Debates over whether or not animals are self-aware beings can get heated, and deciding that they are would require major legal and ethical changes in how they are treated. In "The Soul Life of Animals", Hanne Jahr takes a metaphysical... Read More

Thorpe Moeckel’s essay collection "Down by the Eno, Down by the Haw" captures the beauty of the land near two rivers. The naturalist’s month-by-month account of the year he lived on the watershed of two North Carolina rivers, the Eno... Read More

Spiritual wanderer, mystic, and ordained minister Gretel Van Wieren’s memoir of her stint as writer-in-residence in Oregon’s Cascades covers her quest to rediscover her connection with the natural world, which is her main source of... Read More

Born in 1859 into wealth and political power—his father was a Supreme Court justice; he served in Congress—George Shiras III’s long life spanned the Gilded Age, the Progressive Era, and the New Deal. James H. McCommons’s engaging... Read More

Intertwined with American history, the bison has long been a symbol of the American West. Kurt Repanshek’s "Re-Bisoning the West" traces the development of the prehistoric animal whose existence has been both threatened and protected... Read More

A wildlife photo brings to hand what rightfully belongs in the secretive haunts of untamed wilderness. The best of those photos capture an animal in its natural habitat acting true to its nature. And quite often, as voyeurs, we humans... Read More

Quantum physics recognizes that electrons behave differently when under observation—to be, or not to be a wave or a particle, depending on whether it’s being observed. And nature writing presents a similar situation because nature... Read More

"Married a Hiker, Got a Cowboy" is about a life surrounded by the beauty of nature and the people who add value to time spent outdoors. In her friendly memoir Married a Hiker, Got a Cowboy, Nancy Brown recalls her near constant travel... Read More