|
eAudiobook Highlights Read Beyond the Beaten Path Summer Reading 2022
|
|
|
|
|
Mind of the raven : investigations and adventures with wolf-birds
by Bernd Heinrich
An acclaimed scientist takes a close-up look into the mind of the raven, exploring the nature of intelligence in a bird that has enjoyed a special relationship with humans, and addresses such questions as instinct vs. intelligence and the way the brain works.
|
|
|
In Praise of Paths : Walking Through Time and Nature
by Torbjørn Ekelund
Torbjørn Ekelund started to walk—everywhere—after an epilepsy diagnosis affected his ability to drive. The more he ventured out, the more he came to love the act of walking, and an interest in paths emerged. In this poignant, meandering book, Ekelund interweaves the literature and history of paths with his own stories from the trail. As he walks with shoes on and barefoot, through forest creeks and across urban streets, he contemplates the early tracks made by ancient snails and traces the wanderings of Romantic poets, amongst other musings.
|
|
|
Fire season : field notes from a wilderness lookout
by Philip Connors
The author discusses his time spent ten thousand feet above ground as a fire lookout in a remote part of New Mexico, a job where he witnessed some of the most amazing phenomena nature has to offer.
|
|
|
The book of hope : a survival guide for trying times
by Jane Goodall
Told through stories from an extraordinary career and fascinating research, this urgent book, written by the world’s most famous living naturalist and an internationally best-selling author, explores one of the most sought after and least understood elements of human nature—hope.
|
|
|
Mud, rocks, blazes : letting go on the Appalachian Trail
by Heather Anish Anderson
Despite her success setting a self-supported Fastest Known Time record on the Pacific Crest Trail in 2013, Heather "Anish" Anderson still had such deep-seated insecurities that she became convinced her feat had been a fluke. So two years later she set out again, this time hiking through mud, rocks, and mountain blazes to crush her constant self-doubt and seek the true source of her strength and purpose.
|
|
|
The wave : in pursuit of the rogues, freaks, and giants of the ocean
by Susan Casey
Traces the recent discovery of physics-defying ocean waves at heights previously thought impossible, describing the efforts of the scientific community to understand the phenomenon, the pursuits of extreme surfers to ride these waves, and the destructive capabilities of tsunamis.
|
|
|
Braiding sweetgrass
by Robin Wall Kimmerer
As a leading researcher in the field of biology, Robin Wall Kimmerer understands the delicate state of our world. But as an active member of the Potawatomi nation, she senses and relates to the world through a way of knowing far older than any science. In Braiding Sweetgrass, she intertwines these two modes of awareness--the analytic and the emotional, the scientific and the cultural--to ultimately reveal a path toward healing the rift that grows between people and nature. The woven essays that construct this book bring people back into conversation with all that is green and growing; a universe that never stopped speaking to us, even when we forgot how to listen.
|
|
|
Where the crawdads sing
by Delia Owens
Viewed with suspicion in the aftermath of a murder, Kya Clark, who has survived alone for years in a marsh near the North Carolina coast, becomes targeted by unthinkable forces
|
|
|
Swamplandia!
by Karen Russell
A first novel by the author of the short-story collection, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves finds the Bigtree children struggling to protect their Florida Everglades alligator-wrestling theme park from a sophisticated competitor after losing their parents. Includes reading-group guide.
|
|
|
The bright side sanctuary for animals : a novel
by Becky Mandelbaum
The award-winning author of Bad Kansas traces an emotionally charged weekend at an animal sanctuary in Western Kansas, where personal and community bonds are tested in the wake of an estranged daughter's homecoming.
|
|
|
Moon of the crusted snow : a novel
by Waubgeshig Rice
When a small Ojibwa community in the far north loses power at the beginning of the winter, residents do not realize it is because society in the south is failing, and when people arrive from the south, harsh conditions take their toll.
|
|
|
The book woman of Troublesome Creek : a novel
by Kim Michele Richardson
During Kentucky’s Great Depression, Pack Horse Library Project member Cussy Mary Carter, a young outcast, delivers books to the hillfolk of Troublesome Creek, hoping to spread learning in these desperate times, but not everyone is keen on her or the Library Project.
|
|
|
The overstory : a novel
by Richard Powers
The National Book Award-winning author of The Overstory presents an impassioned novel of activism and natural-world power that is comprised of interlocking fables about nine remarkable strangers who are summoned in different ways by trees for an ultimate, brutal stand to save the continent's few remaining acres of virgin forest.
|
|
|
Prodigal summer : a novel
by Barbara Kingsolver
Wildlife biologist Deanna is caught off guard by an intrusive young hunter, while bookish city wife Lusa finds herself facing a difficult identity choice, and elderly neighbors find attraction at the height of a long-standing feud.
|
|
|
|
|
|