Community Contributor

Community

Celebrate Earth Day with these inspiring reads about nature.

Books That Will Grow On You: Earth Day Reads

A lengthy California drought escalates to catastrophic proportions, turning Alyssa's quiet suburban street into a warzone, and she is forced to make impossible choices if she and her brother are to survive.

Dry by Neal Shusterman

First published in 1949 and praised in The New York Times Book Review as a trenchant book, full of vigor and bite, ASand County Almanac combines some of the finest nature writing since Thoreau with an outspoken and highly ethical regard for America's relationship to the land.As the forerunner to such important books as Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire, and Robert Finch's The Primal Place, this classic work remains as relevant today as it was nearly sixty years ago.

A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold

The American Southwest has been decimated by drought. Nevada and Arizona skirmish over dwindling shares of theColorado River, while California watches, deciding if it should just take the whole river all for itself. Into the fray steps Las Vegas water knife Angel Velasquez. Detective, assassin, and spy, Angel "cuts" water for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, ensuring that lush, luxurious arcology developments can bloom in the desert and that anyone who challenges her is left in the gutted-suburban dust. When water is more valuable than gold, alliances shift like sand, and the only truth in the desert is that someone will have to bleed if anyone hopes to drink

The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi

Roy, who is new to his small Florida community, becomes involved in another boy's attempt to save a colony of burrowing owls from a proposed construction site.

Hoot by Carl Hiaasen

The Colorado River is a crucial resource for a surprisingly large part of the United States, and every gallon that flows down it is owned or claimed by someone. David Owen traces all that water from the Colorado's headwaters to its parched terminus, once a verdant wetland but now a million-acre desert. He takes readers on an adventure downriver, along a labyrinth of waterways, reservoirs, power plants, farms, fracking sites, ghost towns, and RV parks, to the spot near the U.S.Mexico border where theriver runs dry. Water problems in the western United States can seem tantalizingly easy to solve: just turn off the fountains at the Bellagio, stop selling hay to China, ban golf, cut down the almond trees, and kill all the lawyers. But a closer look reveals a vast man-made ecosystem that is far more complex and more interesting than theheadlines let on.

Where the Water Goes by David Owen

Ottaviani’s latest, after Feynman (2011), manages to compress the fascinating stories of three groundbreaking scientists—Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas—into a slim volume without skimping on their rich characters and joyful discoveries.

Primates by Jim Ottaviani

A forester's fascinating stories, supported by the latest scientific research, reveal the extraordinary world of forests and illustrate how trees communicate and care for each other.In The Hidden Life of Trees Drawing on groundbreaking new discoveries, Wohlleben presents the science behind the secret and previously unknown life of trees and their communication abilities; he describes how these discoveries have informed his own practices in the forest around him. As he says, a happy forest is a healthy forest, and he believes that eco-friendly practices not only are economically sustainable but also benefit the health of our planet and the mental and physical health of all who live on Earth.

The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben

This nonfiction book about whales in the Pacific Ocean is written by Leigh Calvez. Calvez has worked with whales and dolphins as a scientist, naturalist, and nature writer. As a scientist, she was Research Director for the Ocean Mammal Institute on such projects as the effect of vessel traffic on endangered humpback whales off Maui, Hawaii. She also led the only independent research team observing the US Navy's testing of Low Frequency Active Sonar on humpback whales in their nurseries in Hawaii in 1998

The Breath of a Whale by Leigh Calvez

About BuzzFeed Community

Community Brand Guidelines

BuzzFeed Community

Sorry, this content is <i>no longer</i> supported.

BuzzFeed Community Guidelines

BuzzFeed Community Leaderboard

BuzzFeed News has breaking stories and original reporting on politics, world news, social media, viral trends, health, science, technology, entertainment, and LGBTQ issues.

All the best animals on the internet. The snuggle is real.

BuzzFeed has breaking news, vital journalism, quizzes, videos, celeb news, Tasty food videos, recipes, DIY hacks, and all the trending buzz you’ll want to share with your friends. Copyright BuzzFeed, Inc. All rights reserved.

BuzzFeed News | Breaking News | Original Reporting | News Analysis

Animal Pictures and Videos - Adorably from BuzzFeed

Name

Thanks for subscribing!

Stay up to date with our latest BuzzFeed video. Enter your email to subscribe!

Oops! Upload an image or add text to submit.

BuzzFeed has the hottest, most social content on the web. We feature breaking buzz and the kinds of things you'd want to pass along to your friends.

Books That Will Grow On You: Earth Day Reads

Share This Article