The Country of the Pointed Firs

Written By: Dina Gilio-Whitaker

April 2024 VLT Book of the Month

Explore the fight for environmental justice through the lens of the indigenous people who have struggled for centuries to protect their land. From foundational centuries-long tensions between government and corporate land takeover to new pressing modern-day issues, Indigenous researcher and activist Dina Gilio-Whitaker offers intriguing insight into “indigenized environmental justice”.

Using the Standing Rock protest as a starting point she highlights treaty violations, food and water insecurity and lack of protection for sacred sites that have been neglected by the mainstream environmental movement. These stories of injustices and the indigenous resistance against them are both inspiring and heartbreaking. But Gilio-Whitaker offers hope for the future because there is a way forward. Modern environmentalism must look to the Indigenous wisdom and the vital leadership of Indigenous women. Only through embracing this decolonization will our common fight for a sustainable and just future be found.

Written By: Paige Embry

March 2024, VLT Book of the Month

Everyone knows about honeybees, they get all the press, but do you know about North Americas own, endangered native bees and their critical role in our ecosystems. This book takes us into the world of our native bees, exploring the many different size, shape, and colors they come in, their homes and their activities. Through interviews with scientists, farmers and bee experts, Native Bees explore why these often little though about bees are vital to protecting our environment. Embry, in the midst of sharing the beauty of these bees, reminds us of their precarious future and the very real threat of them fading away.

After reading this book you will never look at a busy patch of flowers the same way, with its various tiny bee visitors all in different sizes and colors. A must read for anyone interested in the North American landscape

Edited by: Erin Sharkey

February 2024, VLT Book of the Month

Divided into powerful essays each writer reflects on nature through their own lived experiences and on the role of nature in the lives of Black folks around the United States. Using a single archival object to root their story, the writers explore truths that not only travel thousands of miles but span across centuries.

Writer Erin Sharkey contemplates how a 1795 almanac connects to urban gardens in Buffalo, Naima Penniman explore environmental justice and the Haitian Revolution and Amy Codjoe finds inspiration in the photo of a young girl during an Alabama civil rights demonstration. This is just a small sampling of the many great contributions that come together to form an insightful book. Filled with evidence exploring the way in which Black people’s relationship with the natural word has always been strong, no matter the hardships and injustices faced through colonialism, slavery, Jim Crow and continued systemic racist policies. A work with historical significance, and lasting insight.

Written by: Karen Bakker

December 2023, VLT Book of the Month

The world is a noisy place, filled with conversations undetectable to the human ear. But with new technology scientists are listening in on the ultrasounds of insects, animals and even plants. Informative, and engaging, The Sounds of Life shares vibrant stories of how researchers have used traditional knowledge and technological innovation to explore these nonhuman conversations from whales, to turtles, to pea plants. These animal conversations aren’t just interesting, they are a vital piece of knowledge in solving pressing environmental problems and in protecting some of the world’s most threatened species, from the Great Barrier Reef, to the Arctic.

But just as we are discovering this new world of sound, our own ever-increasing noise pollution threatens to silence it forever. The Sound of Life offers hope. Technology could offer us the chance to reconnect with nature in ways we never through possible.

Written By Douglas W Tallamy

November 2023, VLT Book of the Month

“Oaks support more forms of life and more fascinating interactions than any other tree genus in North America.” In Douglas Tallamy newest book he explores the world in, on and around the mighty oak tree. With each chapter representing a different month, Tallamy breaks down the complex and fascinating connections between wildlife and the oak trees that sustain them. From birds that store thousands of nuts, to the insects that call a single acorn its home, the book takes you on an incredible journey across species. After reading the book, you will never look at an Oak tree the same way. The Nature of Oaks will inspire you to protect our native trees and the beauty and sustenance they provide.

Purchase Here

Written by: Kerri ni Dochartaigh

February 2023 Book of the Month

Memoir, history and nature make up this poignant book, as Dochartaigh brings us into her inner world, growing up in Northern Ireland in the middle of the Troubles, filled with loss and grief but also hope. She explores the way in which nature and the spiritual connection to the land sheltered her and allowed her to begin to heal from her troubled childhood in Ireland. She speaks of “thin places” where the boundary between nature and self are washed away, where connection and healing happen. Dochartaigh asks us to think about boundaries; real and not so real that we allow to define, restrict and separate us and the misery this brings. "We are reminded... that we are nature" and “thin places” will bring us back to who we really are.

Written by: Dr. Qing Li

January 2023 Book of the Month

As a society we spend too much time inside! This lack of connection with nature has drained us both physically and mentally. Dr. Qing Li the world’s foremost expert in forest medicine, invites the reader to explore the therapeutic Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku or forest bathing.

Notice the forest, and all of its components, from the way the wind moves through the tree, to the feel of the bark under your hand, or the ground under your bare feet. He explains how forest bathing has positive impact on all aspects of health including reducing stress level, lowering blood pressure, strengthening your immune system, boosting energy, creativity and concentration.

Written by Joan E. Strassmann

November 2022 Book of the Month

Many birders travel far and wide to birding destinations to catch sight of rare or “exotic” birds. In Slow Birding, biologist Joan E. Strassmann introduces us to the joys of birding right where you are using colorful stories of the most common birds to be found in the United States—birds we often see but might not have considered deeply before.

This guide to the fascinating world of common, everyday birds features detailed portraits of individual bird species, the scientists who discovered and observed them, advice and guidance on what to look for when slow birding, so that you can uncover clues to the reasons behind specific bird behaviors, and bird-focused activities that will open your eyes more to the fascinating world of birds.

Written by Bernd Heinrich

March 2022 Book of the Month

The soaring majesty of a virgin forest and the intertwined relationships of plant, animal, and man are the subject of Bernd Heinrich's lyrical elegy. Heinrich has spent a lifetime observing the natural world, and now he shares his vast knowledge and reflections on the trees of the Northeast woods and the rhythms of their seasons.

From the DNA contained in an apple seed to the great choiring branches far beyond a young boy's reach, Heinrich explores the natural world in scientific and personal terms. Heinrich is a scientist, but his words speak with the power and subtle grace of a poet. He uses this gift, and his intimate knowledge of his 300 acres of Maine forest, to expose the forest's rhythms, and in doing so, illustrates the vital but tenuous link among man, trees, birds, insects, and all the creatures of the forest. Thanks to Bernd Heinrich, readers will finally see the forest and the trees.

Written by Merlin Sheldrake

February 2022 Book of the Month

When we think of fungi, we likely think of mushrooms. But mushrooms are only fruiting bodies, analogous to apples on a tree. Most fungi live out of sight, yet make up a massively diverse kingdom of organisms that supports and sustains nearly all living systems. Fungi provide a key to understanding the planet on which we live, and the ways we think, feel, and behave.

Biologist Merlin Sheldrake shows us the world from a fungal point of view, providing an exhilarating change of perspective. From yeast to psychedelics, to fungi that range for miles underground and are the largest organisms on the planet, to those that link plants together in complex networks known as the "Wood Wide Web," to those that infiltrate and manipulate insect bodies with devastating precision. By examining fungi on their own terms, Sheldrake reveals how these extraordinary organisms are changing our understanding of how life works.