Annotated Table of Contents: Nature 02

Watchers at the Pond. Franklin Russell. This book describes the changes in the pond during the cycle of the seasons.

Fox at the Wood’s Edge: Loren Eiseley. Gail Christianson. Biography of a scientist, a paleontologist, who wrote essays on nature and its relationship to the far-distant, prehistoric past. His style is haunting and melancholy and memorable.

 Notes from Turtle Creek. Ted Browning. Essays. Makes a convincing argument for man’s learning to live with nature, not exterminating it. A naturalist helps us to see the world of nature with a fresh view.

The Outermost House. Henry Beston. Like Thoreau at Walden, Beston took up a solitary residence in a cottage on the beach where he could observe the life of the sand and the dunes and the moods of the ocean.

Twelve Moons of the Year. Hal Borland. Each Sunday, Hal Borland published essays in the New York Times on the seasons in Connecticut where he lived. He wanted to show New Yorkers that there was life outside of New York City. These essays are beautifully written, short gems with not a word wasted, describing the changing seasons in rural New England. His essays, one for each day of the year, are “sheer celebrations of life.”