I’m of the pre-tv generation—and I think that makes a difference. Some of my most favorite were Richard Halliburton’s travel books: he claimed to have been in various forbidden places, including a night-time dip in the Taj Mahal’s reflecting pool. And he did have photos. [Not of the skinny-dipping event.] He vanished in the China Sea in a storm, on a Chinese junk. Which is a way for a writer to make an exit. I also read Edgar Rice Burroughs, both the Tarzan and eventually [as a teen] the Mars books. I read the Oz books, which have a lot about traveling and adventure, and I think that played a part. And I read Maneaters of Kumaon, by Corbett, about India before one ever thought of ecology. All those books were special to me, in that regard.
All right, another favorite books question: what books waked your sense of the natural world?
by CJ | Sep 16, 2010 | Journal | 78 comments
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oh yes, Gerald Durrell’s family and other animals -but I didn’t read that until we had it as an English book at school when I was, I suppose 13 or so. wonderful book, as are all his collecting trip books – so funny. they did a very good adaptation on the BBC which I have as well.
Does anybody remember a really old British children’s series, from the ’40’s, called The Five in…[Fill in place name]
The parents of the kids were somehow involved with British Intelligence, and this brought the family to various odd places while they tried to maintain normalcy, and on one occasion this involved an island with puffins. I have always had a thing for puffins ever since.
There was another book even harder to track, but it was a young girl growing up in Brazil, in the city, and it was generally a happy story—I think the biggest crisis involved one of the dance festivals—and all the detail about the rain and the tropical environment was absolutely atmospheric.
Yes, I think I read some of those Five books many years ago. Were they by Enid Bagnold? Or maybe she wrote a different set of books. But I remember one with puffins.
I’ve just ordered the Gerard Durrell book, of which I had never heard. Isn’t this a fine and splendid place!
Enid Blyton, the Famous Five! yes, I read some of those. there was a dog called Timmy and a girl called George that I identified with, as she was an antidote to all those namby pamby girly girls we had to read about in the 50’s. it was an Uncle who had some connection to intelligence I think, and one never met the parents, as far as I remember …
I read all of Enid Blyton’s books and the library had a long waiting list for them when each new one came out.
I read those, too, as a kid – they had been my aunt’s and I found them on a shelf at my grandparent’s cottage. I reread one or two some years ago and they’re true horror, to a modern mind (just as one of the most important /except LOTR, lol/ books when I was a pre-teen – Heinlein’s Space Cadet…). Almost unreadable, except with a shudder and a wince…
Jules Verne “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”, “Five Weeks In A Balloon”, “Master Of The World”, “Around the World In Eighty Days”. There was a Random House Young Readers collection/book club when I was a kid. It had a lot of titles on Geographical/historical subjects, such as the exploration of the artic, building of the Panama Canal, setelment of Australia and similar. While not a book, Just listening to my Dad talk about the three years he spent in thn Briton during WWII.
I visited London in 1972 and it lived up to his descriptions. Probably my favorite city of all time.
I remember being miffed that our grade wasn’t going to read My Side of the Mountain, but some turgid family-oriented story. I loved that book, having discovered it in second or third grade. My favorites were books where the protagonist went off and lived off the land for a while, either voluntarily or involuntarily. I remember one book where three teens were shipwrecked, and rebuilt civilization from a handful of textbooks and the ship’s carpenter’s chest… shades of Swiss Family Robinson (another favorite!)
My family had a subscription to National Geographic for several years, and I was always fascinated by all the exotic places. When I found out that some of the writers had also written books, I hit the library for copies. I blame NatGeo for my fascination with herbalism, especially Euell Gibbons’ Stalking the… series.
Thank you, Chondrite, for mentioning My Side of the Mountain. That was definitely one of my favorite books for imaging how would live, through the seasons, alone in the wild. My fourth or fifth grade teacher read it aloud to us and then I read it numerous times to myself. Jean Craighead George, the author is a naturalist/conservationist and has written numerous nature-set books. If I remember correctly, Julie of the Wolves won a Newberry.
The Society of Insects, E.O. Wilson, and to a lesser degree The Second Jungle Book, Rudyard Kipling. The Chapter “Letting in the Jungle.”
My paternal grandfather had National Geographic, and one I read the pages out of was the original trip into Tibet, where the camera roused suspicion, so almost the whole deal was painted. I must have been about Cajeiri’s age when I found that, and when my grandfather died, that is the one memento of him that I most treasure, that coverless, ragged National Geographic, which conjures memories of Prince Albert tobacco (the one tobacco I’ll tolerate) and lying on one of Gran’s thick hand-hooked rugs, while in that house without a telly, my parents and my grandfather and grandmother exchanged stories after dinner. I still have that magazine, and no dvd can replace it.
My favorite Nat’l Geo article, bar none, is the first one introducing Koko the Gorilla, from October 1978. The cover photo of Koko holding a camera was taken by Koko herself(!) in a mirror and the article explores how she communicates with humans via sign language. I remember reading that article and then immediately turning to the beginning and starting all over again in wonder. To communicate and understand minds across the species gap — how marvelous. I use that article in many of my anthro classes while asking the question “what makes us human?” While I am now less convinced that Koko has the full construct of language at her fingertips, to me the evidence shows she has the rudiments and them some of symbolic commucation and we can indeed “talk” to her and vice versa. Utterly fascinating!!
When I was 10 we moved from a one-cow, one-horse mini-farm in the Bay Area to 1600 acres in rural Southern Oregon which ranged from cottonwoods and then meadows along the river, through scattered scrub oak and buck brush in or along verges of the pastures and meadows up to and along the bench, and finally shale, scrub oak, pine, madrona, buck brush and manzanita on the higher hills. In various places there were traces of old wagon roads and abandoned graded right of ways. Every once in a while, nature would get a little too intrusive when something had died upwind, a 500 year flood that damaged every bridge or road between our side of the river and town, 2 fires over 100 acres in size that started in bone-dry vetch pea stubble, and the blood-curdling yips from a pack of coyotes on the track of something warm and furry. The books i recall reading first were the great Collie stories by Alfred Payson Terhune (don’t even ask me about idiotic needle nosed show Collies), typical sports and cars wish-fullfillment stories, a series about fire lookout stations by Atwater?, the leatherstocking saga, and lots of Heinlein.
When I was 7 my parents hadn’t afforded insurance: we lived in a one-bedroom house, my brother had just been born, and I had gone from sleeping in the living room to sleeping on the screened-in porch—shall we say we were getting by? But my parents took out a health insurance policy on us kids, because my brother had allergies and I was prone to ear infections.
So it seemed like a good idea.
Three days later, I broke my arm. Nasty break, an inch above the wrist. So now my parents had a baby about 4 months old and a kid with an arm that was in a plaster cast that, because of the nature of the break, [it took two tries to set] had to be casted for 3 months, at least, and I couldn’t go back to school for the whole 9 weeks. I can’t remember when I finally got out of the thing, but shall we say it had molded and I consequently had fewer friends than I started with. It was a good thing I lived on the screen porch. My one triumph was having used the spendy insurance.
My sole sanity during this period of being a social pariah was Carnegie Public Library.
Dad would bring me books; and I read. His office was 3 blocks from the library and I read everything he brought, with few exceptions: I read my way through the children’s library, and into the basement: the librarians had pity on me and let me read the more delicate books, the full set of Oz, and other, older books, that they reserved for people who read to their kids; and I was very, very careful, so they lent me all their particular treasures.
When I got that cast off, I was sooooooooooooo happy. And much better read. My parents bought me my own copy of Lucky Bucky in Oz for my next birthday. My brother grew up into a human being. We afforded insurance for everybody and moved to a house with two bedrooms. But I count myself as very lucky for having had that start in life. I didn’t suffer from it. I gained. Kids who have everything they want all the time can’t be as happy as I was that summer.
CJ, been there, done that 5 or ten years behind you. Twice I was laid up for a few weeks in high summer with HOT compresses and NO swimming in 90 – 105 degree heat. Sheesh! All the time while I was growing up, we were land-poor. There were a couple of times that the only we avoided going completely bust through unexpected and extremely fortuitously timed external income. During and after growth spurts in High School, my pants would stop a couple of inches above my ankle bones – as the locals would say “High waters”. There is a group shot in one Annual where I was standing wearing socks with horizontal stripes an inch or more wide and at least 3 stripes are showing. Going out for dinner was a very special annual or semiannual treat. Let me tell you, a broken-down cow-calf operation with neglected irrigation system and fences is labor-intensive and has a minimal or negative cash flow. I can remember one hot summer in particular when we had put up our 150 ton hay crop and the haying crew lined up for their checks and eveyone, including my older brother, was paid except me. Admittedly my work was probably worth a bit less than a full share, but the long days and the heat were exactly the same as they were for the rest of the crew. My mother acknowledged at the time that it was both absolutely unfair and unavoidable. I was very poor in the things one could buy; but rich in the experiences and lessons that one could earn by persevering and carrying one’s burdens responsibly and by being in touch with the land. I think the majority of my generation and certainly the ones that follows have grown up materially rich; and unfortunately lacking in the hard things that temper and strengthen one’s character.
When I was young my mother and I lived near Washington DC. National Geographic Society is headquartered in DC and had a series of presentations given by explorers and researchers. Mom and I had season tickets for several years, up in the nose bleed section of Constitution Hall. More than the written word, these lectures opened up the world. I remember an incredibly shy and young Jane Goodall talking about the chimps at Gombe (with a video and slide show) the season after she started her research there. The same articles you could read in NatGeo magazine wer first introduced in the lecture series, and I could barely wait for the magazine to arrive each month to read further about the lecture material. My love of travel and geography was sparked by a presentation about the seven smallest countries in Europe… I still remember the contrast between Andorra in the Pyrenees and Vatican City.
What an opportunity!
Forgot to list them: Vatican City, Monaco, San Marino, Liecthenstein, Malta, Andorra, and Luxembourg. Honorable mention to Isle of Man, Gibralter, Jersey, Gurnsey, and a host of other not-quite nations…
Just noted: you can still get Richard Halliburton’s books on Amazon, ditto the Five.
Ooh, ooh, ooh — going there now!
I’m with Busifer, despite living mostly in the LA area, though orange groves were common, in walking distance: I can’t remember not being connected with nature, and not especially by books. I remember opening, breaking in the spines to Mom’s exacting specifications, and reading my own World Book Encyclopedia at age six or so. And scaring myself by reading about tornadoes. I’m sure I read any number of other nature articles, but I don’t remember them specifically.
I remember swimming in the ocean, hiking in Yosemite and Mammoth Lakes (the other side of the Sierras from Yosemite, and quite the bargain off season!) I did a lot of sailing: a tiny Sabot by myself, and crew for my Dad’s Lido, racing. Later, I soloed in a sailplane. Cats are a good nature lesson, too; I learned a lot from cats.
Books? Lots of books! Verne, Burroughs, Tolkien somewhat late; Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, and some latecomer named Cherryh or something like that. And gobs of technical books, too: logic, computers, engineering–I was on the fence between hardware and software until I wrote my first program! Mom would take me to the library, and I’d come out with the ten or twelve book limit, split between SF and S, and goodness knows what the librarians thought about my ability to get through that much without renewing. This was my pattern until I could drive myself to the library.
I don’t remember many nature books, though that could be because my mother bought many, and I borrowed hers. I know some Time/Life books were in the mix. My parents worked in aerospace, and I have a strong memory of one book: The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, first edition. The third edition, free online, has a lot fewer pictures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki casualties; I’m not sure this is a good thing.
Goodness! That ended on a dark note! Next, I’ll start quoting Tom Lehrer.
reverting back a very long way up thread- Busifer I disagree! i reread one of the Blyton Five books recently, scouting for books for my children, and immediately remembered why I had liked them 45 years ago . The parents were never there, the children were resourceful and independent and usually camped outside somewhere, slept under what they called “rugs” – is this an English usage for blankets of some kind? ate from “tins” , dessert was “biscuits” – to a Southern girl this was strange :), and so on. In the one I reread the children were in a cave, with a ledge lined with said rugs. What adventure. I do agree the writing style is not what one is accustomed to these days, but they ensorceled me and the spell lingers. I wish I could get my girls to read them, but they stubbornly resist my reading suggestions.
Miss Bianca’s travels were also entrancing, and I think it may well have been her pavilion that gave me an abiding love for oriental decor, and E. Nesbit’s The Magic Castle is responsible for my love for castles.
Subject to correction by a native:
rug: woolen bedspread or wrap
tin: (tin) can
biscuit: cookie
Kokipy – preferences differ! 🙂 The reason I found them dated is the society they take place in vanished on the horizon long long ago, at least here in Sweden, and as that was a society that thought women should stay chained to the kitchen I don’t mourn.
That “George” was a girl just emphasised, to me, how a girl had to “pretend” to be male to be taken seriously.
Admittedly I’ve read more than a few more recent time books depicting such societies without wincing involved so perhaps it’s a combination of content and language, I don’t know…
rug = blanket of the thicker sort/floor covering, as in Persian rug. not used so much as blanket these days, more floor covering, as in pulling the rug from under someone’s feet. Enid Blyton’s English is somewhat dated, even quaint, and not what I would recommend!
Yes, we use that definition of rug now, as well. I was going for what the author probably meant.
We didn’t have many books at home and the library at my Catholic school was limited to nun “approved” books, most of which I found annoying even in first grade. However, shortly after I was born, a salesman talked my mother into buying the Encyclopedia Brittanica (which was hopelessly outdated by the time I went to school!) and some time early on I started reading the A volume. Most of it was over my head and I probably skipped a lot of entries. But then I came to the word “Aztec” and the world of history and archeology opened up for me. I received permission to read the older kids books on the Mayans and the Incas (mostly about how they were converted to Catholicism!) … and then onto writings about Native American tribes. After that I just would page through random volumes as I was a voracious reader. I became enamored of the word “Tanganyika” – so then went on a search for all writings about Africa. [I was so disappointed when the country became Tanzania.] I don’t remember particular books or authors, just images in my mind about what the world was like. I don’t know why my young mind found certain words exotic or why they would send me down learning paths…but I am glad because they allowed me an escape from the narrow world that confined so many of my contemporaries.
I read encyclopaedias too, mainly as a kid but I’ve been seen flipping pages every now and then more recently too 😉
My reason differed, though – for a large part of his active life my dad edited (and co-wrote) encyclopaedias for a living and encyclopaedias have always been around. When I was a kid the more kid-oriented (lots of images) were placed on low shelves, to be in constant reach for someone not so tall.
Now I own several, some topic specific, some more general.
I was another encyclopedia reader: I was sick a lot as a kid, and my parents really bit the bullet to get the house its only reading material, a 1949-50 edition World Book Encyclopedia, on the installment plan. I started with A and kept going. It had pictures, which made it even better, and I could understand it. I became fascinated with “Beebe” and “bathyscaph” and began reading the newspaper as well. The first story I remember following was the Berlin Airlift.