{"id":862090,"date":"2025-07-12T21:14:41","date_gmt":"2025-07-13T02:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/12\/go-outside-and-touch-grass-7-inspiring-books-about-nature-and-the-environment\/"},"modified":"2025-07-12T21:14:41","modified_gmt":"2025-07-13T02:14:41","slug":"go-outside-and-touch-grass-7-inspiring-books-about-nature-and-the-environment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/12\/go-outside-and-touch-grass-7-inspiring-books-about-nature-and-the-environment\/","title":{"rendered":"Go Outside and Touch Grass: 7 Inspiring Books About Nature and the Environment"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Raise your hand if you\u2019re a book nerd who grew up thinking you were unquestionably an \u201cindoor kid.\u201d Me too. Then in my early twenties, I moved from the midwestern suburbs of my youth to an east coast city with countless parks and riverside hiking trails, located within a short drive of gorgeous beaches and some of the oldest mountains in the world. I fell in love with hiking (who knew walking uphill could be fun?), became a little bit obsessed with getting stamps for my US National Parks passport, and turned into a person who plans travel around seeing natural wonders. Experiencing the magic of nature firsthand made me want to read and learn more about it, which only increased my awe and my appetite for devotion to caring for our planet.<\/p>\n

Deepening our relationship to and understanding of nature is good for us both individually and collectively in myriad ways, which is why task #13 of the 2025 Read Harder Challenge<\/a> is \u201cRead a nonfiction book about nature or the environment.\u201d Whether you\u2019re in it to learn about science, fire up your sense of wonder, or fuel your activism, there\u2019s something for you in the recommendations below.<\/p>\n

Reminder: today is the last day to fill out the Read Harder Halfway Check-In Survey<\/a>! We\u2019d love to hear from you!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative<\/a> by Florence Williams<\/h3>\n

Going outside is good for you. If you somehow still need to be convinced, longtime science journalist Florence Williams has all kinds of data for you here. But what makes this book really compelling are the fascinating facts about how and why our brains react to nature the way they do. Tree branches, snowflakes, and pine cones all contain similar patterns that mimic the geography of our circulatory systems. Specific shades of green activate evolutionary pleasure centers. Birdsong, wind, and the sound of flowing water can help calm our perpetually fried nervous systems. When you understand how and why spending time outside improves your mood, creativity, and overall health, you\u2019ll be more motivated to do it. Plus, you\u2019ll be stocked up on fun tidbits to share the next time you invite a friend out for a silly little mental health walk. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man\u2019s Love Affair with Nature<\/a> by J. Drew Lanham<\/h3>\n

Oh, there\u2019s nothing like a poet writing about their relationship to the natural world! J. Drew Lanham\u2019s family has lived in Edgefield County, South Carolina for generations dating back to slavery. As he explores how his family\u2019s history and connection to the land shaped him\u2014he is also an ornithologist and ecology professor\u2014he complicates common narratives about Black identity in the American south. Lanham invites us to consider what it means to find beauty in a place that was once the site of incredible pain, and as he allows himself to become deeply rooted in his family\u2019s history, he develops an understanding of what it means to be rooted to the earth as well. This is a potent, singular blend of memoir, history, and nature writing. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America\u2019s National Parks<\/a> by Terry Tempest Williams<\/h3>\n

Honestly, you could read just about any of Terry Tempest Williams\u2019s work for this challenge. If you love nature writing and haven\u2019t yet discovered her, just take a scroll through her extensive catalog and start wherever suits your fancy. I\u2019m recommending this one right now books America\u2019s national parks are under attack thanks to budget cuts, understaffing, and a president who wants to privatize public lands<\/a>. Published in 2016 to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, The Hour of Land<\/em> is a memoir of Williams\u2019s experience in the parks, a history of the landscapes that have helped shape our national identity, and a call to action to defend them. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life<\/a> by Ed Yong<\/h3>\n

Everybody loves a good underdog story, and nothing in the natural world is quite as much of an underdog as bacteria. Sure, microbes can make us sick, but they also kind of make us who we are. Ed Yong\u2019s ode to the microscopic organisms that live in, on, and all around is as warm and funny as it is educational. You\u2019ve never had such a good time reading about potentially gross subject matter, I promise. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures<\/a> by Katherine Rundell<\/h3>\n

Fun animal facts aren\u2019t just for kids. Katherine Rundell presents a collection of fascinating information about endangered animals that will both make you a ringer at trivia night and activate your sense of wonder. Awe can be a powerful gateway to activism, and understanding how truly special the creatures we share this planet with are is a great way to get inspired to help them survive.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Saving Us: A Climate Scientist\u2019s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World<\/a> by Katharine Hayhoe<\/h3>\n

If you\u2019ve been looking for a way to talk about climate change without ruining family gatherings, this one\u2019s for you. Hayhoe is a skilled communicator who argues that while facts and data are an important part of changing minds, it\u2019s connection and shared values that really change hearts and inspire people to participate in activism. She draws on multidisciplinary research and extensive personal experience to offer a vision for how individual change can lead to collective action. There\u2019s plenty of doom to be found elsewhere. Why not practice a little data-driven hope?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures<\/a> edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson<\/h3>\n

Another good antidote to the feeling that we\u2019re doomed? Imagining what it would look like to be on the other side of the crisis. Here, climate scientist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson invites dozens of thinkers\u2014writers, poets, farmers, policymakers, philosophers, artists, and activists\u2014to picture \u201ca transformed and replenished world\u201d and what it took to get there. This is a creative and thoughtfully curated collection of inquiries and inspirations that will remind you there is always another angle, another question, another thing to try. <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

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