Birds Through Indigenous Eyes by Dennis Gaffin with Michael Bastine and John Volpe

Staff Pick

 

Spirited in every sense of the term, this three-part conversation on Natural Law fuses ornithology, mysticism, native beliefs, and more to present what may be a world-changing perspective for most mainstream Western readers. Gaffin, an anthropologist, and his friends Bastine and Volpe, a native healer and native animal rehabilitator, respectively, draw on indigenous beliefs and personal experience to show how birds, with their diverse songs, colors, and textures and their unique access to both earth and heaven, remind us of our innate connections with Nature and each other, helping us to restore the original balance we’ve disrupted by forgetting we’re one part of a larger harmony.

Birds Through Indigenous Eyes: Native Perspectives on Birds of the Eastern Woodlands By Dennis Gaffin Cover Image
$27.95
ISBN: 9780691250847
Availability: Coming Soon—Pre-Order Now
Published: Princeton University Press - April 30th, 2024

Unrooted by Erin Zimmerman

Staff Pick

Zimmerman draws from her experience as an evolutionary biologist for this study of the past and future of women scientists in general and of botany in particular. With growing threats to biodiversity and some 90,000 unidentified specimens in the NY Botanical Garden alone, the need for botanists Is acute, yet fewer are being trained in this exacting—and unflashy—discipline. Meanwhile, women, especially mothers, are denied the positions and funding required to advance, as Zimmerman found in her PhD. and post-doc work. Eventually, painfully, Zimmerman left research for writing, a move that enabled her to open the wonders of plants to general readers—as she does beautifully here, recounting the history of herbaria, the methodology of taxonomy, the evolution of flowers from leaves, and much more, all graced with her detailed drawings of members of the dilleniaceae family.

Unrooted: Botany, Motherhood, and the Fight to Save an Old Science By Erin Zimmerman Cover Image
$28.99
ISBN: 9781685890704
Availability: Coming Soon—Pre-Order Now
Published: Melville House - April 16th, 2024

The Light Eaters by Zoë Schlanger

Staff Pick

The notion of plant “behavior”--let alone intelligence--has long drawn scientific skepticism. But what else would you call it when sunflowers that overshadow other plants never shade their own kind, or when sagebrush summons the one kind of wasp that preys on the caterpillar eating its leaves, or when a flower blooms early to take advantage of early arriving bees? Then there’s the boquila trifoliata, a vine that can morph into any plant it grows near. Following researchers worldwide, Schlanger reports on cutting edge work showing plants can identify relatives, talk to one another, recall, and pass down experiences. That they can hear, taste, smell, and respond to what they sense. How do they do all this? Whether it’s a range of chemical reactions, the result of a biome of micro-organisms, interactions with the environment or all of the above, the questions are changing how we look not just at vegetation but at all life.  

The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth By Zoë Schlanger Cover Image
$29.99
ISBN: 9780063073852
Availability: Coming Soon—Pre-Order Now
Published: Harper - May 7th, 2024

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