For the late summer doldrums: Books about escaping into the natural world
Scientific American authors’ recommended summer reading
Daniel Chamovitz, author of What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses (now in paperback)
Into the Wilderness by Deborah Lee Luskin
Set in the 1960s in Southern Vermont, this unlikely love story between an elderly Jewish widow from New Jersey and an old Yankee from Vermont contains beautiful descriptions and allegory, which beckon the reader to drive through Vermont’s valleys and villages. I was captivated by the appropriately Vermont-like pace of this delightful story. Best read curled up in a chair in a B&B in the Northeast.
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
I recently reread this classic while camping in Montana and Wyoming. Not quite Alaska, but wild enough to imagine the tragic existence of Christopher McCandless as he struggles with internal and external extremes in the Alaskan wilderness.
Bug Music: How Insects Gave Us Rhythm and Noise by David Rothenberg
As a musician and a scientist, I was fascinated by the parallels between the songs of the cicada and the human. Rothenberg is a great conductor, bringing out the melodies and harmonies, and exposing the mysteries in the great cicada orchestra that reemerged in 2013. A must read for all who question and seek our place in nature.
Amir Alexander, author of Infinitesimal: How a Dangerous Mathematical Theory Shaped the Modern World (forthcoming, April 2014)
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
This is such a great book! It is a gripping real-life story of death and survival on Everest, but it is so much more. It is a window into the exclusive world of high-level mountain climbing, with its unique codes, rivalries, and characters. And it touches on the deep questions of the commercialization of nature, the meaning of extreme sports, and why people take great risks. A wonderful read.
The Control of Nature by John McPhee
This is a book about humans trying to tame the forces of nature on the grandest scale. From the volcanic basins of Iceland to the Mississippi delta to the muddy hills of Los Angeles, people are engaged in massive projects to control natural processes in ways that suit humans. It doesn’t work as planned.
C. S. Forester’s Hornblower series
These books are about an introspective captain in Nelson’s navy. My all-time favorites are The Happy Return and A Ship of the Line. As a Hebrew-speaking boy in Israel, I learned to read English with these books. Even though I sometimes needed a dictionary, I couldn’t put them down, and I’ve gone back to them repeatedly over the years. Young or old, these books make you want to run off to sea.
Paul Raeburn, author of Do Fathers Matter? The New Science of Fatherhood (forthcoming, June 2014)
Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness by Edward Abbey
The best example I know of the stick-it-to-the-man travel story, in which travelers seek adventures not just for their own sake but also to thumb their noses at their peers for being unwilling to commit to the joys and hazards of the road. Most people might think that the desert holds far more hazards than joys, but they are likely to change their minds after traveling with Abbey.
Bird of Life, Bird of Death: A Naturalist’s Journey Through a Land of Political Turmoil by Jonathan Evan Maslow
A naturalist’s search for the resplendent quetzal, Guatemala’s national bird. The expedition is repeatedly interrupted by terrifying encounters, and near encounters, with Guatemalan militia and death squads. A riveting adventure best enjoyed vicariously, particularly if you plan to be around for any further adventures. Maslow survived, but I wouldn’t follow in his footsteps.
The Rivers Ran East by Leonard Clark
This book was originally published after World War II, I think. A teacher read it to us in school, over a period of several months. Clark traveled the Peruvian Amazon in search of El Dorado, and his tale contains all the romance, horror, and enticement of the Amazon. I’m sure his report is embellished where embellishment was needed. Readers should agree to stipulate that and then jump on Clark’s ride.
A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson
There couldn’t be a more obvious choice for this list, but I don’t care; I want to be part of the chorus praising this wonderful book, which can be funny, informative, entertaining, and touching, and sometimes manages almost all of these at the same time. It’s also a great buddy story, and that’s a genre that I love.
Caleb Scharf, author of Gravity’s Engines: How Bubble-Blowing Black Holes Rule Galaxies, Stars, and Life in the Cosmos and The Copernicus Complex (forthcoming)
French Revolutions: Cycling the Tour de France by Tim Moore
The wheels on the bike go round and round. By turns hysterically funny and wonderfully evocative, the author peddles his way through an entirely ill-advised solo Tour de France. Pain, vomit, “bonking,” and way, way too much wine fuel a journey through the French countryside and cycling history. It’s all told with an unwarranted lack of self-respect, which actually makes you want to get out on a bike and find some hills and vistas, instead of shaming you into another bowl of chips and more online shopping.
The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time by Jonathan Weiner
I had never read this Pulitzer winner from 1994 until now, and I was the poorer for not having done so. The Galapagos Islands, as well as some other extraordinary places, come to life in what amounts to a meticulously plotted love poem to the nature of natural selection and evolution, processes that turn out to be happening measurably right before our eyes. Entire species of island finch are sent careening toward near doom, or sudden population explosion, by the rollercoaster of changing climate and tiny, exquisite variations in beaks and heads that you or I would seldom notice. And it’s not just the finches; it’s all of life. Read this and you may find yourself peering at people, places, creatures, and plants with a new eye for their astonishing diversity.
Mud, Sweat, and Tears by Bear Grylls
It won’t impress the literati. It’s plainly written, profoundly uncomplicated, and the editor is either a saint or has a special place waiting for her in purgatory. But it is also incredibly honest and spectacularly lacking in self-consciousness, as it relates many tales of physical challenge and personal growth. Most of all, though, there is a hidden jewel, a piece of clarity and reportage that leaps from the book like a brilliant sunburst. It’s the author’s account of his climb to the top of Everest, something we all know is hard, and have read clever and finely crafted descriptions of, but about which most of us are totally ignorant. Here it’s laid out bare (no pun intended), boiled down to the essentials. The acutely painful physical and mental barriers that must be overcome are literally and figuratively breathtaking, which makes the desire to get outside and take a good gulp of oxygen even more urgent. Kudos to the author.
Ray Jayawardhana, author Neutrino Hunters: The Thrilling Chase for a Ghostly Particle to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe (forthcoming, December 2014)
Falling Off the Map: Some Lonely Places of the World by Pico Iyer
Iyer’s travel writing stokes my desire to see remote corners of the globe.
Last year, I visited, as Iyer did in writing his book, the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, which retains much of its mystique and tradition nearly a quarter-century after Iyer described it (though, of course, there have been some striking changes too).
Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez
Recently I had the pleasure of reading this classic while sailing on a tall ship along the west coast of Svalbard with a group of writers and artists. I found its evocative, almost lyrical descriptions of the landscapes and the inhabitants of the far north delightful, though the tone felt a bit preachy in places.
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
This raucous romp about the globe-trotting escapades of a geriatric hero leaves you with a wonderful (if improbable) sense of the possibilities for adventure (and hilarity) in life.
John D. Mayer, author of Personal Intelligence: The Power of Personality and How It Shapes Our Lives (forthcoming, February 2014)
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
Reading about Krakauer’s daring climb of Mt. Everest—and its frozen reaches—was a rewarding escape from the summer heat; his characterizations of his fellow climbers, the mountain itself, and the climb were captivating.
Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion by Jeffrey J. Kripal
An intellectual history of the California institute that evokes mid-twentieth-century coastal California and the creative ideas the Esalen Institute gave birth to during the radical ’60s and since. Full of the characters that made the place what it was (and is).
Jesse Bering, author of Why is the Penis Shaped Like That? And Other Reflections on Being Human and Perv: The Sexual Deviant In All of Us (forthcoming, October 2013)
Author’s note: It seems my unintentional theme-within-a-theme this summer has been “books that pit man against man against the backdrop of shimmering prose.”
Against Nature by Joris-Karl Huysmans
It’s god-awful in its decadent, in-your-face narcissism, but there’s great style in this little book of misanthropic maladies narrated by a delusional dandy spilling his bad humor with a very sharp pen.
The Stone Raft by José Saramago
Saramago is up there with Sartre, Camus, and Ionesco in his talent and penchant for mining morality in the absurd. The godless, apocalyptic story that is The Stone Raft makes a compelling case for the rather unpalatable fact that each of us really is an island, psychologically speaking.
Reveries of the Solitary Walker by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
There’s a bit of a “woe is me” tone that makes it somewhat hard to sympathize with Rousseau as he shuffles down the streets of Paris, often in the guise of a bitter old man mumbling to himself about being taken for granted by society (which he most certainly was, in point of fact). But his lucid melancholy in this book, written at the end of a storied life, hints at how his emotional vulnerabilities guided his philosophy.
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
A much lighter read than its bedfellows, Gibbons manages to take the wind out of the sails of the dark forces surrounding her good-humored female protagonist on a rural Sussex farm, reminding us that the best way to handle “evil” is to laugh in the face of its preposterousness.
