Sy Montgomery is the author of The Soul of an Octopus and dozens of other books about the natural world. Her latest, The Hawk's Way, uses a personal encounter with a hawk to explore what birds can teach us about nature, life, and love.
The Outermost House by Henry Beston (1928)
Beston's poetic declaration helped define what I attempt in my own writing about the natural world: "We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals … for the animal shall not be measured by man. They are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth." Buy it here.
King Solomon's Ring by Konrad Lorenz (1949)
A classic account of animal behavior by the man who founded the field of study now known as ethology. Patient, passionate observations of creatures as diverse as water shrews and graylag geese are scientifically revealing and filled with wonder, respect, and affection for each animal as an individual. Buy it here.
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