The Best Books of 2020: Nature!

When surveying the two categories of Nature and Science as we near the end of 2020, it’s difficult not to smirk knowingly, or maybe break down in tears. These categories became radioactively relevant in the year of COVID-19, when millions of people either took more intense refuge in the untainted solitude of nature or else were forbidden to do so, and when millions of people received only bad news from the realms of science and quickly had to grapple with scientific concepts they’d been free to ignore in previous years. And if these categories were radioactive in 2020, they’ll both be downright nuclear-meltdown in 2021, when the publishing industry turns its full batteries to bear on COVID-19 itself. But in the meantime, there was solace even in this most benighted year in a century, and these were the best of them:

10 White Feathers by Bernd Heinrich (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Only the great ornithologist and naturalist Bernd Heinrich could take such a mundane little subject - why one particular pair of tree swallows prefer one particular kind of nesting material - and turn it into a book of wonders like this one, full of warm wisdom and intriguing insights into one pair of birds.

9 Good Boy: My Life in Seven Dogs by Jennifer Finney Boylan (Celadon Books)

The basic idea of Jennifer Finney Boylan’s book - tracing an autobiography through the lives of various beloved dogs - isn’t new, of course - Gary Paulsen did the same thing twenty years ago, and there have been many others. But Boyle’s is a superb example of the exercise, as heart-breaking as it is ultimately affirming.

8 Being Frog by April Pulley Sayre (Beach Lane Books)

The marketing here makes it clear that the folks at Beach Lane Books consider this stunning picture book to be aimed at children, and I won’t be bratty enough to contradict them. But the intelligence, attention to detail, and sheer meticulous beauty of these pages will work just fine on frog-curious adults as well.

7 Becoming Wild by Carl Safina (Henry Holt)

Through the lens of analyzing three non-human species, Carl Safina in this touching book broadens for his enormous reading audience the very definition of ‘humanity’ into something that applies with thought-provoking accuracy to many different kinds of animals, none of whom have human faces.

6 The Nature of Fear by Daniel T. Blumstein (Harvard University Press)

In this slim but packed book, Daniel Blumstein explores many facets of an emotion all animals feel: fear in all its different faces, broadening the discussion in ways that will challenge readers to re-examine the values of a trauma nobody likes.

5 The Book of Eels: Our Enduring Fascination with the Most Mysterious Creature in the Natural World by Patrik Svensson (Ecco)

In this fascinating, too-short book, Patrik Svensson takes a broad look at the history, physiology, natural habits, and ecological future of the European eel. And like all such books when they’re done well, Svensson’s insights in these pages will make you suddenly interested in something you’d never even thought about before. 

4 Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World’s Largest Owl by Jonathan Slaght (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

The author traveled to the wilds of Far East Russia in order to observe - and perhaps help to save - the enormous Blakiston’s fish owl, and in the resulting book he wonderfully conveys both the hardships that so many avid birders will recognize (in kind if not in degree) and the sheer thrill of encountering these creatures in the wild.

3 American Birds: A Literary Anthology edited by Andrew Rubenfeld & Terry Tempest Williams (Library of America)

This lovely anthology from the good folks at the Library of America serves up a wonderful array of the ways birds have been celebrated in the literature of America. Some of the choices are obvious, but the main delight of any Library of America volume is the stratum of less-predictable picks. 

2 Cat Tale by Craig Pittman (Hanover Square Press)

The long and straggling saga of the Florida panther is here given a variety of human faces by Craig Pittman, who investigates the people who are trying to bring the panther back from the brink of extinction. The book is one of many such front-line accounts this year, turning a spotlight on the unsung heroes of conservation, and it’s the best one.

1 Nature Underfoot by John Hainze (Yale University Press)

From grand, sweeping campaigns to save entire species of large, charismatic animals like panthers or fish owls, we turn to the very small and very un-charismatic for this, the best Nature title of 2020, in which John Hainze takes a lovingly detailed look at creatures most people consider toxic vermin: crabgrass, fruit flies, dandelions - all the first kinds of things most people want to eliminate from park or garden. And like the best nature writing invariably does, Nature Underfoot changes its readers’ minds in the process.