Nature Study Reading Society
Book Group
The Nature Study Reading Society is devoted to reading and discussing an array of nature books. Book group discussions are generally held on the second Thursday every other month from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. in the Reading Room of the Lora M. Robins Library. For more information, or to join the group contact Anne-Marie Parrish, Directory of Library and Archives, at [email protected] or call 804-262-9887 x342.
Upcoming Selections
May 8, 2025
by Rebecca Heisman
July 10, 2025
Past Selections
Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon by Melissa Sevigny
Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World by Tyson Yunkaporta
Wildscape: Trilling Chipmunks, Beckoning Blooms, Salty Butterflies, and other Sensory Wonders of Nature by Nancy Lawson
Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape by Lauret Savoy
The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan
Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake
Sparrow Envy: Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts by J. Drew Lanham
The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
Phenomenal: A Hesitant Adventurer’s Search for Wonder in the Natural World by Leigh Ann Henion
An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong
Weeds: In Defense of Nature’s Most Unloved Plants by Richard Mabey
Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains by Bethany Brookshire
Sounds Wild and Broken: Sonic Marvels, Evolution’s Creativity, and the Crisis of Sensory Extinction by David George Haskell
Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty
Saving Wild: Inspiration from 50 Leading Conservationists Edited by Lori Robinson
Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History by Dan Flores
The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees by Douglas W. Tallamy
The Language of Butterflies: How Thieves, Hoarders, Scientists, and Other Obsessives Unlocked the Secrets of the World’s Favorite Insect by Wendy Williams
Writing Wild: Women Poets, Ramblers, and Mavericks Who Shape How We See the Natural World by Kathryn Aalto
Erosion: Essays of Undoing by Terry Tempest Williams
The Overstory by Richard Powers
World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments
by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World’s Largest Owl by Jonathan C. Slaught
Life List: A Woman’s Quest for the Most Amazing Birds by Olivia Gentile
Rain: A Natural and Cultural History by Cynthia Barnett
The Source: How Rivers Made America and America Remade Its Rivers by Martin Doyle
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Chesapeake Requiem: A Year with the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island
by Earl Swift
A Naturalist at Large: The Best Essays of Bernd Heinrich by Bernd Heinrich
Landmarks by Robert Macfarlane
The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson
American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic
by Victoria Johnson