Writing
Note: New content tends to be in gold font. See also Literature, Art and the Environment and Book Recommendations
Contents
Anthologies
American Earth is a very comprehensive and excellent collection of writers. Some video interviews on the website. McHenry Stacks PS169.E25 A44 2008
The Best American Science and Nature Writing, various years Sci & Engr Library Stacks Q1.B47
Finding Home : Writing on Nature and Culture from Orion Magazine / edited and with an introduction by Peter Sauer McHenry Stacks GF75 .F56 1992 c.2
Outside 25 : classic tales and new voices from the frontiers of adventure / edited and with an introduction by Hal Espen McH Stacks GV191.6 .B46 2002
Web Guides
Magazines
E Magazine has recent cover story on green colleges
High Country News covering environmental news and the communities of the American West, reporting on national parks, wildlife, endangered species etc.
OnEarth NRDC magazine. Fall 2008 issue has interesting article on Sacramento Delta.
Orion Excellent articles on nature and the environment.
Outside Magazine features many great writers, including David Quammen interview
Bay Nature Magazine has more local stories (also short videos) Interview with editor, audio
Books
Fiction
(For Science Fiction related to the Environment, see Ecological and Social Utopias)
Strange as This Weather Has Been by Ann Pancake about coal mining region of Appalachia
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, who "won the Turner Tomorrow Award's half-million-dollar first prize for this fascinating and odd book--not a novel by any conventional definition--which was written 13 years ago but could not find a publisher. The unnamed narrator is a disillusioned modern writer who answers a personal ad ("Teacher seeks pupil. . . . Apply in person.") and thereby meets a wise, learned gorilla named Ishmael that can communicate telepathically. The bulk of the book consists entirely of philosophical dialogues between gorilla and man, on the model of Plato's Republic." McH Stacks PS3567.U338 I8 1992
Nick Hornsby A Long Way Down, (Penguin) is well-timed for the holiday season. The opening chapter, set on New Year’s Eve, portrays four very different individuals who find themselves, to their collective surprise, atop the same London rooftop with the same purpose in mind: jumping off and ending it all. Somehow, Hornsby manages to turn this into a brilliant, insightful, hilarious but never easy or sentimental meditation on what makes all of us tick, and how to keep going despite the despair that occasionally tempts each of us. Mark Hertsgaard recommends. Audio interviewwith author
Jim Houston
Prologue to Continental Drift
Cormac McCarthy The Road a very dark post-apocalyptic novel, winner of Pulitzer Prize by the author of No Country for Old Men review McH Stacks PS3563.A261 R63 2006
Non-Fiction
Ellen Meloy The Anthropology of Turquoise: Meditations on Landscape, Art, and Spirit UC online McH Stacks - F595.3 .M45 2002
Daniel Goleman has a new book Ecological Intelligence His blog also has an interesting related TEDtalk video.
Into the Wild, a film, based on a book, based on an Outside Magazine article by a great writer, Jon Krakauer, who discusses inspiration for the book. News segment on Chris McCandless. NPR audio interview. Krakauer also authored Into Thin Air about climbing Everest.
Reviews of recent books on the green economy and sustainability, including Van Jones and our own Andy Szasz
Confessions of an Eco-Sinner by Fred Pearce, traces where our things come from (includes excerpt).
The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen 12/08 Interview PBS
A Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir (Hardcover) by Worster, Donald Oxford University Press, USA, 2008 S&E Stacks QH31.M9 W68 2008 (also available at Santa Cruz):
"This is the most comprehensive biography to date of naturalist and Sierra Club founder John Muir. Muir, who declared, “I care to live only to entice people to look at Nature’s loveliness,” has had more impact on conservation and environmentalism than most who have succeeded him in his field (he died shortly before WWI). This fascinating book celebrates Muir’s contributions and legacy, while also revealing that he was a successful fruit-grower, a talented scientist and world-traveler, a doting father and husband, and a self-made man of wealth and political influence. Drawing from personal correspondence and collected interviews, author Donald Worster describes a patchwork life that is as beautiful and inspiring as the land Muir resolved to preserve." —Adrienne Mages
Rebecca Solnit is the author of many books, including Savage Dreams, Storming the Gates of Paradise.
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver, about being a localvore
Local Author Chuck Tremper's Book on Global Warming
American Earth, an anthology of environmental writing, being published today and edited by Bill McKibben, puts "green" back into historical perspective.
Diane Ackerman The Rarest of the Rare: Vanishing Animals, Timeless Worlds
Lester Brown's Plan B 3.0 an Environmental Call to Action (interview) Free download of book
Rachel Carson link to UCSC library book and video
Craig Childs The Secret Knowledge of Water : Discovering the Essence of the American Desert audio interview
The Natural History of the UCSC Campus
Unnatural History of UCSC is a book written by students in Jeff Arnet's Writing 2 class (excerpts)
Edward Abbey Excerpt from Desert Solitaire
Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins (see also eco-heroes), and L. Hunter Lovins (Back Bay Books, 1999). Its simple message—we can save the planet and make money at the same time—laid the blueprint for the 21st-century sustainability movement. Download free chapters. Here are several related videos.
Mark Spragg Where Rivers Change Direction
Wallace Stegner The Wilderness Letter
Introduction to Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs
New book of letters edited by his son and Professor Emeritus of American Literature at UC Santa Cruz, Page Stegner.
Terry Tempest Williams "Clan of the One-Breasted Women" Her new book is Finding Beauty see info on her, her new book and audio interview and another 09 audio interview
Never Cry Wolf : Amazing True Story of Life Among Arctic Wolves Farley Mowat
Poetry
Wendell Berry "The Peace of Wild Things"
W.S. Merwin PBS NewHour interview
Billy Collins poem on why we need to protect nature.
Felix Dennis is a complex person. He is a publishing magnate (lad rag Maxim), poet (warning: they rhyme), and the driving force behind reforesting Britain Video includes poem and report on Forest of Dennis).
Matsuo Basho is widely regarded as the finest Japanese haiku poet and nature writer. Poems
Jane Hirschfield sample poem with audio
Robinson Jeffers built a tower of stone just down the road in Carmel. There will soon be some events about him at UCSC. As earth scientist. Some poems.
Floyd Skloot interview and poetry reading
