I'm going to start with the book that inspired the creation of the "Flat Book Society" (bimonthly science and popular science buddy / group reads) here on BookLikes, so much did everybody love it:
Andrea Wulf, "The Invention of Nature" (on Alexander von Humboldt's trip to South America)
Other than that, John Muir, "My First Summer in the Sierra" or "The Mountains of California" ... or anything nature-related that's on the Flat Book Society's list of nominated books for future reads:
ETA: Also, a book explaining the operation of physics in everyday life --the title sounds like it only applies to human society, but it's actually choc-full of descriptions how physics operates in nature (storms, water bubbles, peculiarities of certain marine animals, the mechanism trees use to draw water all the way to the top, etc.):
Helen Czerski, "Storm in a Teacup"
(And yes, that was a Flat Book Society group read as well.)
And now I'm going to hand over to Elentarri, who is bound to have about a million of recommendations *in addition* to the Flat Book Society's list ... :)
- Andrea Wulf - The Invention of Nature
- Squid Empire: The Rise and Fall of the Cephalopods by Danna Staaf
- The Evolution Underground: Burrows, Bunkers, and the Marvelous Subterranean World Beneath our Feet by Anthony J. Martin
- The Emerald Planet: How Plants Changed Earth's History by David Beerling
- The Goldilocks Planet: The Four Billion Year Story of Earth's Climate by Jan Zalasiewicz, Mark Williams
- When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time by Michael J. Benton
- Resurrecting the Shark: A Scientific Obsession and the Mavericks Who Solved the Mystery of a 270-Million-Year-Old Fossil by Susan Ewing
- Furry Logic: The Physics of Animal Life by Matin Durrani, Liz Kalaugher
- Storm in a Teacupt by Helen Czerski
- Germs, Genes, & Civilization: How Epidemics Shaped Who We Are Today by David P. Clark
- What Has Nature Ever Done for Us?: How Money Really Does Grow on Trees by Tony Juniper
- The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch by Lewis Dartnell
- Feral Cities: Adventures with Animals in the Urban Jungle by Tristan Donovan
- The Triumph of Seeds: How Grains, Nuts, Kernels, Pulses, and Pips Conquered the Plant Kingdom and Shaped Human History by Thor Hanson
- Where Do Camels Belong?: The story and science of invasive species by Ken Thompson
- The Horse: The Epic History of Our Noble Companion by Wendy Williams
- Atoms Under the Floorboards: The Surprising Science Hidden in Your Home by Chris Woodford
- Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew P. Walker
- Science and the City: The Mechanics Behind the Metropolis by Laurie Winkless
- Our Stolen Future: Are We Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence and Survival? A Scientific Detective Story by Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski , John Peterson Myers
- Tales From The Underground: A Natural History Of Subterranean Life by David W. Wolfe
- The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
- Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations by David R. Montgomery
- Where the Wild Things Were: Life, Death, and Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators by William Stolzenburg
- The Wild Life of Our Bodies: Predators, Parasites, and Partners That Shape Who We Are Today
by Rob Dunn (has written other books that might be of interest)
- Ocean of Life by Callum Roberts
- Papyrus: The Plant that Changed the World: From Ancient Egypt to Today's Water Wars by John Gaudet
- Resurrection Science: Conservation, De-extinction and the Precarious Future of Wild Things by M.R. O'Connor
- Venomous: How Earth's Deadliest Creatures Mastered Biochemistry by Christie Wilcox
- Earth Matters: How Soil Underlies Civilization by Richard D. Bardgett
- The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health by David R. Montgomery,
Anne Biklé
- What a Fish Knows: The Inner Lives of Our Underwater Cousins by Jonathan Balcombe
- Inheritors of the Earth: How Nature Is Thriving in an Age of Extinction by Chris D. Thomas
- Ocean Worlds: The Story of Seas on Earth and Other Planets by Jan Zalasiewicz, Mark Williams
- Napoleon's Buttons by Penny Le Couteur, Jay Burreson
- The Spark of Life: Electricity in the Human Body by Frances Ashcroft
- The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions by David Quammen
- Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature by Janine M. Benyus
- The Gecko’s Foot: How Scientists are Taking a Leaf from Nature's Book by Peter Forbes
- Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine by Randolph M. Nesse, George C. Williams
- The Naked Ape: A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal by Desmond Morris
- The Killers Within: The Deadly Rise Of Drug-Resistant Bacteria by Michael Shnayerson, Mark J. Plotkin
- Parasite Rex by Carl Zimmer
- Rhythms Of Life by Russell Foster, Leon Kreitzman
- Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life by Nick Lane
- Voyage of the Turtle: In Pursuit of the Earth's Last Dinosaur by Carl Safina
- Your Inner Fish: The amazing discovery of our 375-million-year-old ancestor by Neil Shubin
- Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers the Surprising Connections Between Disease and Longevity by Sharon Moalem
- Witness to Extinction: How We Failed to Save the Yangtze River Dolphin by Samuel T. Turvey
- Octopus: The Ocean's Intelligent Invertebrate by Jennifer A. Mather, Roland C. Anderson, James B. Wood
- Eels: An Exploration, from New Zealand to the Sargasso, of the World's Most Mysterious Fish
by James Prosek
- Poseidon's Steed: The Story of Seahorses, From Myth to Reality by Helen Scales
- Superbug: The Fatal Menace of MRSA by Maryn McKenna
- Kraken: The Curious, Exciting, and Slightly Disturbing Science of Squid by Wendy Williams
- Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle by Thor Hanson
- Demon Fish: Travels Through the Hidden World of Sharks by Juliet Eilperin
- Survivors; the Animals and Plants that Time has Left Behind by Richard Fortey
- March of the Microbes: Sighting the Unseen by John L. Ingraham
- Horseshoe Crab: Biography of a Survivor by Anthony D. Fredericks
- Spillover: Emerging Diseases, Animal Hosts, and the Future of Human Health by David Quammen
- Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus by Bill Wasik, Monica Murphy
- Planet of the Bugs: Evolution and the Rise of Insects by Scott Richard Shaw
- How Plants Work: The Science Behind the Amazing Things Plants Do by Linda Chalker-Scott
- Domesticated: Evolution in a Man-Made World by Richard C. Francis
- Spirals in Time: The Secret Life and Curious Afterlife of Seashells by Helen Scales
- Restless Creatures: The Story of Life in Ten Movements by Matt Wilkinson
- I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong
- The Rise of Yeast: How the Sugar Fungus Shaped Civilization by Nicholas P. Money
- Food in History by Reay Tannahill
- Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky
- Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World by Dan Koeppel
- The Untold History of the Potato by John Reader
- Why Did the Chicken Cross the World?: The Epic Saga of the Bird that Powers Civilization by Andrew Lawler
- Tomatoland, Third Edition: From Harvest of Shame to Harvest of Hope by Barry Estabrook
- Trilobite!: Eyewitness to Evolution by Richard Fortey (but only if you have a fascination for trilobites)
- Unlocking the Past: How Archaeologists Are Rewriting Human History with Ancient DNA by Martin Jones
Books still to be published or just published that might be of interest to you:
-The Ape That Understood the Universe: How the Mind and Culture Evolve by Steve Stewart-Williams
- Seaweed Chronicles: A World at the Water’s Edge by Susan Hand Shetterly
- Buzz: The Nature and Necessity of Bees by Thor Hanson
- Spying on Whales: The Past, Present, and Future of Earth's Most Awesome Creatures by Nick Pyenson
- Still Waters: The Secret World of Lakes by Curt Stager
- Around the World in 80 Trees by Jonathan Drori
- The Curious Life of Krill: A Conservation Story from the Bottom of the World by Stephen Nicol
ok - I suppose I went a bit overboard. But I have no idea what Mike is looking for. "Nature nonfiction" is such a BROAD category. Everything is nature.
I think I'm going to move this post to the "TBR curating" corner of my browser windows, though. Looking through your list, I have a feeling some of these are going to seep onto my wishlist as well.
Thanks for the list, Elentarri, but I've already ordered several from the Flat Book List that TA sent. Including the cat book for July. I'm looking for books that strike a note with me if you know what I mean. I love cats so that book was a no brainer. Birds too - hence The Genius of Birds (although I've always believed birds were way smarter than people give them credit for). However something like the Untold History of the Potato, not so much. Thanks for all of your help, I'm set in that area.
- Sightings - Sam Keen
- The Thing with Feathers - Noah Stryker
- Birding without Borders - Noah Stryker
- Kingbird Highway - Ken Kaufman
- To See Every Bird on Earth - Dan Koeppel
- The Meaning of Birds - Simon Barnes
Andrea Wulf, "The Invention of Nature" (on Alexander von Humboldt's trip to South America)
Other than that, John Muir, "My First Summer in the Sierra" or "The Mountains of California" ... or anything nature-related that's on the Flat Book Society's list of nominated books for future reads:
http://booklikes.com/apps/reading-lists/840/the-flat-book-society-nominated-books
ETA: Also, a book explaining the operation of physics in everyday life --the title sounds like it only applies to human society, but it's actually choc-full of descriptions how physics operates in nature (storms, water bubbles, peculiarities of certain marine animals, the mechanism trees use to draw water all the way to the top, etc.):
Helen Czerski, "Storm in a Teacup"
(And yes, that was a Flat Book Society group read as well.)
And now I'm going to hand over to Elentarri, who is bound to have about a million of recommendations *in addition* to the Flat Book Society's list ... :)
- Andrea Wulf - The Invention of Nature
- Squid Empire: The Rise and Fall of the Cephalopods by Danna Staaf
- The Evolution Underground: Burrows, Bunkers, and the Marvelous Subterranean World Beneath our Feet by Anthony J. Martin
- The Emerald Planet: How Plants Changed Earth's History by David Beerling
- The Goldilocks Planet: The Four Billion Year Story of Earth's Climate by Jan Zalasiewicz, Mark Williams
- When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time by Michael J. Benton
- Resurrecting the Shark: A Scientific Obsession and the Mavericks Who Solved the Mystery of a 270-Million-Year-Old Fossil by Susan Ewing
- Furry Logic: The Physics of Animal Life by Matin Durrani, Liz Kalaugher
- Storm in a Teacupt by Helen Czerski
- Germs, Genes, & Civilization: How Epidemics Shaped Who We Are Today by David P. Clark
- What Has Nature Ever Done for Us?: How Money Really Does Grow on Trees by Tony Juniper
- The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch by Lewis Dartnell
- Feral Cities: Adventures with Animals in the Urban Jungle by Tristan Donovan
- The Triumph of Seeds: How Grains, Nuts, Kernels, Pulses, and Pips Conquered the Plant Kingdom and Shaped Human History by Thor Hanson
- Where Do Camels Belong?: The story and science of invasive species by Ken Thompson
- The Horse: The Epic History of Our Noble Companion by Wendy Williams
- Atoms Under the Floorboards: The Surprising Science Hidden in Your Home by Chris Woodford
- Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew P. Walker
- Science and the City: The Mechanics Behind the Metropolis by Laurie Winkless
- Our Stolen Future: Are We Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence and Survival? A Scientific Detective Story by Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski , John Peterson Myers
- Tales From The Underground: A Natural History Of Subterranean Life by David W. Wolfe
- The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
- Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations by David R. Montgomery
- Where the Wild Things Were: Life, Death, and Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators by William Stolzenburg
- The Wild Life of Our Bodies: Predators, Parasites, and Partners That Shape Who We Are Today
by Rob Dunn (has written other books that might be of interest)
- Ocean of Life by Callum Roberts
- Papyrus: The Plant that Changed the World: From Ancient Egypt to Today's Water Wars by John Gaudet
- Resurrection Science: Conservation, De-extinction and the Precarious Future of Wild Things by M.R. O'Connor
- Venomous: How Earth's Deadliest Creatures Mastered Biochemistry by Christie Wilcox
- Earth Matters: How Soil Underlies Civilization by Richard D. Bardgett
- The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health by David R. Montgomery,
Anne Biklé
- What a Fish Knows: The Inner Lives of Our Underwater Cousins by Jonathan Balcombe
- Inheritors of the Earth: How Nature Is Thriving in an Age of Extinction by Chris D. Thomas
- Ocean Worlds: The Story of Seas on Earth and Other Planets by Jan Zalasiewicz, Mark Williams
- Napoleon's Buttons by Penny Le Couteur, Jay Burreson
- The Spark of Life: Electricity in the Human Body by Frances Ashcroft
- The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions by David Quammen
- Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature by Janine M. Benyus
- The Gecko’s Foot: How Scientists are Taking a Leaf from Nature's Book by Peter Forbes
- Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine by Randolph M. Nesse, George C. Williams
- The Naked Ape: A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal by Desmond Morris
- The Killers Within: The Deadly Rise Of Drug-Resistant Bacteria by Michael Shnayerson, Mark J. Plotkin
- Parasite Rex by Carl Zimmer
- Rhythms Of Life by Russell Foster, Leon Kreitzman
- Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life by Nick Lane
- Voyage of the Turtle: In Pursuit of the Earth's Last Dinosaur by Carl Safina
- Your Inner Fish: The amazing discovery of our 375-million-year-old ancestor by Neil Shubin
- Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers the Surprising Connections Between Disease and Longevity by Sharon Moalem
- Witness to Extinction: How We Failed to Save the Yangtze River Dolphin by Samuel T. Turvey
- Octopus: The Ocean's Intelligent Invertebrate by Jennifer A. Mather, Roland C. Anderson, James B. Wood
- Eels: An Exploration, from New Zealand to the Sargasso, of the World's Most Mysterious Fish
by James Prosek
- Poseidon's Steed: The Story of Seahorses, From Myth to Reality by Helen Scales
- Superbug: The Fatal Menace of MRSA by Maryn McKenna
- Kraken: The Curious, Exciting, and Slightly Disturbing Science of Squid by Wendy Williams
- Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle by Thor Hanson
- Demon Fish: Travels Through the Hidden World of Sharks by Juliet Eilperin
- Survivors; the Animals and Plants that Time has Left Behind by Richard Fortey
- March of the Microbes: Sighting the Unseen by John L. Ingraham
- Horseshoe Crab: Biography of a Survivor by Anthony D. Fredericks
- Spillover: Emerging Diseases, Animal Hosts, and the Future of Human Health by David Quammen
- Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus by Bill Wasik, Monica Murphy
- Planet of the Bugs: Evolution and the Rise of Insects by Scott Richard Shaw
- How Plants Work: The Science Behind the Amazing Things Plants Do by Linda Chalker-Scott
- Domesticated: Evolution in a Man-Made World by Richard C. Francis
- Spirals in Time: The Secret Life and Curious Afterlife of Seashells by Helen Scales
- Restless Creatures: The Story of Life in Ten Movements by Matt Wilkinson
- I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong
- The Rise of Yeast: How the Sugar Fungus Shaped Civilization by Nicholas P. Money
- Food in History by Reay Tannahill
- Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky
- Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World by Dan Koeppel
- The Untold History of the Potato by John Reader
- Why Did the Chicken Cross the World?: The Epic Saga of the Bird that Powers Civilization by Andrew Lawler
- Tomatoland, Third Edition: From Harvest of Shame to Harvest of Hope by Barry Estabrook
- Trilobite!: Eyewitness to Evolution by Richard Fortey (but only if you have a fascination for trilobites)
- Unlocking the Past: How Archaeologists Are Rewriting Human History with Ancient DNA by Martin Jones
-The Ape That Understood the Universe: How the Mind and Culture Evolve by Steve Stewart-Williams
- Seaweed Chronicles: A World at the Water’s Edge by Susan Hand Shetterly
- Buzz: The Nature and Necessity of Bees by Thor Hanson
- Spying on Whales: The Past, Present, and Future of Earth's Most Awesome Creatures by Nick Pyenson
- Still Waters: The Secret World of Lakes by Curt Stager
- Around the World in 80 Trees by Jonathan Drori
- The Curious Life of Krill: A Conservation Story from the Bottom of the World by Stephen Nicol
I think I'm going to move this post to the "TBR curating" corner of my browser windows, though. Looking through your list, I have a feeling some of these are going to seep onto my wishlist as well.
- Sightings - Sam Keen
- The Thing with Feathers - Noah Stryker
- Birding without Borders - Noah Stryker
- Kingbird Highway - Ken Kaufman
- To See Every Bird on Earth - Dan Koeppel
- The Meaning of Birds - Simon Barnes
About cats. Not enough science for me, but it was a nice rainy afternoon read.