In 2013, Orion Magazine hosted a discussion between celebrated authors Rebecca Solnit and Robert MacFarlane on the evolving genre of nature writing. The far-ranging chat delved into the changing human relationship to nature and place, the power of words to inspire and effect profound change, and the need for an “ecology of nature writing” that holds space for historically suppressed perspectives.
Throughout the talk, both writers provided compelling examples of nature writing at its best: when it pushes the form forward. From Rachel Carson’s seminal Silent Spring to the poetic vignettes of Edward Abbey, find Rebecca Solnit’s recommendations below.
Rebecca Solnit’s Reading List
The Maine Woods, Walden & Essays by Henry David Thoreau
The Land of Little Rain by Mary Austen
Death Comes to the Archbishop & My Antonia by Willa Cather
Arctic Adventure by Peter Freuchen
Encounter with an Angry God by Carobeth Laird
Names on the Land by George Stewart
A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (also rec’d by Jane Goodall)
Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her by Susan Griffin
The Death of Nature by Carolyn Merchant
Gardens in the Dunes & Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit by Leslie Marmon Silko
Man in the Landscape & Nature and Madness by Paul Shepard
Blood Orchid by Charles Bowden
The Last Report on the Miracle at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich
The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin
Tracks by Robyn Davidson
Refuge & Leap by Terry Tempest Williams
Indian Tales by Jaime de Angulo
Dalva & The Shape of the Journey by Jim Harrison
The Owl in the Mask of the Dreamer by John Haines
Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez
The Unsettling of America & Collected Poems by Wendell Berry
Raven’s Witness by Richard K. Nelson
The Reindeer People by Piers Vitebsky
The Desert Smells Like Rain by Gary Paul Nabhan
Canaries on the Rim by Chip Ward
West of Everything by Jane Tompkins
Rowing to Latitude by Jill Fredston
Wisdom Sits in Places by Keith Basso
The Other Side of Eden by Hugh Brody
A Small Place & My Garden by Jamaica Kincaid
Hole in the Sky & Owning It All by William Kittredge
The Practice of the Wild by Gary Snyder
Tamalpais Walking & The High Sierra of California by Tom Killian & Gary Snyder
Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard (also rec’d by Laurie Anderson)
Dakota: A Spiritual Geography by Kathleen Norris
Eaarth, Deep Economy & Oil and Honey by Bill McKibben
The Destruction of the Bison by Andrew C. Isenberg
The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan
The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
Mountains of the Mind & The Wild Places by Rob MacFarlane
Things That Are by Amy Leach
(via Orion Magazine)