ASLE Classic Nature & Environment Books - Guide to Outdoor Literature

RECOMMENDATIONS:

TRAVEL LITERATURE BY
   JEFF TUCKER

OUTDOOR LITERATURE
   BY LIAM GUILAR

RIVER LITERATURE BY
   LIAM GUILAR

THE OUTDOOR EXPERIENCE READING LIST:

READING LIST FOR AN
   OUTDOOR LITERATURE
   COURSE

OTHER SUGGESTIONS:

HUMBLE SUGGESTIONS
   (A Few of Our Editor's
    Own Works)

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 and B&N.com: More Information

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. B&N.com: More Information

Land of Little Rain by Mary Hunter Austin, 1903. B&N.com: More Information

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 | B&N.com: More Information

Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko, 1977 B&N.com: More Information

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. See More Extensive Review | B&N.com: More Information

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard (1978)

Annie Dillard's 20th century version of Walden: meditative, insightful, and edgy. B&N.com: More Information

Woman and Nature by Susan Griffin, 1978. B&N.com: More Information

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. B&N.com: More Information

Practice of the Wild by Gary Snyder, 1990. B&N.com: More Information

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. B&N.com: More Information

The Solace of Open Spaces by Gretel Ehrlich 1985. Barnes & Noble.com: More Information

End of Listing

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