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 From our President
LCAS 2012 Calendar
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Welcome to LCAS! We are a volunteer organization made up of over 1000 members. Our commitment to help preserve wildlife and habitat diversity throughout the Pacific Northwest involve many activities for all ages. Come to a Program Meeting or a Bird Walk and get to know us!
--Maeve Sowles, president (at) laneaudubon.org
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 From our President
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Good Winter Reading
Maeve Sowles, president (at) laneaudubon.org or 541.343.8664
I asked several Audubon friends recently about books they would recommend. Happily, I got several responses to share with you. Some of the books are long-time favorites. Some are classics of environmental literature. Some are new publications, and one is a children's book. Whether you read a new book off the bookstore shelf, the worn copy from a used bookstore, or use your Kindle or iPad to get your reading material in front of you, I hope you enjoy one or more of the suggestions below. It was fun to hear what people are reading, and in some cases re-reading, because books can be that good! Enjoy!
Barbara Butzer:
One Day on Beetle Rock by Sally Carrighar. In Central California, seven different species inhabit the same rocky outcropping and meadow during the same short period. The same events unfold as seen through their disparate viewpoints.
Voyage of a Summer Sun by Robin Cody. A local author relates his journey in a canoe from the headwaters of the mighty Columbia in Canada to its confluence with the Pacific Ocean.
America's Famous and Historic Trees by Jeffrey Meyer. Because I love majestic trees - they inspire humility in the same way the ocean does.
For women: A Gift From the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Finding one's place in the busy world.
For men: Out There: In the Wild in a Wired Age by Ted Kerasote. Two men find a spiritual connection with nature as they float the Horton River in Canada's Northwest Territory.
Kris Kirkeby:
Strand by Bonnie Henderson. Although it is not new, this book by a local author is very good.
Feathers by Thor Hanson. This book gets great reviews, including one in Audubon Magazine. Feathers are an evolutionary marvel: aerodynamic, insulating, beguiling. This book is a captivating and beautiful exploration of a most enchanting object.
Solitude by Kathleen Dean Moore. All of this author's books are great. Solitude is her most recent.
About Birds: A Guide for Children by Cathryn Sill and John Sill. For ages 4-6, this is mostly a picture book, but it's a good introduction for the very young.
Steve Gordon:
North with the Spring by Edwin Way Teale. This is one of my all-time favorite nature books that I read again just before spring when I itch for migration to begin and the first swallow to arrive. It tells of a 17,000 mile trip taken by Teale and his wife from the tip of Florida northward during the spring season into southern Canada on the first day of summer. Teale followed this book up with a series chronicling each of the other seasons (Journey Into Summer, Wandering Through Winter, and Autumn Across America). All great reading.
Thunder Tree by Robert Michael Pyle. The author follows a stream from the Colorado mountains down into the prairie near his boyhood home near Denver. He tells of the importance of natural places to children and the value of small urban patches where we can still encounter nature and experience its healing values.
Ron Renchler:
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. My daughter recently sparked my interest in reading this book for the first time when she chose Rachel Carson for a school report on someone who displayed courage. The book lifts our spirits by reminding us that a single person can make a profound difference in combating the wanton destruction of the environment and the wildlife inhabiting it, but it also is dispiriting to realize that we still accept environmental destruction today from many of the same pollutants (as well as many new ones) that Rachel Carson wrote about fifty years ago.
Charlotte Bontrager:
The Hearts of Horses by Molly Gloss. This is a great book, an easy read, and is set in the Pacific Northwest. It gives a good picture of the home front during World War I.
Emily Alone by Stewart O'Nan. This is perhaps the best character study I have ever read. It is about a recently widowed woman and how she gets on with her life. At the end you realize how much you know about-and how deeply you care about-this woman.
Jim Maloney:
I am currently reading several books at a time, the usual way I do it. I don't finish them quickly, but I always find interesting cross currents among them.
Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer. A natural and cultural history of mosses.
Faith of Cranes: Finding Hope and Family in Alaska by Hank Lentfer.
Animate Earth: Science, Intuition, and Gaia by Stephan Harding. Gaia theory proposes a solution toward healing a dying planet in a culture otherwise poised to fall into total ecological collapse. Animate Earth will inspire in readers a profound sense of the interconnectedness of life and help them discover what it means to live harmoniously as part of a sentient creature of planetary proportions.
Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology by David Abram. This is a startling exploration of our human entanglement with the rest of nature, drawing readers ever deeper into their animal senses in order to explore, from within, the elemental kinship between the body and the breathing Earth.
Lichens by William Purvis. This is a marvelous introduction to lichens. It includes a chapter on practical projects such as collecting, monitoring, and photographing lichens, which motivated me to order a magnifying glass.
Dave Bontrager:
The Immense Journey by Loren Eiseley. All other titles by Eiseley are great reading.
A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold
The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin
Bernd Heinrich. Any and all titles by the renowned naturalist.
Maeve Sowles:
Soul of Nowhere and The Secret Knowledge of Water by Craig Childs.
Barry Lopez. I buy this local author's books every time I find he has a new one on the shelf.
When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams. This title is scheduled to be released this spring. In the meantime, any of this author's works makes for good reading. Lane County Audubon Society and the Eugene Natural History Society plan to cosponsor a Eugene visit and presentation by Terry Tempest Williams in mid-June. Watch for more details!
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