the tracks, holloways, droveroads and sea paths that form part of a vast ancient network of routes crisscrossing the British Isles and beyond,…

It's surprising what you can find by simply stepping out to look. Kathleen Jamie, award winning poet, has an eye and an ease with the nature and landscapes of Scotland as well as an incisive sense of our domestic realities.

More than a halfcentury ago the naturalist Farley Mowat was sent to investigate why wolves were killing arctic caribou. Mowat's account of the summer he lived in the frozen tundra alone_x0097_studying the wolf population and developing a deep affection for the wolves (who were…

For every gardener who cares about the planet, this guide to designing a bee garden helps you create a stunningly colorful, vibrant, healthy habitat that attracts both honeybees and native bees.

Begins in plain, question-driven prose that answers gardeners’ basic queries about seeds, plant structure, and reproduction using everyday examples. The strongest sections map biological processes to practical choices such as sowing time, pruning and basic care, keeping jargon to a minimum. Coverage stays at an introductory level, so readers who need photo-led identification, species-by-species instructions, or deep anatomical minutiae will find it too light. Occasional dives into denser physiology slow the pace and demand closer reading.

Fans of Tree: A PeekThrough Picture Book can now fly along with Bee on her very busy day!Through a hole in the book's cover, a bee is buzzing inside a flower.

In this gorgeous companion to the acclaimed Over and Under the Snow and Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt, Kate Messner and Christopher Silas Neal bring to life a secret underwater world.

In 2003, software engineer David Miller left his job, family, and friends to fulfill a dream and hike the Appalachian Trail. AWOL on the Appalachian Trail is Miller's account of this thruhike along the entire 2,172 miles from Georgia to Maine.

A Caldecott medalist and a Newbery Honorwinning poet celebrate the beauty and value of spirals.What makes the tiny snail shell so beautiful Why does that shape occur in nature over and over againbut also celebrate the beauty and usefulness of this fascinating shape.

Through his writing and his own personal philosophy, Ralph Waldo Emerson unburdened his young country of Europe's traditional sense of history and showed Americans how to be creators of their own circumstances.

To coincide with the 2016 centennial anniversary of the National Parks Service, the Creative Action Network has partnered with the National Parks Conservation Association to revive and reimagine the legacy of WPA travel posters.

Robert Macfarlane's Mountains of the Mind is the most interesting of the crop of books published to mark the 50th anniversary of the first successful ascent of Everest. Macfarlane is both a mountaineer and a scholar. Consequently we get more than just a chronicle of climbs.

This book is an in depth "howto" of outdoor primitive skills.

Marc Martin's A River reads like a visual daydream: spare, lyrical sentences pair with wide, map-like illustrations that propel a child's boat past factories, freeways, farms and forests. What works best is atmosphere — it's designed to be savored aloud or on quiet solo browsing, each spread prompting questions and small observations rather than delivering a plotted arc. The main limitation is that readers craving plot or character development will find the pace intentionally diffuse. Best enjoyed slowly, on repeat.

From prominent outdoorsman and nature writer Mark Kenyon comes an engrossing reflection on the past and future battles over our most revered landscapes_x0097_America_x0092_s public lands.Every American is a publicland owner, inheritor to the largest publicland trust in the…

The powerful and affirming story of a father's journey with his teenage daughter to the far reaches of AlaskaAlaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, home to only a handful of people, is a harsh and lonely place.

A lovely, lyrical picture book with gorgeous illustrations that explores the ways the wild makes itself known to us and how much closer it is than we think.There are so many places that wild can exist, if only you know where to look!

Bright, picture-driven, and firmly aimed at early elementary listeners, this book walks through pollination, seed formation, and germination in clear, child-accessible steps. The strongest value is the combination of simple, age-appropriate vocabulary and colorful diagrams that make basic plant processes memorable during a single read-aloud. Its main limitation is scope: adults or older kids seeking depth or experimental instructions will find the text spare and the explanations high-level rather than detailed. No hands-on exercises are provided.

A practical, readable and indispensable guide for anyone venturing into the wilderness, this is a book that should be in every survival kit.

The Man Who Walked Through Time is a remarkable classic of nature writing, an account of a journey both physical and spiritual. A detour from U.S. 66 to visit the Grand Canyon on a June morning in 1963 inspired Fletcher to walk the length of the Canyon below the rim.

The remarkable story of the heroic effort to save and preserve Afghanistan's wildlifeand a culture that derives immense pride and a sense of national identity from its natural landscape.Postwar Afghanistan is fragile, volatile, and perilous.

The awardwinning and surprisingly hopeful story of one woman's search for resiliency in a warming worldSeveral years ago, ecologist Lauren E. Oakes set out from California for Alaska's oldgrowth forests to hunt for a dying tree: the yellowcedar.

With the able assistance of Thing 1 and Thing 2 and a fleet of Rube Goldbergian vehicles the Cat in the Hat examines the various parts of plants, seeds, and flowers; basic photosynthesis and pollination; and seed dispersal.