Books like The Hidden Life of Trees

01

Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures

Merlin Sheldrake · Science

Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist who has spent his career studying fungi, and Entangled Life is his account of what fungi are, what they do, and why most people who think they know something about the natural world understand almost nothing about this kingdom of life.

A kindred science read.

02

Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest

Suzanne Simard · Science

Suzanne Simard is the forest ecologist who discovered that trees communicate and share resources through underground mycorrhizal fungal networks — the research that gave rise to the concept of the "mother tree" and, at several removes, Peter Wohlleben's popular writing on the subject.

Both dig into forest ecology.

03

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History

Elizabeth Kolbert · Science

The Sixth Extinction is Elizabeth Kolbert's account of the mass extinction event currently underway — the sixth in Earth's history, and the first caused by a single species.

Both dig into biodiversity.

04

A Short History of Nearly Everything

Bill Bryson · Science

A Short History of Nearly Everything is Bill Bryson's attempt to understand the scientific story of everything — from the Big Bang to the emergence of modern humans — by spending three years talking to scientists and reading science history.

A kindred science read.

05

On the Origin of Species

Charles Darwin · Science

On the Origin of Species, published in 1859, is the book in which Charles Darwin presented the theory of evolution by natural selection to the general reading public.

Both dig into biodiversity.

06

The Ancestor's Tale

Richard Dawkins · Science

The Ancestor's Tale is Richard Dawkins's account of the history of life on Earth, told backwards: beginning with humans and traveling back in evolutionary time to meet successive ancestors at the points where different lineages join.

Both dig into biodiversity.

07

Out of Africa

Isak Dinesen · Memoir

Out of Africa is Isak Dinesen's memoir of the seventeen years she spent running a coffee farm at the foot of the Ngong Hills outside Nairobi, from 1914 to 1931.

Both dig into nature.

08

Station Eleven

Emily St. John Mandel · Literary fiction

Station Eleven begins with an actor dying of a heart attack onstage during a production of King Lear in Toronto.

Both dig into interconnection.

09

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

Alan Watts · Philosophy

The Book, published in 1966, is Alan Watts's most direct attempt to explain the central illusion he spent his career examining: the belief that each of us is a separate self, enclosed in skin, confronting an alien world.

Both dig into interconnection.

10

Walden

Henry David Thoreau · Philosophy

Walden is Henry David Thoreau's account of two years, two months, and two days spent living alone in a small cabin he built near Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts, beginning in 1845.

Both dig into nature.

11

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Cheryl Strayed · Memoir

Wild is Cheryl Strayed's account of hiking 1,100 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail alone in 1995 at twenty-six, with no prior backpacking experience and a pack so heavy she could barely lift it.

Both dig into nature.

12

A Brief History of Time

Stephen Hawking · Science

A Brief History of Time is Stephen Hawking's attempt to explain the biggest questions in physics — where the universe came from, how it behaves, and where it might be going — to readers with no scientific training.

A kindred science read.