SAY YOU WANT TO START mapping out your summer reading plans? Look no further, because we got you. Talking plants! Owlets! Cool new vocabulary works! Johnny Appleseed! Climate concerns! Parenting tips! The holy ordinary! Check out these twelve new releases and pick your next read.
Words to Love a Planet
Ella Frances Sanders
(Andrews McMeel Publishing)
From Orion’s very own designer and Root Catalog columnist Ella Frances Sanders comes this enchanting illustrated lexicon celebrating the fascinating complexities of language, concepts, emotion, and the natural world. Meet two hundred niche words defined from over eighty different languages to help you better understand what you are experiencing in our changing world. This is a tender, nuanced book made to live on your coffee table so that it remains within reach when known words fail and you need a gentle place to land.
Spawning Season: An Experiment in Queer Parenthood
Joseph Osmundson
(Bloomsbury Publishing)
Since childhood queer scientist and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Joseph Osmundson dreamed of having kids. But as an adult, climate anxiety and economic unease had him reconsidering the notion of reproduction. Then came a proposition from old friends, a lesbian couple looking for not only a biological father, but also a co-parent. What follows is a genre-bending memoir that swims through science, race, caregiving, parental ethics, and the possibilities of building new kinds of families.
The Company of Owls
Polly Atkin
(Milkweed Editions)
When a chronic illness confines Polly Atkin to a tight radius, she turns to her plant and animal neighbors for company and is immediately won over by a clutch of tawny owlets. Balancing solitude and community, rest and retreat, the birds encourage her to think about her condition, and indeed the world at large, differently. For fans of Alice Wong, Brian Buckbee, and Elisabeth Tova Bailey’s The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating.
To See Beyond
Anna Badkhen
(Bellevue Literary Press)
From the coasts of Europe to America’s Great Plains, from Mali’s smallest villages to the haunts of her Soviet childhood, and in the pages of books upon books, Anna Badkhen contemplates the fundamentals of the human condition. With a wisdom, heart, and expansiveness reminiscent of Barry Lopez she asks: Why do we make the choices we do? How do we persevere amid personal and collective tragedy?
The Glorians: Visitations from the Holy Ordinary
Terry Tempest Williams
(Grove Atlantic)
A new book from one of our greatest spiritual and environmental voices? Yes, please! Join Williams on her search for grace amid head-spinning change. Watch her make holy the ordinary, find sacred in the mundane, and engage a difficult world with renewed intention. The Glorians is nourishment for the soul.
The Man Who Made Plants Write
Jagadish Chandra Bose, translated by Sumana Roy
(Yale University Press)
Often dismissed as idiosyncratic when he was alive, Bengali scientist and polymath Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858–1937) was ahead of his time when he challenged the hierarchy of living beings by suggesting plants could communicate using a vocabulary all their own. Through her lyrical translations of Bose’s original works, Sumana Roy reveals the revolutionary character of his mind, as poetic and philosophical as it was scientific.
Alaska Literary Field Guide
Edited by Marybeth Holleman, Nancy Lord, and Shaelene Grace Moler
(Skipstone)
Hello, Glacier. Hello, King Crab. Hello Lingonberry and Caribou, Alder and Chaga, Ermine and Grayling. Structured in the brilliant tradition of Cascadia, this is no ordinary field guide. It’s a love song to Alaska, divided into its diverse biomes (marine waters, boreal forest, tundra, and more) and sung by a multitude of contributors in the keys of art, ecology, and poetry.
The Elegance of Ferns: Portrait of a Botanical Marvel
Solvejg Nitzke
(Greystone Books)
Ancient, adaptable, and enigmatic, ferns are evolutionary and ecological marvels. Their understated elegance has captivated humans for centuries, inspiring art, literature, and spiritual traditions. So maybe pick up this lovely little green book and spend some time paging through its beautiful illustrations, fascinating science, and cultural connections, yes? Then the next time you pass a fern, give it a little pat of appreciation.
Little Apocalypses: Essays on Motherhood, Climate Change, and Hope at the End of the World
Kaitlyn Teer
(Harper Collins)
With evocative and tender prose, Kaitlyn Teer gives voice to the hearts and minds of so many parents, joining the pantheon of necessary books that reimagine raising children in the face of a rapidly changing climate. Part confession, part call to action, these urgent essays turn over personal, cultural, and scientific stones, ultimately inviting readers to move beyond paralysis and approach our uncertain future with curiosity and imagination.
Naming Nature: A Cabinet of Natural Curiosities for Word Lovers
T.A. Barron
(Amber Lotus)
Known for his bestselling fantasy novels, Barron is also a dedicated conservationist who writes extensively about the natural world. Here he indulges his dual loves—language and nature—and introduces us to a quirky menagerie and its etymologies like: Baby Tooth Moss, Moon Jelly, Huet Huet, Organpipe Coral, Morpho Butterfly, Hellbender, and the delightful Sarcastic Fringehead. As the subtitle, “A Cabinet of Natural Curiosities for Word Lovers,” suggests, this is also a book for world lovers. Before her death last fall, Jane Goodall dubbed it “a glorious book.” We agree.
American Rambler: Walking the Trail of Johnny Appleseed
Isaac Fitzgerald
(Knopf)
Yes, Johnny Appleseed was a real dude (John Chapman, 1774-1845), and yes, he roamed around planting seeds. Fitzgerald grew up admiring the folk hero/conservationist and set out to follow the footsteps of a kindred spirit, from Massachusetts to Indiana. Like all great journeys, this one veers into unexpected places. It’s a story of seeking, wandering. The narrative meanders, too—bits of history, mythology, travelogue, lots of bars and diners. Thoreau meets Kerouac meets Bourdain, it’s a yawp and a hoot, asking the question: what’s the point of today’s America?
An Armsfull of Birds: A Personal Guide to Love, Loss, and Commitment
Cara Benson
(Health Communications Inc)
In moving through both her intensely personal and her planetary grief, Benson examines the cycles of boundless love, indelible loss, and hard-won recovery in this powerful climate memoir. This honest, emotional story about the importance of meaningful connection, engaged living, and our commitments to ourselves, our loved ones, and the ailing world around us, reminds us that “loss has everything to do with loving.”
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