Our beloved Gaia has been portrayed throughout the history of literature. In books, we usually see nature as the frame in which the plots are developed where the characters live, suffer, are happy, or die.
Stories about Nature bring us closer to its hidden secrets, make us reflect on its priceless value, and help us understand that true wealth is not money or jewels, but biodiversity, green meadows, forests, or animals (human and non-human) that live in complete freedom.
We present you ten books whose common denominator is the love for the environment told from different perspectives. Shall we start?
NIADELA, by Beatriz Montañez (2021)
It is the author’s own journey of dispossession. It is her transition from her role as a television host and collaborator to Niadela, a hut lost in the middle of the forest where she learns to know herself and the world around her.
In this book, Beatriz tells us what she observes and learns from nature and how she interacts with the animals and her new environment. It is inevitable to be transported to that hut as you read it. It is a precious gift for the senses.
THE LORD OF THE RINGS, by JRR Tolkien (1954)
A classic of the fantastic and epic novel. Tolkien’s love for nature is undeniable. It is reflected in the care with which he explains the landscapes: fauna, flora, seasons, climate… He tells us about ecosystems, geology and bioregions, the sun, the stars, and so on.
Middle-earth is not only the environment that surrounds Frodo and his companions, but it is a character in itself in the story. And this is how we should treat nature, as something that is interrelated with the human being, without which, our life could not be sustained.
ANIMALES INVISIBLES. Mito, vida y extinción; by Gabi Martínez (2019)
This wonderful illustrated book presents fifty-one “invisible” animals. Animals that still exist and are difficult to see, animals that are part of mythological memory, or animals that existed and we will never see them again.
The authors take us on a journey through the Serengeti, Vietnam, New Zealand, and many other places, bringing us closer to these species.
It is not only intended to be a list of animals, but also to make us reflect on the biodiversity with which we live and the ease with which it can disappear. And how, through our actions, we can play an important and decisive role in the conservation or extinction of the infinite number of species we have the honor of sharing this world with.
LOS ÁRBOLES TE ENSEÑARÁN A VER EL BOSQUE, by Joaquín Araujo (2020)
Forest, grove, thicket, bush, woods, park, woodland, coppice, hill. These are some of the synonyms offered by the dictionary for “forest”.
This book makes us understand that nothing makes sense without forests. Our planet cannot exist without forests, and yet this civilization only destroys them.
We poison the manufacturer of the transparency we breathe and we do not realize that a tree is a point of support for our wounded humanity; we are not aware that without trees there is no life possible.
SLOW DOWN: BRING CALM TO A BUSY WORLD WITH 50 NATURE STORIES, by Rachel Williams (2020)
Rachel Williams unveils fifty stories of nature, the result of observation and calm listening to the world around her.
It is a hymn to serenity and to be aware of the magical events that we miss because of haste and hyper-productivity.
EN EL CORAZÓN DEL BOSQUE, by Jean Hegland (2020)
Jean brings us a story of a world that may be closer than far away if we continue at the pace we are going. The civilization of fossil fuels and the whirlwind of consumption collapses because one day the electricity is gone, and will never come back.
The Earth had been crying for help for decades, but, of course, it was not heard.
Nell and Eva are two sisters who accompany us in this story, in which, facing the unknown that is yet to come, both will realize that no government, no energy company, is going to give them back the life they thought was theirs. In reality, their life, their new life, is already in the forest that surrounds them, full of inexhaustible resources that, until now, have gone unnoticed.
SER BOSQUES, by Jean-Baptiste Vidalou (2020)
Western civilization is built stone by stone on the ashes of the forest. But, in addition to being destroyed for raw materials, forests are also devastated, because for as long as anyone can remember, they have been the refuge of free men and women, heretics and rebels, of all those who do not allow themselves to be governed.
Today, this political and economic dynamic of constant destruction of tree populations is called “land-use planning”, but it should be understood as a low-intensity war: against the forest, but also against the animal and human communities that inhabit it.
This book highlights those who defend the forests, often with their own lives. Because let us not forget that, in addition to bulldozers, tear gas and rubber bullets, in our democracies the murder of environmental activists has doubled in the last decade.
LA ESCRITURA INDÓMITA, de Mary Oliver (2021)
With beautiful poetic prose, La escritura indómita is based on a strong ethical impulse, linked to the land and the road.
Mary wants to remind us that we will not be better because we “are good”, but we will be better because we let our inner animal love what it truly loves.
We are here not only to know but to pay attention. There are birds that know more about life than we humans. We are invited to listen to the flowers, the rivers, the trees; to know how to enjoy happiness and joy.
BAJO EL VIENTO OCEÁNICO, by Rachel Carson (2019)
This title has been one of the author’s favorites, perhaps because she was able to demonstrate in it her love for the mysteries and wonders of nature: the life of fish, birds, and mammals that share the same habitat where sea, land, and air come together.
It is an intimate look and a brilliant narrative that manages, as Carson herself proposed, “to make the sea and the beings that inhabit it a vivid reality for its readers, just as it has been for me for the last decade.
TODO LO BUENO ES LIBRE Y SALVAJE, by Henry David Thoreau
Under this title is a wonderful anthology of Thoreau’s thoughts.
Here are collected beauty and chance, dawn and twilight, friendship and imagination, fashion and diet, freedom and insubordination, music and silence, Indians and wisdom, simplicity and money, travel and solitude, trees and birds, work and love… A beautiful gift for all those who know that everything good is free and wild.
Some of these books can be found in the independent publisher Errata Naturae. This publisher has a clear commitment to the planet and society and deserves recognition.
In future articles, we will provide you with more examples of publishers committed to sustainability.
Do you know of any other books about Nature? Do you want to share them with us?
