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1. Tree, David Suzuki and Wayne Grady. This excellent
small book is chock full of more information than I have seen in books three
times longer. Elegant prose, outstanding science, and an ability to write with
clarity that paints amazing mental images of the tree as much more than a repository
of wood or an individual organism.
2. The Kite Runner. Khaled Hosseini. A book you can't
put down. A book that shows you the human side of Afghanistan, the culture
and conflicts, and the personal tale of guilt. The threads of this story could
happen in no other setting and the tale unfolds in such a compelling way that
you feel as though you are looking in to a real tale and real people.
3. How to Build a Tin Canoe. Robb White. This is pure fun,
but don't read it - listen to it. Unless you are from the south, you will never
be able to get the right accent. Every Yankee that loves a boat, fishing, or
adventuring will laugh outloud listening to this. We got the book from Audible.com
and are glad we did - what a hoot!
4. The Shadow of the Wind. Carlos Ruiz Zafon. This novel
is unusual in storyline and very compelling - an old novel begins a quest to
find the author and sets the young man who is captivated by the novel on an
odyssey that mixes his life and that of the novelist in a spiral of emotions
and events that ake the novel hard to put down.
5.The Work of Wolves. Ken Meyer. I am hooked. A novel
that is set on the edge of the Badlands and the Indian reservations of South
Dakota. The tension between greed and power and the desire to live with the land.
Domination versus acclimitization. Excellent writing and a can't put it down
book.
6. Nature Noir. Jordan Fisher Smith. What a great read. Reflections
and recollections from a California State Park Ranger that will change your attitude
about the nice job that rangers have, and demonstrate through humor, dramatic
stories, and colorful prose why the effort to protect the land for future generations
is so hard in this culture of personal gain.
7. Collapse. Jared Diamond takes us to corners of
the world that we have read about, but never combined in to a cogent discussion
on people's impact on the environment and the subsequent impact that the environment
has on nations.
8. Last Child in the Woods. Richard Louv. Psychiatrist
Louv pulls together all the resources to prove that we are not just hurting the
planet when we do not connect our children to the earth, we are also hurting
them. The creative time to roam, play with sticks, skip rocks, be non-structured
is productive time that our current too busy world does not allow.
9. Alexander Hamilton – Ron Chernow. This
exhaustive biography really gives a vivid picture of one of our important founding
fathers,
his complex personality and the interplay of the new country. It also dropped
Jefferson way down my list of admired presidents.
10. Memory of Running - Ron McLarty. I highly recommend
this on cd because the author is also the principal reader for Audible.com
and the voice is really strong in this book that follows one 279 pound individual
on a bike trip across the country that searches his purpose, his family, his
own values and makes a passive spectator on life face the possibilities of
making decisions.
11. Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides. Who would
have thought that a book that combines the tribulation and generations of Greek
immigrants with the strange world of the hermaphrodite could be so well written
and so compelling?
12. Hell and High Water – Peter Heller. The
first Kayak descent of the Tsangpao River Gorge in Tibet, but more a story
about the writer and the foibles of an expedition.
13. Buffalo for the Broken Heart - Dan O'Brien. The
story of a rancher risking everything for the dream of restoring bison to the
prairies and learning that more than the land is healed by learning from nature
what belongs - and it is not cattle.
14, The Forest For the Trees. Jeff Forester. A history
of our states logging, fires, and forest management. This is an outstanding history
that demonstrates that there are no places on earth that have not been impacted
by humankind. In it, he makes a case for a reasoned look at what we are doing
and what we need to do to keep forests in our world.
15. A Very Long Engagement, Sebastien Japristot. A
French novel of WWI that is a compelling story of a wheelbarrow bound woman who
refuses to believe in the death of her fiance. Her efforts to learn what the
military covers up, the insights in to the absolute waste of life of good young
men sent to fight useless battles, and the way that lives entertwine make this
book an excellent read.
16. The Grail Bird, Tim Gallagher. The phantom bird, mysterious,
deeply esconced in the swamp. For years it has been a quest and those who saw
it were ridiculed and silenced. But now - we can say, it is back, it is not extinct.
17. A Natural History of Fens. Robbin Moran. I admit
that this is not going to keep most of you awake at night, but if you truly love
botany,
this is the best book written about ferns.
18.Pathways to Bliss – Joseph Campbell. Once
again the words of Joseph Campbell present a wonderful philosophical journey
into myths, religions, and stories and what we learn about ourselves in our
own personal journeys.
19. Basin and Range, John McPhee. This was a reread
of a book that covers a geological journey that reconfirmed my belief that it
is one of the most enjoyable and best written books on the stories in the rocks.
Still good after a decade has past.
20. Dragon Rider – Cornelia Funke. I really
thought I was not going to like this, but it was a wonderful story, dragons,
brownies and more. I am not a fantasy reader, but this got me. However, the
real charm came because I did this on cd and Brendan Fraser was the best reader
I have ever heard – he was marvelous.
21. Dr. Tatianas Sex Advice to all Creatures. Olivia Judson.
All the kinkiness, complexicity, biology of sex through the species in a book
that uses humor and lightness to share real biology.
22. When God was
a Woman, Merlin Stone. A look at the female centered religions
that preceeded the Judeo-Christian-Islam religions and insight in the way the
Biblical stories were often an attempt to refute these religious beliefs - often
incorporating some of the stories of the earlier religions and always placing
the male ahead of the female. Good research and compelling
presentation.
23. The Cheating Culture, David Callahan. An eye opening
look at the way we allow cheating in school, sports, business, politics…and
often applaud the cheating rather than condemning it.
24. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell – Susanna
Clark The story of two twentieth century magicians in England. Their jealousies,
their competition, their desire to restore magic to the world and the complexity
of this simple wish.
25. The Time Travelers Wife - Audrey Niffenegger.
This is a very clever story that really gives a new twist to time travel. I
found the end weak or it would have been much higher on the list.
26.Eucalyptus - Murray Bail. An Australian novel
that chooses the most endemic genus in the world, Eucalyptus as a back drop
to the endemic culture that could only be in Australia's outback where a father
can still choose the heroic challenge that suitors must conquer to marry his
daughter.
27.Star of the Sea - Joseph O'Connor. A ship to the
US bringing both aristocrat and peasant from the famine plagued island of Ireland.
The story of class, famine, cultural clash, the suffering that accompanies
desperation and exodus plus murder and subplots.
28. Four Against the Arctic - David Roberts - as
much a story of trying to unravel the survival of four men in the arctic as
it is a story of survival itself.
29. The Love Artist – Jane Alison. Ovid – the
great historic poet of Rome, Xenia – a witch, an herbalist meet on exile,
they come together in Rome and we follow a quest for immortality, if we can
not be remembered and read in future ages what is the use of living? Good history,
good work with mythology, and a nice quick read.
30. The Master - Colm Toibin. A fictional biography
of Henry James, the preeminant author of post civil war US who fled teh US
to live in Europe where his creativity was unleashed.
31. Of Water
and the Spirit - Malidoma Patrice Some The story of an African
stolen by Jesuits when young who returns to his village to ground himself in
his peoples beliefs and ceremony.
32. DaVinci. Sherwin Nuland takes a look at the great
artist as a physician who is amazed and captured by DaVinci's anatomical illustrations.