Helen Macdonald's 6 favorite books

The acclaimed international best-seller recommends books having to do with the environment and the natural world

Favorites of Helen Macdonald.
(Image credit: Courtesy Image)

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $15). An indelibly powerful exposé of the terrible effects of pesticides, this 1962 book shaped the burgeoning environmental movement. Carson is a phenomenally important writer, and this book is more relevant than ever. We seem to have forgotten the lessons she taught.

A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold (Ballantine, $8). Wise and lyrical meditations from the 1940s on environmental ethics, human and natural history, and the passage of time. Some measure of how fiercely good it is: A well-read, retired U.S. Army colonel once told me that he considered Leopold to be better than Shakespeare.

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