100 books like Make Prayers to the Raven

Snorkeling in a Hawaiian reef took on new dimensions for me in reading this book. Johannes–a noted fisheries biologist–went to Palau in Micronesia to study the breeding biology of tropical reef fishes. There, he came to deeply appreciate the extraordinarily detailed knowledge of the local subsistence fishermen who had contributed to his research. Their expert knowledge of the behavior and breeding cycles of local reef fishes was hard-earned through a lifetime of careful observation in pursuit of their livelihood.

By contrast, the expert knowledge of Johannes and his academic colleagues was broad but shallow. Combining Indigenous and academic expertise enhanced both. We also learn how Palauan communities conserved the resources of their reefs, practices disrupted by colonial administrations.

My first birding trip to the Sonoran Desert of southern Arizona caught my fancy. Then I read this book, in which Dr. Nabhan recounts lively details of his encounters with Indigenous communities at home in the Sonoran Desert and learns how they engage with the desert plants and animals in their lives.

Nabhan is an astute observer, an intensely sympathetic storyteller, and a highly knowledgeable student of local natural history. In this book, he visits Tohono O’odham (Papago) friends as they harvest saguaro fruits to make an intoxicating brew to “bring on the rain.” He tells us about fiery wild chilis and bitter wild squashes that Coyote “shat upon.” End notes ground his vivid accounts in the academic literature.

I embarked on my ethnobiological career as a graduate student and shortly learned I was not alone. My fellow student north of the border, Nancy Turner, was likewise passionately engaged with ethnobotany for her thesis. Turner was trained as a botanist but then devoted her decades-long academic career to documenting how her Indigenous neighbors and friends in British Columbia recognize, name, cultivate, and respect the botanical riches of their millennial homeland.

A key principle clearly articulated by her Indigenous teachers is that plants are our kin and that “everything is one,” so we must all live together in a harmonious balance. People must “look after” the land and support its many “persons.” This Indigenous wisdom is never abstract, but in Turner’s telling, it is always exemplified by real people, specific plants, and particular places.

I have shelves full of bird guides to all sorts of places. However, this guide is unique. It is a “bird guide” to the exotic avifauna of highland Papua New Guinea as understood by and in the words of a native.

It honors a decades-long collaboration between the ethnobiologist Bulmer and his Kalam colleague and teacher, Saem Majnep. This began when Bulmer arrived to document the ethnozoological knowledge and ecological practices of this isolated Papuan community. Saem Majnep, then a young boy, eagerly assisted.

The book is a conversation: Saem Majnep describes all the birds of his local habitat, writing in his native language. Bulmer then provides an academic perspective on Saem Majnep’s ethno-ornithology. Here, we have the benefit of a binocular vision of the avian worlds of this little-known corner of our planet.

It’s no understatement to say that this book changed my life. I read it when I was living in London, and feeling very far from my rural, outdoorsy roots. Richard Mabey is considered one of Britain’s greatest living nature writers, and I think the label is absolutely accurate. In this book, he describes an episode of depression and how he slowly rediscovered a living connection with his surroundings.

This book showed me how literature can sometimes bring us closer to the natural world, helping us to articulate and explore our relationship with living things. It made me want to write!

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.

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. 

Here is an excellent introduction to the “birders,” those amateurs, professional collectors, scientists, and artists—men and women—who have investigated ornithology in North America. The author, a Canadian, covers 22 fellow enthusiasts from Wilson and Audubon through Peterson, Bateman, and Sibley. She relates how each of her subjects studied and built upon the work of their predecessors to construct what we know today. 

Her book is well-constructed, easy to follow, and delightful to read. There are a few monochrome illustrations, portraits, and maps. I discovered this fine book during my research for my most recent book, and much admired the writing style and structural plan.

This is an excellent and fascinating book on the scientific culture of Renaissance Italy, where intellectuals and the wealthy elite began collecting and cataloging curiosities long before their northern European counterparts. Findlen demonstrates a key way in which Renaissance intellectuals could look back to an idealized ancient past while also creating new knowledge and institutions – namely the museum. This book is beautifully written, full of engaging stories, and shows a side of early modern science often ignored.

I found this a profoundly moving book. Late Light describes the author’s own journey, an Indonesian Australian making a home for himself in England, as he finds strange parallels opening up between his own life and the lives of the "unloved" animals he encounters.

Malay’s voice is intelligent, questioning, gentle, and meditative – quietly, movingly, he asks questions that reach through to the heart of what it means to be alive today.