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The Association for the Study of Literature and Environment's (ASLE)
List of Twelve Classic Nature & Environment Books

 

The Association for the Study of Literature and Environment is a professional organization of scholars, teachers, writers, and other individuals fostering the creation, appreciation, understanding, and teaching of literature from environmental perspectives.  Not long ago, they came up with a list of twelve classic nature and environment books.  Here's their list:

 

 

A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold (1949)

 

What can be said of Sand County Almanac?  It is simply one of the great works of nature literature and from it has sprung the environmental movement.  It was over 50 years ago that the book was first published, but his words and insights are as fresh as ever.  Another Review

 

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Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams (1994)

 

Refuge is a very different kind of nature writing.  Williams visits to Utah's Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge are counterpoised against a far more personal theme: the slow death of her mother from cancer. 

 

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Land of Little Rain by Mary Hunter Austin, 1903.

 

A series of poetic writings about the desert Southwestern desert, including observations about the flora, fauna, towns and Native American life.

 

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Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey (1968)

 

Edward Abbey is the undisputed the voice of the remote canyonland country of southern Utah and Northern Arizona.  No book describes this harsh landscape better and with more hard-nose poignancy than Desert Solitare. More Extensive Review

 

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Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko, 1977 

 

This is a beautifully written, though complex, stream-of-consciousness, novel about a young Indian who returns to his New Mexico home after being imprisoned by Japanese during World War II.   Deeply scarred by his war experiences, he seeks refuge on the reservation, but instead finds a world turned upside down with his father and best friend now dead.   Racked by hopeless and despair, he eventually find his way by embracing his people's ancient ceremonies.

 

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Walden by Henry David Thoreau (1862)

 

In 1845, Ralph Waldo Emerson, the great American essayist and transcendentalist, gave Henry David Thoreau the use of a piece of property that he owned along Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts.  On the Emerson property, Thoreau built a small cabin, planning to use it as a quiet place to finish work on a book that he was writing about a boat trip he and his brother had taken on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.  But he had something else in mind, an experiment of sorts.  Having lived with Emerson, and thoroughly steeped in transcendentalism, he wanted to see if he could apply transcendental principles to his life along the pond, working one day and spending the remaining six other days reading, contemplating and developing his consciousness.  His expeniences gradually evolved into his most famous work Walden.

 

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Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard (1978) 

 

Annie Dillard's 20th century version of Walden: meditative, insightful, and edgy. 

 

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Practice of the Wild by Gary Snyder, 1990.

 

A series of contemplative and insightful essays on the concept of wildness, nature, humanity and humility.

 

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Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her by Susan Griffin, 1978.

 

Griffin's early work of ecofeminism uses the structure of an epic poem to explore how male-dominated science, religion, and culture has conspired to subjugate women and nature.

 

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Arctic Dreams Barry Lopez (1986)

 

Barry Lopez (also the author of Of Wolves and Men) based this book on his years of experience in the Arctic.  The book is vast in scope covering geography, weather, natural history, and anthropology.

  

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Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962)

 

Rachel Carson's Silent Spring is clearly one of the most important environmental books ever published.  Using scientific research and persuasive logic, Carson warned of the consequences of careless use of pesticides.  

 

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The Solace of Open Spaces by Gretel Ehrlich 1985.

Gretel finds solace and a new life in Wyoming after the death of a friend, and in this small collection of essays, paints for us an engaging portrait of the rural west and its people:  ranchers, sheepherders, cowboys, and Native Americans. 

 

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