Why am I passionate about this?
For decades, I have been identified as a poet-farmer—I have a friendship with the earth forged through many seasons of cultivation, husbandry, and harvest. Enrolled in an MFA program abroad in creative writing, I found my way to Ireland, Oxford, and eventually to Cornwall, England, where I learned the art of cliff meadow farming. Returning to America, I became part of an agricultural revival called Community Supported Agriculture. I continued to write and teach poetry, enlivened by literature and the silt-loam soil of the Long Island peninsula. The language of the garden and the language of poetry and prose in sympathy with the earth, for me, are inseparable.
Scott's book list on our human relationship with the natural world
Why did Scott love this book?
I love this grand biography of a somewhat forgotten man who was one of the most famous figures of his time (second only to Napoleon). After reading this illuminating book, I now view him not only as a great naturalist and explorer but as a visionary whose ideas were prescient—including his anticipation of the ravaging effects of human-induced climate change.
I loved meeting—within the book—Darwin, Goethe, Ernst Haekel (who coined the word ecology), Jefferson, Thoreau, and so many others whom interacted with the great polymath, Humboldt. This book has had a profound influence of my own writing about the natural world.
10 authors picked The Invention of Nature as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
WINNER OF THE 2015 COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD
WINNER OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE 2016
'A thrilling adventure story' Bill Bryson
'Dazzling' Literary Review
'Brilliant' Sunday Express
'Extraordinary and gripping' New Scientist
'A superb biography' The Economist
'An exhilarating armchair voyage' GILES MILTON, Mail on Sunday
Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) is the great lost scientist - more things are named after him than anyone else. There are towns, rivers, mountain ranges, the ocean current that runs along the South American coast, there's a penguin, a giant squid - even the Mare Humboldtianum on the moon.
His colourful adventures read…