10 books like A Sand County Almanac

This is the book that made Edward Abbey and Arches National Park famous and is considered the Walden (from Henry David Thoreau) of the Desert Southwest.

Essay by essay, Abbey shows us Arches, Canyonlands National Park, and more of the Desert Southwest through stunningly lyrical and brilliant writing. An American classic and also the book that introduced me to Edward Abbey.

After I read this book, I was hooked on Abbey and desperate to explore the Desert Southwest.

I love Cape Cod and I was fortunate to live on the edge of the sea between 1997-2003. Skillfully written by one of America’s greatest writers of the natural habitat, it transports you to a place. It reminds me of what it felt like to live far out in Cape Cod on the North Atlantic at its furthest reach on the east coast of the United States. Living there for several years and spending time in nature with the sea, beach, dunes, and my bicycle, I learned to love its moods, wildlife, and great sense of mystery. I totally identified with this man’s extraordinary experience and how it was years ago. A wonderfully descriptive book that helps you experience with all your senses what it’s like to live next to the sea alone. 

Barry Lopez was a nature writer and environmentalist.

He died on Christmas day 2020, and although we are fortunate to have his valedictory book Horizon, published when his traveling days were pretty well behind him, Arctic Dreams is the real deal, with Lopez as raconteur, but practitioner too, thoroughly in his element.

Lopez writes about exploration and the aurora, animals and the weather, ice and myth and survival and joy. He’s effortless. You’ll learn more than you knew there was to know about the high north, and the pleasure is in the learning.

If you must cut to the chase with these five books, Arctic Dreams is the book, because Barry Lopez got things right.

Rachel Carson will forever be known for Silent Spring, her courageous, farsighted warning of our pesticidal poisoning of the world. But it was her three ocean-oriented books preceding Silent Spring that best showcase her artistic melding of meticulous research with her wide-eyed sense of wonder. And none more so than Under The Sea Wind, her first and most intimate work, tracing the seasonal travails of fish and shorebirds—living, heroic creatures we come to know by name—through their inspiring, interlocking circles of life.

The circumnavigation of the world by HMS Beagle (1831-36), with the young Darwin travelling as a companion to Captain Robert Fitzroy, was more consequential in the advancement of human knowledge than any of the voyages of Columbus, Magellan, or Cook. We sailed south into the Roaring Forties with Darwin’s highly readable narrative always at hand; more than half of it is set in Patagonia. It was thrilling to contemplate at Puerto Deseado the unchanged landscape that had brought to Darwin’s mind two lines from Shelley: “The wilderness has a mysterious tongue/Which teaches awful doubt.” And, as we left harbour, to skirt around an underwater rock that the usually vigilant Fitzroy failed to spot in time; it was marked on our chart as “Roca Beagle.” 

One of the things I love about his book is that Ms. Williams is a woman with a huge heart, who isn’t scared to write it down on paper. As a writer, I know how challenging it can be to bare yourself so deeply.

This story chronicles events over a two-year period when the Great Salt Lake rose and flooded wildlife habitats. She writes about the north end of the Great Salt Lake with such a feeling that she made me love that part of the earth, a place I’d never been.

She describes it with emotion that made me feel as if I’d lived there my whole life and wanted to protect it as much as she did. She combines the story of the loss of bird habitat, with the story of losing her mom to breast cancer which was caused by being downwind of nuclear testing in the… show more.

In a series of long-form journalist pieces, McPhee visits places where human beings are at war with natural forces: the long attempt to control the course of the Mississippi River and its floods, Icelanders trying to control lava flows with hoses, and a system of hardened channels and containments for massive mud and debris flows pouring down from the mountains behind Los Angeles. McPhee is at the height of his powers in this book, with his acerbic wit allowing the heroic futility of these manipulations to speak for itself.

McKibben is an American journalist, researcher, and founder of the environmental organization 350.org. His End of Nature is one of the first trade books to address climate change. Written in clear, accessible language, McKibben argues that nature has been thoroughly subjected to human forces that forever undermine traditional views of an environment set apart, pristine and original, from the things we have done to it. The biggest thing we’ve done is increase the average temperature above industrial norms, and this book is a classic framing of this issue. 

There’s no magic wand, no defensive armor, vaccine, or potion that can inoculate people against the influence of propaganda. But learning about propaganda is essential for people of all ages who want to hold on to their democracy in the face of threats. What will surprise you when you read this classic work, written in 1928, is how timely it remains. Bernays anticipates the rise of influencers and memes because he knows that people rely on thought leaders for most of their opinions and beliefs about the world. But the most important feature of this book is what he has to say about propaganda and democracy. Bernays convinces you that propaganda is not inherently evil, and he even makes the case that propaganda is necessary for democratic societies to flourish. 

After I backpacked the Inner Canyon and Tonto Trail for 10 days in Grand Canyon, I longed for a book like this: one that would wrap the massive creation of the Grand Canyon into a compelling story and explore the depth of human connection. Fedarko adeptly weaves in history, geology, environmental concerns, wildlife, flora, Indigenous culture, and climate around a thrilling dory adventure on the Colorado River—so much so that you feel you really know the park. To pair reading it with hiking or boating into the inner canyon yields an immersive experience where you can see, touch, and breathe much of what he describes. This book is always my first recommendation for anyone headed to Grand Canyon, and I’ll re-read it again during my next Grand Canyon visit.