Staff Picks for Summer Reading

Posted: 26-May-2006; Updated: 09-Jan-2007

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What's your favorite environmentally themed tome? Send us your recommendations! We'll compile your favorites and publish them soon. Stay tuned!

The Big Oyster
By Mark Kurlansky

Recommended by:
Tim Fitzgerald - Scientist, Oceans

The Big Oyster is a 400-year ecological tour of the New York estuary through the eyes of a once prolific and valuable inhabitant: the oyster.

Kurlansky begins with Henry Hudson’s arrival, when bears roamed the land and 6-foot lobsters and 12-inch oysters filled the seas.The thriving industry that followed soon supplied half of the world’s oysters and fed the gluttonous habits of rich and poor New Yorkers alike.

Historical icons like Robert Fulton, Diamond Jim Brady and Typhoid Mary all had intriguing ties to the city’s oyster industry. However, New York’s appetite proved insatiable. The growing city’s disregard for its waterways ultimately led to the oyster’s local demise, but present-day restoration efforts aim to restore the Hudson River to its former glory.

Field Notes From a Catastrophe
By Elizabeth Kolbert

Recommended by:
Rosemarie Stupel - Public service director

Based on her eye-opening series in The New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert’s book on climate change brings the science to life. In lucid prose, she describes how global warming threatens the traditional way of life in a small Alaskan village, forcing its residents to relocate.

She vividly distills the stories of scientists who have unraveled the meaning of ice core samples, the evolving timing of mosquito larvae hatching and the shifting ranges of butterflies in England. Drawing disturbing analogies between today’s crisis and the fall of ancient Babylon, Kolbert challenges us with the enormity of what will be required to avert global warming’s most dangerous consequences.

An Inconvenient Truth
By Al Gore

Recommended by:
Mark Brownstein - Managing director of Business Partnerships, Climate and Air

An Inconvenient Truth is really two books in one. The first is a compelling compendium of pictures and text laying out the science and consequences of climate change. The second, interspersed through the first, is a set of personal essays by Al Gore connecting the climate change issue to the arc of his life.

Through these vignettes, the former vice president iillustrates how he came to discover what is important and true, offering his life as a parable to awaken our conscience. Gore makes a complicated and critical issue entertaining and easy to understand, but his real objective is to call you to action.

Island of the Aunts
By Eva Ibbotson

Recommended by:
Anne Lieberman - Associate vice president, Development

Though written for kids age 8 and above, Eva Ibbotson's sea adventure is highly recommended for readers of all ages who care about the oceans. When 10-year-olds Minette and Fabio are snatched from their lives by three elderly aunts and whisked to a distant island populated by mermaids, selkies and other fantastic creatures, they don’t understand their kidnapping.

But when two special visitors—the kraken and his son—arrive, the children gain a sense of purpose. With “huge and round and golden” eyes, the kraken is an enormous sea creature whose mission is to swim the world humming, healing the oceans. With wonder and humor, Minette, Fabio and the three aunts wage a spirited battle against bad guys of all stripes to help the kraken bring the sea back into balance.

The Omnivore's Dilemma
By Michael Pollan

Recommended by:
Ashley Rood - Program assistant, Ecosystems

"What am I eating? And where in the world did it come from?" These questions instigated Michael Pollan's new book, Omnivore’s Dilemma. Taking a naturalist’s point of view, Pollan follows the journey of four meals from farm to table: the corn-addicted path of McDonald's take-out, a home-cooked dinner of Whole Foods organics, dining off the grid with a sustainably grown supper and a modern hunter-gatherer's feast. Weaving together literature, science, and some serious hands-on investigation, this book illustrates not only the pleasures of eating the food you know but the serious environmental and health consequences of the way we eat.

The Swamp
By Michael Grunwald

Recommended by:
Margaret McMillan - Endangered species specialist, Ecosystem Restoration

Half of the Everglades ecosystem is gone. Whether an $8 billion rescue plan will succeed and be a model for future landscape-scale restoration remains to be seen. Washington Post reporter Michael Grunwald’s well-researched history chronicles the fabled "river of grass" from discovery through ecological devastation, to the present ambitious restoration program.

The Everglades is unlike any other place on earth—home to a rich, diverse flora and fauna that includes millions of waterbirds and dozens of endangered and threatened species. The area’s human life is also unique: outrageous real estate scammers, greedy entrepreneurs, Army Corps of Engineer follies, and passionate conservationists, making for a colorful and harrowing tale.

The Weather Makers
By Tim Flannery

Recommended by:
Bill Chameides - Chief scientist, Climate and Air

The Weather Makers, a parable about who controls the weather, develops along three major narrative lines. It begins with the story of Gaia, a synonym for Earth used to convey its interconnected biological, atmospheric, oceanic and geological systems. The second story line explains how humanity and our profligate fossil fuel use have usurped Gaia’s rightful, weather-making role.

Here, author Tim Flannery, an extraordinary scientist and engaging writer, details our growing understanding of great climatic shifts over the past 65 million years. He explodes arguments that past climate change has yet to be explicated and that we are therefore helpless to recognize people's role in current changes. The third story line presents two contrasting futures. In one, Earth’s climate passes a tipping point that leads to disastrous consequences. In the alternate, optimistic future humanity frees itself of fossil fuels and Gaia again assumes control of Earth’s climate. Though his discussion here gets a little muddled, such minor flaws do not detract from the book's tour de force.

Why Birds Sing
By David Rothenberg

Recommended by:
Jennifer Coleman - Internal communications director

"Is science willing to admit it needs poetry to grasp the full meaning of bird song?" So asks philosopher and musician David Rothenberg in his lively exploration of the tweets, squawks and flute-like songs of birds. Rothenberg covers a wide range of ground, from poetry to brain science, to investigate the aesthetic and scientific mysteries of bird song, its musical intricacy and its role in bird behavior.

The book shows that the wonder of bird song is not only in the diverse avian world, but also in the magic it sparks in the human imagination. (The latest edition includes a CD featuring musical improvisations between humans and birds!)

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