Timber Press – Books -Narrative Nonfiction

narrative nonfiction
How can someone who knows nothing about ecological restoration successfully rehab 200 acres of retired farmland? In Bad Naturalist, her self-deprecating, humorous, and thoroughly engaging book, Paula Whyman tells us exactly how.
Douglas W. Tallamy, author of Nature’s Best Hope
With humor, humility, and awe, one woman attempts to restore 200 acres of farmland long gone-to-seed in the Blue Ridge Mountains, facing her own limitations while getting to know a breathtaking corner of the natural world.
When Paula Whyman first climbs a peak in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in search of a home in the country, she has no idea how quickly her tidy backyard ecology project will become a massive endeavor. Just as quickly, she discovers how little she knows about hands-on conservation work. In Bad Naturalist, readers meander with her through orchards and meadows, forests and frog ponds, as she is beset by an influx of invasive species, rattlesnake encounters, conflicting advice from experts, and delayed plans—but none of it dampens her irrepressible passion for protecting this place. With delightful, lyrically deft storytelling, she shares her attempts to coax this beautiful piece of land back into shape. It turns out that amid the seeming chaos of nature, the mountaintop is teeming with life and hope.
A vivid, many-faceted, and
Booklist
provocative ecological inquiry.
An “instant classic”, this genre-bending blend of naturalism, memoir, and social manifesto is a fascinating study for rewilding the city, the self, and society (Jeff VanderMeer, New York Times bestselling author).
During the real estate crash of the late 2000s, Christopher Brown purchased an empty lot in an industrial section of Austin, Texas. The property—abandoned and full of litter and debris—was an unlikely site for a home. Brown had become fascinated with these empty lots around Austin, so-called “ruined” spaces once used for agriculture and industry awaiting their redevelopment. He discovered them to be teeming with natural activity, and embarked on a twenty-year project to live in and document such spaces. There, in our most damaged landscapes, he witnessed the remarkable resilience of wild nature, and how we can heal ourselves by healing the Earth. Beautifully written and philosophically hard-hitting, A Natural History of Empty Lots offers a new lens on human disruption and nature, offering a sense of hope among the edgelands.
“Brown lives far from any conventional battlefield, but he is surrounded by the wreckage of a different war, and he, too, finds hope in cultivating the ruins of nature…A Natural History of Empty Lots is less a departure from the nature writing tradition than a welcome addition to its edgelands.” —New York Review of Books
“The nature writing we need now.” —Michelle Nijhuis, author of Beloved Beasts
“Incredible” —Kelly Link, Pulitzer Prize finalist
At once a short story, an essay, and a prose poem, ‘The Island’ reads both like a sketch for The Summer Book and a vignette of Klovharun … the text seems to change following mysterious tides from a timeless present to an urgent past.
Hernan Diaz, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
“Tove Jansson was a genius, a woman of profound wisdom and great artistry.” —Philip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials
In the bitter winds of autumn 1963, Tove Jansson—author of the iconic novel The Summer Book and the beloved Moomin series—built a cabin on a treeless island in the Gulf of Finland. For thirty years, Tove and her beloved partner, Tuulikki “Tooti” Pietilä, lived, painted, and wrote, energized by flora, fauna, the shifting seascapes, and solitude and shifting seascapes. Jansson’s spare, quirky prose, and Tooti’s subtle artwork combine to form a work of meditative beauty. Notes from an Island is both a beautiful chronicle of a rugged ecology and an intimate collaboration between to artists in love with each other—and the island itself. This edition also includes Jansson’s essay The Island, described by Pulitzer Prize finalist Hernan Diaz as “…a short story, an essay, and a prose poem … the text seems to change following mysterious tides from a timeless present to an urgent past.”
Praise for Tove Jansson’s Work
“It could be said that everything she wrote is, in one way or another, about the creative interactions between art and reality or art and nature.” —The Guardian
“It’s hard to describe the astonishing achievement of Jansson’s artistry.”—Ali Smith, author of Gliff and How to Be Both
“Her style is not at all ‘poetic’—quite the contrary. It is prose of the very highest order; it is pure prose. Through its quiet clarity we see unreachable depths, threatening darkness, promised treasures.”—Ursula K. LeGuin, The Guardian


personal journeys

Bicycling with Butterflies

Derek Jarman’s Garden

Ms. Adventure

A Natural History of Empty Lots

Psilocybin Therapy

The Return of Wolves

The Shotgun Conservationist

To Speak for the Trees

Something in the Woods Loves You

What We Sow
literary landscapes

Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life

Emily Dickinson’s Gardening Life

The Natural World of Winnie-the-Pooh

Notes from an Island

A Place Like Mississippi

Unearthing The Secret Garden

Writing Wild

The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder
discover the world around you

The Age of Melt

All the Presidents’ Gardens

Darwin and the Art of Botany

Experiencing Olmsted

Iwigara

Lakes

The Nature of Oaks

Our National Forests

Superconvergence
all about animals

The Insect Epiphany

Octopus

Our Native Bees

The Rescue Effect

The Weird and Wonderful World of Bats
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