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Reading recommendations from
The Sligo Naturalist
BY NED DALY
Here are four great naturalist
books to put on your summer reading list. My criteria for
a great naturalist book is one that is informative and based
in science or explains natural processes. My criteria for
a great summer read is good writing and a subject that grips
you. All too often, books fall into one category or the other,
but not both.
None of these books are new, but they represent some of the
best writing in the genre.
 River-Horse
William Least Heat-Moon
Penguin Books
River-Horse is a book that starts out with a fantastic
premise: Could one take a boat across America? When first
presented, the idea seemed ridiculous, unless there was some
kind of trick answer, like "yes, on the back of a trailer."
But look at a map like William Least Heat Moon did, and a
river journey across America looks–at least theoretically–
possible: Take the Hudson to the Erie Canal, which will take
you into the Great Lakes. In Lake Erie, take a left (after
a short portage) into the Allegheny River, which will take
you to the Ohio. From the Ohio, you can catch the mighty Mississippi.
From the Mississippi, you can pick up the Missouri and follow
the route of Lewis and Clark into the Northern Rockies. Once
in the Rockies, take the Salmon River to the Snake River and
down the Columbia. And the Columbia should take you to the
Pacific Ocean. If you hit China, you've gone too far.
Okay, but is it technically possible?
With a few short portages, the right permits and permissions,
helpful locals, and lots of luck, yes, it is technically possible.
What makes River-Horse such an excellent book is that
this great feat is simply the backdrop to an even greater
story of a man following his dream. Well written and insightful,
River-Horse is the perfect summer read. It offers the
reader great drama and a wonderful cast of characters with
a substantial amount of natural history, but the book never
gets bogged down in the science or overly explicit details
about engine problems, as so many travelogues seem to these
days.
 Beautiful
Swimmers
William Warner
Back Bay Books
In a way similar to how Ansel Adams conveyed the beauty
of Yosemite, or how Edward Abbey captured the personality
of the desert, William Warner tells the beautiful story of
the Atlantic blue crab and the Chesapeake Bay. Warner's gift
to us is letting the bay tell its own story. It is much more
chronicle than interpretation.
Our protagonist, the Atlantic blue crab, has been through
a lot. As if life as a crab were not hard enough, he's a wanted
man with a price on his head and, well, the neighborhood just
ain't what it used to be. While it's a story that could be
told by Merle Haggard or Johnny Cash, Warner let's the resilience
of our protagonist shine through, and unlike the lonesome
cowboy, he conveys the blue crab's importance to all the communities
of the Chesapeake–human and ecological.
This Pulitzer-Prize winning book gets its name from the blue
crab's scientific name, Callinectes sapidus Rathburn
(Callinectes = beautiful swimmer; Sapidus =
tasty or savory, one of the few species named for its culinary
importance).
Rathburn refers to one of the world's great crab experts
who named the species, carcinologist Mary Rathburn. Dr. Rathburn
herself is one of the nice little stories tangled into the
Bay's larger story. Before she died in 1943, she identified
998 new species of crabs–a carcinological record.
Beautiful Swimmers was published in 1976, but a short
afterword updates us on the state of the bay. Oyster harvests
are down; the rockfish and herring fisheries are still struggling.
And the crab populations continue to be in peril.
Nevertheless, there are signs of hope, and it is just hard
to believe (perhaps naively so) that something so beautiful
will be lost. This book should be required reading for anyone
living in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.
 The
Botany of Desire
Michael Pollan
Random House
Who's in charge is the question Michael Pollan tries to answer
in his book The Botany of Desire. Of course, we humans
always think we are in charge, and that certainly extends
to our gardens.
But what if, as Pollan says, "it's nothing more than
self-serving conceit? A bumblebee would probably also regard
himself as a subject in the garden and the bloom he's plundering
for its drop of nectar as an object. The truth of the matter
is that the flower has cleverly manipulated the bee into hauling
its pollen from blossom to blossom."
How different is the relationship between bee and bloom and
human and potato? In each instance, both parties co-evolve
to the mutual benefit of the respective parties. Does a trip
to McDonald's for some fries serve the same purpose as a hummingbird
pollinating a flower?
Pollan would say that in many ways, yes. We are contributing
to the preservation of the potato by showing a preference
for it–because its taste and its nutritional value attracts
us, just as a hummingbird would favor red flowers. We will
increase the number of potatoes planted, thereby ensuring
preservation of the species
Pollan looks at the relationship between man and four plants:
apples, tulips, marijuana, and the potato, and how our desire
for sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control has, perhaps,
made us the objects rather than the subjects of this relationship.
While we don't always think that way, there is evolution
occurring in domestication. Pollan presents us with a whole
new way of looking at our relationship with plants and the
world.
 Salt:
A World History
Mark Kurlansky
Penguin Books
Kurlansky relays a French folktale early in his book that
explains well the point he is trying to get across. A princess
wants to let her father know how much she loves him, so she
tells him, "Father, I love you like salt." Feeling
slighted, the king banishes his daughter from the kingdom.
Later, the king is denied salt, and finally realizes the strength
of his daughter's love.
Salt is so ubiquitous that we forget its importance. Historically,
human societies would have had a difficult time developing
the way they have without salt. Many of the domestic uses,
such as the preservation of food (grains, vegetables and meats)
are well known, but many of the industrial uses are less known
(making candles dripless or removal of rust, for example).
And salt's place in our cultures, religions and lore is rivaled
by few other substances. Because of salt's preserving qualities,
societies have often associated salt with permanence and longevity.
In Judaism, salt represents the eternal nature of God's covenant
with Israel. In Christianity, salt also represents longevity
and by extension truth and wisdom. The Catholic Church not
only dispenses holy water, but also Sal Sapientia,
or Salt of Wisdom. In Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, for
many of the same reasons, salt was seen as the only way to
repel evil spirits.
Most of all, the author uses salt as an interesting thread
to shed light on the broader topic of world history and the
development of many cultures. Sure, there's much to learn
about the only rock we eat, but the real story is the trade,
empires, and economies built on or with the help of salt.
There aren't many cultures left out of the list.
Given the way petroleum influences our lives and history
today, salt was its predecessor.
The book affirms the idea that greatness and wonder can lie
in even the simplest things, and we should take nothing for
granted.
Takoma Park resident Ned Daly is the
Vice President of Operations for the Forest Stewardship Council,
a nonprofit organization which promotes responsible forestry
and certifies sustainably produced wood. He is the former
director of Forest Policy for the Consumer's Choice Council,
where he led campaigns for procurement of certified wood products.
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