Six new nature books for your summer. This is our top list to make your August a little wilder.
PORTUGAL FROM NORTH TO SOUTH
By João Nunes da Silva
Edições Afrontamento
Publishing date: August
Price: 39 euros
Portuguese nature photographer and journalist João Nunes da Silva wanted to write a book to show Portugal’s beauty and the deep and ancient connection between people and nature. More than 230 photographs and several stories (published both in Portuguese and in English) take the reader through the best that this country’s nature has to offer, visiting its ridges, forests, rivers, wetlands and coasts. Nunes da Silva, photographer for 23 years, has published other nature books: Aveiro Natural (2000), O Estuário do Tejo (The Tagus Estuary, 2002) and Fotografar a Natureza em Portugal e Espanha (Photographing Nature in Portugal and Spain, 2010). This new book gives us beautiful images, maps and useful information for us to discover the country.
THE LOST ART OF READING NATURE’S SIGNS
By Tristan Gooley
The Experiment Publishing
Publishing date: 31 July
Price: 16,95 Dollars
Its true, this book wasn’t published in August but on the last day of July. Still, just for a day we opened an exception. We want it in our reading list for August because it’s a must. The American writer Tristan Gooley has more than twenty years of pioneering outdoor experience. He knows nature as well as he knows the palm of his hands. With his first book, The Natural Navigator (2011), he started a renaissance in the art of reading nature’s clues. Now, in The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs – Using Nature to Find your Way, Predict the Weather, Locate Water, Track Animals and other Forgotten Skills, Gooley has compiled more than 850 tips that will help the readers understand nature´s hidden logic.
TOP 100 BIRDING SITES OF THE WORLD
By Dominic Couzens
Bloomsbury Publishing
Publishing date: 13 August
Price: 25 British Pounds
British ornithologist Dominic Couzens returns this month to nature book lists in Wilder, after we’ve written about Tales of Remarkable Birds last March. This time, the author brings us detailed accounts of the best birdwatching sites in the world, giving background and first-hand experience of what you can find there.
Each is ranked from one to 100. There are places all over the planet, from across Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia to South America and Antarctica.
VOICES OF THE WILD: ANIMAL SONGS, HUMAN DIN AND THE CALL TO SAVE NATURAL SOUNDSCAPES
By Bernie Krause
Yale University Press
Publishing date: 25 August
Price: 20 Dollars
Since 1968, Bernie Krause has traveled the world recording the sounds of remote landscapes, endangered habitats, and rare animal species. Now, in this book of powerful illustrations and compelling stories, Krause provides a manifesto for the appreciation and protection of natural soundscapes. He explains that the secrets hidden in the natural world’s shrinking sonic environment must be preserved, not only for our scientific understanding, but for our cultural heritage and humanity’s physical and spiritual welfare.
METAMORPHOSIS: ASTONISHING INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS
By Rupert Soskin
Bloomsbury Publishing
Publishing date: 27 August
Price: 30 British Pounds
This book illustrate some of the dramatic transformations insects undergo in their life cycles and we usually don’t see. Soskin book is divided into two main sections: insects that undergo partial metamorphosis such as dragonflies, grasshoppers and bugs; and insects that experience a complete metamorphosis such as butterflies, moths, beetles, bees, wasps, ants and flies. Soskin took two years photographing a range of selected species at each stage of development – from egg, to larva, to pupa and finally fully formed adult.
ILLUSTRATED COASTAL YEAR
By Celia Lewis
Bloomsbury Publishing
Publishing date: 27 August
Price: 20 British Pounds
Celia Lewis’s book is all about the wildlife found on and around the seashore, above and under water. The book is broken up into seasons, with each featuring illustrations of flowers, insects, animals, fish, birds, shells and all sea-related species found at that time of year. Lewis gives us tips on what to look out for and forage with uses for what you might find, including inspiring craft projects and tasty recipes by some of our best seafood chefs. Other sections include What’s Flowering (wild flowers and grasses), How To’s (e.g. how to read a tide table, how to recognise cloud formations), What’s the Difference? (gulls, flat fish, etc.); and What’s This? (ID guides).