Robin Wall Kimmerer | Milkweed Editions, 2014 | Book
If you haven't yet read this wonderful collection of essays, do yourself a favor and dive in. Robin Wall Kimmerer lyrically argues for using Indigenous relationships with other species as guides for ecological living.
M. Kat Anderson | University of California Press, 2013 | Book
An in-depth look at how the first people in what is currently California managed their landscapes and interacted with the non-human world. I return to this volume so often.
Jason Hribal | AK Press, 2011 | Book
Jason Hribal's research is astonishing. He has found and retold a huge number of stories of animals seeking freedom from behind bars — or modern zoo enclosures. It is a slim book but it may just change your mind about whether animals desire freedom even if they are well treated in captivity.
Rachel Love Nuwer | Da Capo Press, 2018 | Book
A fantastically readable account of the world or illegal wildlife trafficking by a very brave reporter. Some of the accounts can be very hard to read, so consider yourself warned. This is a dark world indeed.
Clare Palmer | Columbia University Press, 2010 | Book
Dr. Clare Palmer is a great philosopher and, I think, a very readable one, too. This book examines the same central question as my own book, Wild Souls, namely, the question of what we owe "wild" animals in a thoroughly humanized world.
Michelle Nijhuis | W. W. Norton and Company, 2021 | Book
This history of animal conservation really opened my eyes to how much the thoughts and ideas of key personalities have shaped how we see the whole endeavor of saving species. And wow does Michelle Nijhuis — who, full disclosure, is a good friend — know how to find and deploy the juiciest quotes.