ENVIRONMENTAL BOOKS OF INTEREST
Current and Classic, General and Texana
Last Revised April 2007

Reporters and journalists can give us the latest news of exciting events and trends. Sometimes, though it is also useful to have background on the history and meaning of the news. Here are some books and articles that were suggested by participants in the Environmental Grantmakers Association listserve, as well as some I added, that I hope will give some of that background and context to what we read in the daily news.

Abbey, Edward. "Desert Solitaire" (1968) [ adventures and philosophy in the desert Southwest]

Ackerman, Frank. "Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing" (2004) [a critique of cost benefit analysis]

Ausubel, Kenny, ed. "Ecological Medicine: Healing the Earth, Healing Ourselves" (2004)

Bailey, Liberty Hyde. "The Harvest of the Year to the Tiller of the Soil" (1927)

Baron, David. "The Beast in the Garden" (2003) [a romantic view of nature could come back to bite us]

Bartram, William. "Travels" (1791)

Bedichek, Roy. "Adventures with a Texas Naturalist" (1945)

Berry, Wendell. "The Gift of Good Land: Further Essays Cultural and Agricultural" (1982) [a sample of the Kentucky poet, ecologist and farmer's writing and views]

Berry, Wendell. "The Unsettling of America" (1995) [sustainable farming and culture]

Beston, Henry. "The Outermost House" (1928)

Bromfield, Louis. "Malabar Farm" (1947) [the restoration of a farm, its soil, and ecosystem]

Brown, Lester. "Plan B: Rescuing a Planet under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble" (2003)

Burroughs, John. "Accepting the Universe" (1920)

Carson, Rachel. "Silent Spring" (1962) [persistent toxics in our environment]

Cherry, Lynne. "The Great Kapok Tree" (1990) [a children's book about life in the Amazon rainforest]

Clay, Jason. "World Agriculture and the Environment" (2004) [World Wildlife Fund fellow's view of food and the environment]

Colborn, Theo et al. "Our Stolen Future" (1996) [plastics' impact on our health]

Commoner, Barry. "The Closing Circle: Nature, Man and Technology" (1971) [technology as the driver for environmental harm - cf. Ehrlich's view that population and affluence's role]

Darwin, Charles. "The Origin of the Species" (1859)

de Crevecoeur, Hector St. John. Letters from an American Farmer" (1782)

Dillard, Annie. "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" (1974) [Pulitzer Prize winner about mysticism, nature and the human condition]

Doughty, Robin. "Wildlife & Man in Texas: Environmental Change & Conservation"

Ehrlich, Paul. "The Population Bomb" (1966) [the effect of human population growth on the environment]

Fernandez-Arnesto, Felipe. "Civilizations: Culture, Ambition, and the Transformation of Nature" (2000) [world history seen through the lens of the human transformation of nature]

Fernandez-Arnesto, Felipe. "Near a Thousand Tables: A History of Food" (2002)

Flannery, Tim. "The Future Eaters" (1994) [consumption patterns of Aborigines and Maoris to modern Europeans]

Flannery, Tim. "The Weather Makers" (2006) [climate change]

Flores, Dan. "Horizontal Yellow: Nature and History in the Near Southwest" (1999)

Glennon, Robert. "Water Follies: Groundwater Pumping and the Fate of America's Fresh Waters" (2002)

Godman, John. "Rambles of a Naturalist" (1828)

Gore, Al. "Earth in the Balance" (1992) [general analysis of environmental problems, and Marshall Plan - like prescription for recovery]

Graves, John. "Goodbye to a River" (1960) [tale of a trip down the Brazos River, in a reach threatened by a dam]

Graves, John. "Hard Scrabble: Observations on a Patch of Land" (1974)

Greider, William. "The Soul of Capitalism" (2003) [While not specifically environmental, it addresses many environmental issues in the context of economic ones]

Gunter, Pete, and Max Oelschlaeger. "Texas Land Ethics" (1997)

Hardin, Garrett. "The Tragedy of the Commons", Science, vol. 162 (1968) [a short insightful piece about misuse of shared resources]

Hay, John. "In Defense of Nature" (1969)

Heinberg, Richard. "When the Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Economies" (2003) [end of the oil economy]

Hartman, Thom. "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: Waking up to Personal and Global Transformation" (2000) [environmental protection and spiritual reform along native lines]

Hawkin, Paul, Amory and Hunter Lovins. "Natural Capitalism" (1999) [business principles based on sustainability]

Hoagland, Edward. "Notes from the Century Before" (1969)

Kimbrell, Andrew. "Fatal Harvest Reader" (2002) [sustainable agriculture]

Kolbert, Elizabeth. "Field Notes from a Catastrophe" (2006) [climate change]

Krutch, Joseph. "The Great Chain of Life" (1956)

Least Heat-Moon, William. "PrairyErth: A Deep Map" (1991) [a journey on foot and through history across Kansas' tallgrass prairie]

Leopold, Aldo. "A Sand County Almanac" (1949) [a classic in ethics and nature]

Lopez, Barry. "Arctic Dreams" (1986)

Matthiessen, Peter. "Wildlife in America" (1972) [a history of man's effect on fish, birds and mammals in North America]

Maynard, W. Barksdale. "Walden Pond: A History" (2004) [a chronicle of the Pond beloved by Emerson, Thoreau, and more recently, Texas' own Don Henley]

McKibben, Bill, "The End of Nature" (1997) [global ecosystem as an increasingly man-made artifact and responsibility]

McNeill, J.R., et al. "Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the 20st Century World" (2001)

McPhee, John. "Conversations with the Archdruid" (1971) [a chronicle of discussions with David Brower, former mountaineer, executive director of the Sierra Club, and founder of Friends of the Earth]

Meadows, Donella. "Limits to Growth" (1972) [limits to population, capital, resource consumption growth]

Michael, Pamela, ed. "River of Words: Images and Poetry in Praise of Water" (2003) [children's paintings and poetry about the natural world]

Miller, Char, ed. "On the Border: An Environmental History of San Antonio" (2001)

Moore, Colleen. "Silent Scourge" [tally of the toll of pollution on kids' brains]

Mother Jones Magazine, "The UnGreening of America" (special issue, Fall 2003)

Muir, John. "My First Summer in the Sierra" (1869) [the classic from which comes, "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe"]

Nelson, Richard. "The Island Within" (1991) [exploration of man and wildlife on a Pacific Northwest island]

Olmsted, Frederick Law. "A Journey through Texas" (1857) [report on a barely settled Texas by the famous landscape architect]

Olson, Sigurd. "Listening Point" (1958) [a naturalist's impressions of the Northwoods]

Plotkin, Mark. "Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice" (1993) [tales of natives' knowledge and use of the Suriname rainforest]

Pollan, Michael. "The Botany of Desire: A Plant's Eye View of the World" (2001) [relationship between humans and plants, in this case, apples, tulips, marijuana, and potatoes]

Pope, Carl and Paul Rauber. "Strategic Ignorance: Why the Bush Administration is Recklessly Destroying a Century of Environmental Progress"

Quinn, Daniel. "Ishmael" [the impact of agriculture and human civilization on other living creatures]

Rabe, Barry. "Statehouse and Greenhouse: The Emerging Politics of American Climate Change Policy," Brookings. [wind industry in Texas]

Rampton, Sheldon and John Stauber. "Mad Cow USA"

Rampton, Sheldon and John Stauber. "Trust Us We are Experts: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with your Future"

Ray, Janisse. "Ecology of a Cracker Childhood" [the forests of the Southeast find their Rachel Carson, according to the New York Times]

Reisner, Marc. "Cadillac Desert: The American West and its Disappearing Water"

Roe, David. "Dynamos and Virgins" [the value of energy efficiency and conservation]

Saul, John Ralston. "The End of Globalism", in the March 2004 Harper's magazine

Savory, Alan. "Holistic Resource Management" [integrated view of humans and sustainable land use]

Schmidly, David. "Texas Natural History: A Century of Change"

Schumacher, E.F. "Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered" [a fundamental book on ecological economics]

Dr. Seuss. "The Lorax" [a parable about greed, myopia and environmental destruction]

Sheldon, Charles. "The Wilderness of the Upper Yukon" (1911)

Speth, Gus. "Red Sky at Dawn: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment"

Stegner, Wallace. "Wilderness Letter" (1960) [an inspiration for a "geography of hope", and for the Wilderness Act of 1964]

an essay that Steingraber, Sandra. "Living Downstream : A Scientist's Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment"

Steingraber, Sandra. "Having Faith: An Ecologist's Journey to Motherhood" [a biologist tells of the development of her child in the midst of environmental toxins]

Suzuki, David. "Good News for a Change: Hope for a Troubled Planet" [success stories in sustainable business]

Terres, John. "From Laurel Hill to Siler's Bog" (1969)

Texas Center for Policy Studies. "Texas Environmental Almanac"

Thoreau, Henry David. "Walden Pond" (1854) [the classic contemplation on a simpler life]

Truett, Joe, and Dan Lay, "The Land of Bears and Honey: A Natural History of East Texas"

Vaitheeswaran, Vijay. "Power to the People" [free-market case for clean energy]

Wayburn, Edward. "Your Land and Mine" [autobiography of a leading conservationist]

Whitman, Walt. "Leaves of Grass" [classic free verse poetry of man and nature]

Williams, Terry Tempest. "Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place" (1991) [Great Salt Lake, bird refuges, nuclear testing, cancer, and home]

World Commission on Environment and Development. "Our Common Future"

Worldwatch Institute, "State of the World - 2004"

Worldwatch Institute, "Vital Signs 2003"

www.gristmagazine.com

www.oriononline.org

www.thegreenguide.com/books/backlist.mhtml

Zwinger, Ann, and Beatrice Willard. "The Land Above the Trees" (1972)