Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane

Title: Is a River Alive?

Author: Robert Macfarlane

Publisher: WW Norton & Company 2025

Genre: Nonfiction - Science

Pages: 384

Rating: 4/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Nonfiction Reader

Where I Got It: Library

Hailed in the New York Times as “a naturalist who can unfurl a sentence with the breathless ease of a master angler,” Robert Macfarlane brings his glittering style to a profound work of travel writing, reportage, and natural history. Is a River Alive? is a joyful, mind-expanding exploration of an ancient, urgent idea: that rivers are living beings who should be recognized as such in imagination and law.

Macfarlane takes readers on three unforgettable journeys teeming with extraordinary people, stories, and places: to the miraculous cloud-forests and mountain streams of Ecuador, to the wounded creeks and lagoons of India, and to the spectacular wild rivers of Canada―imperiled respectively by mining, pollution, and dams. Braiding these journeys is the life story of the fragile chalk stream a mile from Macfarlane’s house, a stream who flows through his own years and days.

The second Macfarlane book I’ve read, and while it’s not quite as good as Underland, it’s still an engaging piece of nonfiction science writing. This one is about rivers (of course given the title). He visits three river systems to try to understand the importance of rivers and their place in our world. I enjoyed the sections where he dive into the science behind the different rivers. The three chosen are vastly different and it was nice to dive into those differences scientifically. I loved learning about water systems and how they recycle and reuse the material around them. I enjoyed the history of each river system and learning how humans have altered those systems. Where the book started to fall apart were the longer sections at each section’s beginning where he spends more time telling you the history of a specific person. I’m sure they are all lovely people, but I wanted to get to the science and the nature. Overall, it’s a good read connecting humans and nature. I do want to keep picking up books by Macfarlane to sprinkle into my reading.

Next up on the TBR pile:

Forest Walking by Peter Wohlleben

Title: Forest Walking: Discovering the Trees and Woodlands of North America

Author: Peter Wohlleben and Jane Billinghurst

Publisher: Greystone Books 2022

Genre: Nonfiction - Nature

Pages: 240

Rating: 4/5 stars

Reading Challenges:

When you walk in the woods, do you use all five senses to explore your surroundings? For most of us, the answer is no—but when we do, a walk in the woods can go from pleasant to immersive and restorative. Forest Walking teaches you how to engage with the forest by decoding nature’s signs and awakening to the ancient past and thrilling present of the ecosystem around you.

• What can you learn by following the spread of a root, by tasting the tip of a branch, by searching out that bitter almond smell? 

• What creatures can be found in a stream if you turn over a rock—and what is the best way to cross a forest stream, anyway? 

• How can you understand a forest’s history by the feel of the path underfoot, the scars on the trees along the trail, or the play of sunlight through the branches? 

• How can we safely explore the forest at night? 

• What activities can we use to engage children with the forest?

Throughout Forest Walking, the authors share experiences and observations from visiting forests across North America: from the rainforests and redwoods of the west coast to the towering white pines of the east, and down to the cypress swamps of the south and up to the boreal forests of the north.

Randomly I grabbed this volume in connection with A Year in the Woods. This one was more how-to than meditations on nature. Overall, I found the various sections to be very interesting mini lessons on trees in North America. This feels like one of those that you don’t just read once, but keep around for reference as you explore the natural world. Pairing this with Ekelund’s book was the perfect week. In fact, I will be giving this pairing as a book recommendation to a friend at the retreat next month.

Next up on the TBR pile:

A Year in the Woods by Torbjørn Ekelund

Title: A Year in the Woods: Twelve Small Journeys into Nature

Author: Torbjørn Ekelund

Publisher: Greystone Books 2021

Genre: Nature Memoir

Pages: 256

Rating: 5/5 stars

Reading Challenges:

As nature becomes ever more precious, we all want to spend more time appreciating it. But time is often hard to come by. And how do we appreciate nature without disruption? In this sensitively-written book, Torbjørn Ekelund, an acclaimed Norwegian nature writer, shares a creative and non-intrusive method for immersing oneself in nature. And the result is nothing short of transformative.

Evoking Henry David Thoreau and the four-season structure of Walden, Ekelundwrites about communing with nature by repeating a small, simple ritual and engaging in quiet reflection. At the start of the book, he hatches a plan: to leave the city after work one day per month, camp near the same tiny pond in the forest, and return to work the next day. He keeps this up for a year.

His ritual is far from rigorous and it is never perfect. One evening, he grows so cold in his tent that he hikes out before daybreak. But as Ekelund inevitably greets the same trees and boulders each month, he appreciates the banality of their sameness alongside their quiet beauty. He wonders how long they have stood silently in this place—and reflects on his own short existence among them.

A Year in the Woods asks us to reconsider our relationship with the natural world. Are we anxious wanderers or mindful observers? Do we honor the seasons or let them pass us by? At once beautifully written, accessible, and engaging, A Year in the Woods is the perfect book for anyone who longs for a deeper connection with their environment, but is realistic about time and ambition.

This book ended up in a big check out stack when I was looking for forest school lessons for coop. Most of the books were geared toward children, but this one was a little different. I finally picked it up and started reading not quite sure what I was going to find inside. Ultimately, I was delighted by this slim memoir focused on Ekelund’s plan to spend 12 days and nights out in nature. Right away, I loved that Ekelund makes it clear that he doesn’t believe that everyone needs or should do what he did. Further, he doesn’t believe that that’s any one way to experience nature. This was a refreshing take contrasted with a ton of books that basically tell the reader that if they don’t spend a majority of their time outside, they have failed as humans. Throughout the twelve chapters, we get Ekelund’s actual experiences, but also meditations on experience nature and human nature. I found myself reading only one chapter a day wanting to let the ideas sit for awhile before adding more. This is a much better book than Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods, stripping out all the problematic takes and focusing on the experience of being in nature. Loved it!

Next up on the TBR pile:

Fuzz by Mary Roach

Title: Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law

Author: Mary Roach

Publisher: W.W. Norton Company 2021

Genre: Nonfiction - Nature Writing

Pages: 308

Rating: 4/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Winter TBR

What’s to be done about a jaywalking moose? A bear caught breaking and entering? A murderous tree? Three hundred years ago, animals that broke the law would be assigned legal representation and put on trial. These days, as New York Times best-selling author Mary Roach discovers, the answers are best found not in jurisprudence but in science: the curious science of human-wildlife conflict, a discipline at the crossroads of human behavior and wildlife biology.

Roach tags along with animal-attack forensics investigators, human-elephant conflict specialists, bear managers, and "danger tree" faller blasters. Intrepid as ever, she travels from leopard-terrorized hamlets in the Indian Himalaya to St. Peter’s Square in the early hours before the pope arrives for Easter Mass, when vandal gulls swoop in to destroy the elaborate floral display. She taste-tests rat bait, learns how to install a vulture effigy, and gets mugged by a macaque.

Combining little-known forensic science and conservation genetics with a motley cast of laser scarecrows, langur impersonators, and trespassing squirrels, Roach reveals as much about humanity as about nature’s lawbreakers. When it comes to "problem" wildlife, she finds, humans are more often the problem—and the solution. Fascinating, witty, and humane, Fuzz offers hope for compassionate coexistence in our ever-expanding human habitat.

I always enjoy Mary Roach’s brand of science writing, and this volume is no different. I’ll admit that this one is a bit more serious than her previous works. It’s hard to poke fun at animals killing people. But there are a few laughs here and there, mostly pertaining to human reactions to animals behaving badly. We get in-depth chapters on specific animals or groups of animals. We get to see how humans have affected the environments of animals and how those animals have reacted. Sometimes those interactions result in death, but sometimes they just result in annoyance. There’s a wide range in this book. I think I found the chapter on macaques the funniest and possibly the most informative. An overall well-done collection of chapters on the topic. Can’t wait to see what she writes about next.

Next up on the TBR pile:

Beauty of Earth

I found these pictures of various locations of earth from one of my "interesting" blogs.  The images were taken by satellites and then false color was added.  The one I feature definitely reminds me of Van Gogh's "Starry Night".  The green patches are phosphorescent plankton.  I love the swirls of the ocean compared with the green and brown of the land.  It's a beautiful contrast.  Seeing an entire island this small, I feel like a speck on the earth.  And really I am.  I am one of ~6 billion people on the earth.  One of ~300 million in the United States.  One of ~6 million in Indiana.  One of ~300,000 in Allen county.  I am small compared to those giant numbers, but I love these photos.  They give me a tangible perspective.  I am really enjoying the beauty depicted.  And after the day I had today, I need something beautiful.  So enjoy!

Gotland, Sweden