55 books like Listening Point

By Sigurd F. Olson,

Here are 55 books that Listening Point fans have personally recommended if you like Listening Point. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place

Ricky Ian Gordon Author Of Seeing Through: A Chronicle of Sex, Drugs, and Opera

From my list on saving my life when I was miserable.

Why am I passionate about this?

I felt, after the AIDS crisis, as if I had been one person before it and another after it. I lost so many friends, collaborators, colleagues, and then finally, my own lover, I felt like the shell-shocked survivor of a war after it at least abated somewhat. Then my two sisters and both my parents died, and I became someone whose topic, no matter how veiled it is, is grief and loss. I am a living coffin on its way to a funeral to the sound of a cortège I composed.

Ricky's book list on saving my life when I was miserable

Ricky Ian Gordon Why did Ricky love this book?

Terry Tempest Williams is a Utah-based poet and naturalist who writes in this book about her mother's devastating cancer diagnosis and the rising of the Great South Lake in 1983, which was endangering the bird population by which Terry measured her life.

The way she interweaves the human world with the natural world and how interconnected everything is, in some ways, in my memory, reminds me of the same power Mark Doty’s Heaven’s Coast had for me, in that I was mesmerized out of my misery by the incredibly specific descriptions of sights and sounds and even smells.

Her mother’s illness and the tragedy that was occurring in the lake were somehow embroidered together to feel like the same story. When my opera The Grapes of Wrath premiered in Utah in 2008, it was as if Terry’s exquisite book had iconized the state for me. Coincidentally, it was Mark Doty…

By Terry Tempest Williams,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked Refuge as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the spring of 1983 Terry Tempest Williams learned that her mother was dying of cancer. That same season, The Great Salt Lake began to rise to record heights, threatening the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge and the herons, owls, and snowy egrets that Williams, a poet and naturalist, had come to gauge her life by. One event was nature at its most random, the other a by-product of rogue technology: Terry's mother, and Terry herself, had been exposed to the fallout of atomic bomb tests in the 1950s. As it interweaves these narratives of dying and accommodation, Refuge transforms…


Book cover of The Practice of the Wild: Essays

Michael W. Shurgot Author Of Green River Saga

From my list on passion for the American wilderness.

Why am I passionate about this?

Since my late teens, I have traveled extensively in wilderness areas across the United States and Alaska, as well as in Canada, Switzerland, and Patagonia. Backpacking, technical mountain climbing, and canoeing have led me to appreciate wilderness for its own sake and to become a fierce advocate for its protection. Since moving to Seattle in 1982, I have hiked extensively in the western mountains and experienced a profound sense of peace and wonder in the wild. The listed books have deepened my appreciation of the wild's intrinsic value. I have tried to convey this appreciation to my readers in my three novels set in the American West.

Michael's book list on passion for the American wilderness

Michael W. Shurgot Why did Michael love this book?

As Roderick Nash is the scholarly historian of the term “wilderness” in the American mind, Gary Snyder is the sagacious philosopher of the term for contemporary America. I admire Snyder’s poetic style as much as his evocation of the meaning of “place”; i.e., how one can develop both a physical and a spiritual awareness of the wild around us and then transfer that awareness to a sense of one’s place in the larger country and then the planet itself.

From chapters such as “The Place, The Region, and the Commons” and “Survival and Sacrament,” I have gleaned what I can only term Snyder’s mystical appreciation of wilderness and its importance for the future of the human race. Snyder is truly the “High Priest” of how to “practice” the wild in one’s own life.

By Gary Snyder,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Practice of the Wild as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"This is an important book for anyone interested in the ethical interrelationships of things, places, and people, and it is a book that is not just read but taken in." ―Library Journal

Featuring a new introduction by Robert Hass, the nine captivatingly meditative essays in The Practice of the Wild display the deep understanding and wide erudition of Gary Snyder in the ways of Buddhist belief, wildness, wildlife, and the world. These essays, first published in 1990, stand as the mature centerpiece of Snyder’s work and thought, and this profound collection is widely accepted as one of the central texts…


Book cover of Encounters with the Archdruid

Michael W. Shurgot Author Of Green River Saga

From my list on passion for the American wilderness.

Why am I passionate about this?

Since my late teens, I have traveled extensively in wilderness areas across the United States and Alaska, as well as in Canada, Switzerland, and Patagonia. Backpacking, technical mountain climbing, and canoeing have led me to appreciate wilderness for its own sake and to become a fierce advocate for its protection. Since moving to Seattle in 1982, I have hiked extensively in the western mountains and experienced a profound sense of peace and wonder in the wild. The listed books have deepened my appreciation of the wild's intrinsic value. I have tried to convey this appreciation to my readers in my three novels set in the American West.

Michael's book list on passion for the American wilderness

Michael W. Shurgot Why did Michael love this book?

In John McPhee’s classic defense of environmental sanity and wilderness protection, the archdruid is David Brower, in his day among the planet’s most fervent environmentalists and defenders of nature.

Charles Fraser, a resort developer, labeled Brower a “druid”: i.e., “ a religious figure who sacrifices people and worships trees,” and I know of no other book that so starkly contrasts the urge to develop everything—even the Grand Canyon!—with the counter urge to preserve as much as possible of the wild before it is all gone.

I deeply appreciate McPhee’s format: a series of dialogues in which Brower and his three opponents extol their arguments fully and then engage in rigorous debate about their wildly contrasting values.

By John McPhee,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Encounters with the Archdruid as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The narratives in this book are of journeys made in three wildernesses - on a coastal island, in a Western mountain range, and on the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. The four men portrayed here have different relationships to their environment, and they encounter each other on mountain trails, in forests and rapids, sometimes with reserve, sometimes with friendliness, sometimes fighting hard across a philosophical divide.


Book cover of The Curve of Time: The Classic Memoir of a Woman and Her Children Who Explored the Coastal Waters of the Pacific Northwest

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a highly experienced outdoorsman, musician, songwriter, and backcountry guide who chose teaching as a day job. As a writer, however, I am a promoter of creative and literary nonfiction, especially nonfiction that features a thematic thread, whether it be philosophical, conservation, historical, or even unique experiential. The thread I used for thirty years of teaching high school and honors English was the thread of Conservation, as exemplified by authors like Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, Edward O. Wilson, Al Gore, Henry David Thoreau, as well as many other more contemporary authors.

Mark's book list on creative nonfiction books that entertain and teach through threaded essays and stories

Mark Doherty Why did Mark love this book?

As I read M. Wylie Blanchet’s book, I myself was transported through time to one of the most magical and beautiful places in North America—the islands, bays, fjords, and estuaries of British Columbia.

In addition to being right on the water and immersed in the great forests, I was also, like her young children, at school, constantly learning new things about history, culture, ecology, philosophy, and even seamanship! The lively dialogue also made me feel like one of the family, conversing easily as we explored a land that was at that time, very sparsely populated by humanity.

Throughout the book, I noticed and enjoyed a theme of a rich cultural history that portrayed both the First People cultures as well as the fiercely independent and tough early Europeans who settled in select places along the coast. 

By M. Wylie Blanchet,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Curve of Time as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

After her husband died in 1927, leaving her with five small children, everyone expected the struggles of single motherhood on a remote island to overcome M. Wylie Blanchet. Instead, this courageous woman became one of the pioneers of "family travel," acting as both mother and captain of the twenty-five-foot boat that became her family's home during the long Northwest summers. Blanchet's lyrically written account reads like fantastic fiction, but her adventures are all very real. There are dangersrough water, bad weather, wild animalsbut there are also the quiet respect and deep peace of a woman teaching her children the wonder…


Book cover of All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten: Uncommon Thoughts on Common Things

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a highly experienced outdoorsman, musician, songwriter, and backcountry guide who chose teaching as a day job. As a writer, however, I am a promoter of creative and literary nonfiction, especially nonfiction that features a thematic thread, whether it be philosophical, conservation, historical, or even unique experiential. The thread I used for thirty years of teaching high school and honors English was the thread of Conservation, as exemplified by authors like Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, Edward O. Wilson, Al Gore, Henry David Thoreau, as well as many other more contemporary authors.

Mark's book list on creative nonfiction books that entertain and teach through threaded essays and stories

Mark Doherty Why did Mark love this book?

A sense of light-hearted serendipity in Fulghum’s book made me smile during every single essay in this book.

Naturally, the theme of children learning ran through the book, but I particularly enjoyed the more subtle theme of adults learning from children and childlike innocence, which was delightful and insightful. The short, concise essays were quite diverse as well and encompassed much more than just teaching stories.

I could pick the book up any time and enjoy any chapter all by itself. I loved that so many of the stories were focused on extraordinary insights about ordinary people that Fulghum encountered over time. I really enjoyed taking moments out of an often stressful life to laugh and smile with Fulghum’s essays! 

By Robert Fulghum,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Essays on life that will resonate deeply as readers discover how universal insights can be found in ordinary events.

More than thirty years ago, Robert Fulghum published a simple credo—a credo that became the phenomenal #1 New York Times bestseller All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Today, after being embraced around the world and selling more than seven million copies, Fulghum’s book retains the potency of a common though no less relevant piece of wisdom: that the most basic aspects of life bear its most important opportunities.

Here Fulghum engages us with musings on life, death,…


Book cover of The Only Kayak: A Journey Into The Heart Of Alaska

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a highly experienced outdoorsman, musician, songwriter, and backcountry guide who chose teaching as a day job. As a writer, however, I am a promoter of creative and literary nonfiction, especially nonfiction that features a thematic thread, whether it be philosophical, conservation, historical, or even unique experiential. The thread I used for thirty years of teaching high school and honors English was the thread of Conservation, as exemplified by authors like Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, Edward O. Wilson, Al Gore, Henry David Thoreau, as well as many other more contemporary authors.

Mark's book list on creative nonfiction books that entertain and teach through threaded essays and stories

Mark Doherty Why did Mark love this book?

I felt like I was actually in the Alaskan wilds, ocean kayaking, hiking, camping, and exploring while reading Kim Heacox’s book. His descriptions, sensory imagery, and recounting of adventure and experiences both on and off the water made me feel like I was on the trip with him.

His interaction with wild animals was amazing and often was so exciting that it gave me chills. In addition, I enjoyed learning much about the amazing cultural and natural history of Alaska. The places, the people, and even the ancient past all came to life as I lost myself in this wonderful compilation of essays.

Throughout the book ran the poignant thread of human impact and change, which made me more aware and ready to vote for and write for change. 

By Kim Heacox,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Only Kayak as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this coming-of-middle-age memoir, Kim Heacox, writing in the tradition of Abbey, McPhee, and Thoreau, discovers an Alaska reborn from beneath a massive glacier, where flowers emerge from boulders, moose swim fjords, and bears cross crevasses with Homeric resolve. In such a place Heacox finds that people are reborn too, and their lives begin anew with incredible journeys, epiphanies, and successes. All in an America free of crass commercialism and overdevelopment.

Braided through the larger story are tales of gold prospectors and the cabin they built sixty years ago; John Muir and his intrepid terrier, Stickeen; and a dynamic geology…


Book cover of Wilderness and the American Mind

Michael W. Shurgot Author Of Green River Saga

From my list on passion for the American wilderness.

Why am I passionate about this?

Since my late teens, I have traveled extensively in wilderness areas across the United States and Alaska, as well as in Canada, Switzerland, and Patagonia. Backpacking, technical mountain climbing, and canoeing have led me to appreciate wilderness for its own sake and to become a fierce advocate for its protection. Since moving to Seattle in 1982, I have hiked extensively in the western mountains and experienced a profound sense of peace and wonder in the wild. The listed books have deepened my appreciation of the wild's intrinsic value. I have tried to convey this appreciation to my readers in my three novels set in the American West.

Michael's book list on passion for the American wilderness

Michael W. Shurgot Why did Michael love this book?

Roderick Nash’s brilliantly argued and thoroughly researched book was the bedrock of a course I designed on American Environmental Literature while teaching humanities at a community college. As a published scholar, I deeply appreciate the logic of Nash’s arguments and the historical sweep of his narrative.

Nash chronicles the prevailing opinions of early “settlers” as they encountered and then began fulfilling the biblical injunction to “tame” the “new Eden” they had discovered: their reactions to the Native people, whom they readily labeled “savages” (i.e., not European civilized); the amazing and dangerous wildlife, especially in the American West; and the huge battles beginning in the 1960s to preserve what was then still untamed on the North American continent. 

By Roderick Nash,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Wilderness and the American Mind as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Roderick Nash's classic study of America's changing attitudes toward wilderness has received wide acclaim since its initial publication in 1967. The Los Angeles Times has listed it among the one hundred most influential books published in the last quarter century, Outside Magazine has included it in a survey of "books that changed our world", and it has been called the "Book of Genesis for environmentalists". Now a fourth edition of this highly regarded work is available, with a new preface and epilogue in which Nash explores the future of wilderness and reflects on its ethical and biocentric relevance.


Book cover of Wilderness Essays

Michael W. Shurgot Author Of Green River Saga

From my list on passion for the American wilderness.

Why am I passionate about this?

Since my late teens, I have traveled extensively in wilderness areas across the United States and Alaska, as well as in Canada, Switzerland, and Patagonia. Backpacking, technical mountain climbing, and canoeing have led me to appreciate wilderness for its own sake and to become a fierce advocate for its protection. Since moving to Seattle in 1982, I have hiked extensively in the western mountains and experienced a profound sense of peace and wonder in the wild. The listed books have deepened my appreciation of the wild's intrinsic value. I have tried to convey this appreciation to my readers in my three novels set in the American West.

Michael's book list on passion for the American wilderness

Michael W. Shurgot Why did Michael love this book?

I strongly believe that anyone who wishes to appreciate wilderness for its own sake—for the sheer beauty of what the natural world has created—should begin with this collection of Muir’s essays.

Written during his travels in the High Sierra, Yellowstone National Park, Yosemite, Utah’s red-rock wilderness, the old-growth forests of Oregon, and Alaska’s Glacier Bay, Muir revels in the awesome forces of nature that have created the astonishing landscapes that he has visited. 

By John Muir,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Wilderness Essays as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Part of John Muir's appeal to modern readers is that he not only explored the American West and wrote about its beauties but also fought for their preservation. His successes dot the landscape and are evident in all the natural features that bear his name: forests, lakes, trails, and glaciers. Here collected are some of Muir's finest wilderness essays, ranging in subject matter from Alaska to Yellowstone, from Oregon to the High Sierra.

This book is part of a series that celebrates the tradition of literary naturalists―writers who embrace the natural world as the setting for some of our most…


Book cover of Rez Life: An Indian's Journey Through Reservation Life

Colin Mustful Author Of Resisting Removal: The Sandy Lake Tragedy of 1850

From my list on Minnesota’s Native American history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was attending graduate school in Mankato, Minnesota when I first discovered that 38 Dakota men were hanged there on December 26, 1862. I was shocked to find out that the largest simultaneous mass execution in United States history happened right where I lived and I knew nothing about it. Since then, I’ve dedicated myself to learning, understanding, and sharing the history of the U.S. – Dakota War of 1862. Over the years, I’ve discovered not just the history, but the legacy of that history for us today. Someday, I hope we all come to understand, and eventually break down, that legacy.  

Colin's book list on Minnesota’s Native American history

Colin Mustful Why did Colin love this book?

In Rez Life, David Treuer, an Ojibwe from the Leech Lake Reservation, shows us the real-life consequences of historical events and policy. Through scholarship and anecdote, Treuer teaches readers what it really means to be Native American in a country that has tried, time and again, to erase them. Rez Life is not the history book rendition of past wrongs and tragic events. Instead, it is an articulate, expressive look at the people who live with the legacy of those past wrongs and tragic events. It shows readers the Native Americans they won’t see in history books—the ones that exist today, fighting to overcome the trauma thrust upon them.

By David Treuer,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Rez Life as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A prize-winning writer offers “an affecting portrait of his childhood home, Leech Lake Indian Reservation, and his people, the Ojibwe” (The New York Times).
 
A member of the Ojibwe of northern Minnesota, David Treuer grew up on Leech Lake Reservation, but was educated in mainstream America. Exploring crime and poverty, casinos and wealth, and the preservation of native language and culture, Rez Life is a strikingly original blend of history, memoir, and journalism, a must read for anyone interested in the Native American story. With authoritative research and reportage, he illuminates issues of sovereignty, treaty rights, and natural-resource conservation. He…


Book cover of Safe from the Sea

Caitlin Hamilton Summie Author Of Geographies of the Heart

From my list on the families we have and the families we make.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a book publicist of roughly twenty years, a writer, and a reader. My award-winning short story collection, To Lay to Rest Our Ghosts (Fomite Press, 2017), deals with family, reconciliation, loss, and hope. My first novel, Geographies of the Heart (Fomite Press) was released in January 2022. It’s about the importance of forgiveness, the power of legacies, and the fertile but fragile terrain that is family, the first geography to shape our hearts. I am surrounded by books, live and breathe books, work with books. Lucky me!

Caitlin's book list on the families we have and the families we make

Caitlin Hamilton Summie Why did Caitlin love this book?

This is a novel about loss, family, and reconciliation, and it moved me deeply. It’s set in Minnesota, where I spent about half my childhood, and it deals with personal and family histories, which I find quite compelling. In the novel, Noah’s father, Olaf Torr, lives under the weight of survivor’s guilt. Years earlier, thirty men went out on the ore boat, the Ragnorak, and only three returned. One was Olaf. As the novel begins, Olaf is dying, and he contacts Noah, from whom he’s estranged. But Noah still hasn’t forgiven Olaf for his alcoholism. Also, Noah and his wife, Natalie, are struggling with infertility issues. But Noah and Natalie come to see Olaf, who starts telling Noah what happened on that boat. 

By Peter Geye,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Safe from the Sea as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Set against the powerful lakeshore landscape of northern Minnesota, Safe from the Sea is a heartfelt novel in which a son returns home to reconnect with his estranged and dying father thirty-five years after the tragic wreck of a Great Lakes ore boat that the father only partially survived and that has divided them emotionally ever since. When his father for the first time finally tells the story of the horrific disaster he has carried with him so long, it leads the two men to reconsider each other. Meanwhile, Noah's own struggle to make a life with an absent father…


Book cover of Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place
Book cover of The Practice of the Wild: Essays
Book cover of Encounters with the Archdruid

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