2025 Book Recommendations
There’s a chill in the air, and it’s the perfect time of year to curl up by the fire with a good book. We asked NNRG staff for their favorite forestry, nature, PNW, and environment-related reads from this year (aside from A Forest of Your Own, which of course we hope you all have had a chance to encounter). The result is a wide-ranging list of recommendations, just in time for winter reading! Scroll down to read the full list.
Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet
Author: Ben Goldfarb
Pick from: NNRG Director of Programs Rowan Braybrook
“Some 40 million miles of roadways encircle the earth, yet we tend to regard them only as infrastructure for human convenience. In Crossings, environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb travels throughout the United States and around the world to investigate how roads have transformed our planet. Goldfarb meets with conservationists building bridges for California’s mountain lions and tunnels for English toads, engineers deconstructing the labyrinth of logging roads that web national forests, animal rehabbers caring for Tasmania’s car-orphaned wallabies, and community organizers working to undo the havoc highways have wreaked upon American cities. Written with passion and curiosity, Crossings is a sweeping, spirited, and timely investigation into how humans have altered the natural world–and how we can create a better future for all living beings.”
Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
Author: Merlin Sheldrake
Pick from: NNRG Forester Chase Beyer
“Fungi throw our concepts of individuality and even intelligence into question. They are metabolic masters, earth makers, and key players in most of life’s processes. They can change our minds, heal our bodies, and even help us remediate environmental disaster. By examining fungi on their own terms, Sheldrake reveals how these extraordinary organisms—and our relationships with them—are changing our understanding of how life works.”
Native Peoples of the Olympic Peninsula: Who We Are
Author: The Olympic Peninsula Intertribal Cultural Advisory Committee
Pick from: NNRG Forester Gustavo Segura Flores
“The nine Native tribes of Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula–the Hoh, Skokomish, Squaxin Island, Lower Elwha Klallam, Jamestown S’Klallam, Port Gamble S’Klallam, Quinault, Quileute, and Makah–share complex histories of trade, religion, warfare, and kinship, as well as reverence for the teaching of elders. However, each indigenous nation’s relationship to the Olympic Peninsula is unique. Native Peoples of the Olympic Peninsula: Who We Are traces the nine tribes’ common history and each tribe’s individual story.”
The Ravaged Forest: A Native Woman’s Journey to Justice
Author: Sandra A Crowell
Pick from: NNRG Forester Gustavo Segura Flores
“A Native Woman’s Journey to Justice is a narrative biography about a Chehalis woman who rises from poverty on the reservation to own a successful logging company. Facing historic oppression of her people, Helen (Mitchell) Sanders challenges a male-dominated industry and gross government mismanagement. Sanders didn’t just fight for timber rights, salmon habitat, or reservation autonomy. She motivated a movement toward justice for Native Americans who were taken advantage of, neglected or ignored – and had their resources exploited. This inspiring story and ultimate victory encompasses so much more than ruined forestland. It opens the door for others to seek justice.”
Close to Home: The Wonders of Nature Just Outside Your Door
Author: Thor Hanson
Pick from: NNRG Director of Programs Rowan Braybrook
“We all live on nature’s doorstep, but we often overlook it. From backyards to local parks, the natural places we see the most may well be the ones we know the least. Close to Home is a hands-on natural history for any local patch of Earth. It shows that we each can contribute to science and improve the health of our planet. And even more, it proves that the wonders of nature don’t lie in some far-off land: they await us, close to home.”
Gifted Earth: The Ethnobotany of the Quinault and Neighboring Tribes
Author: Douglas Deur, Published in cooperation with the Quinault Indian Nation
Pick from: NNRG Forester Gustavo Segura Flores
“Gifted Earth features traditional Native American plant knowledge, detailing the use of plants for food, medicines, and materials. It presents a rich and living tradition of plant use within the Quinault Indian Nation in a volume collaboratively developed and endorsed by that tribe. A celebration of enduring Native American knowledge, this book will help non-specialists as they discover the potential of the region’s wild plants, learning how to identify, gather, and use many of the plants that they encounter in the Northwestern landscape. As beautiful as it is informative, Gifted Earth sets the standard for a new generation of ethnobotanical guides informed by the values, vision, and voice of Native American communities eager to promote a sustainable, balanced relationship between plant users and the rich plant communities of traditional tribal lands.”
Mushrooms of Cascadia: An Illustrated Key to the Fungi of the Pacific Northwest
Author: Michael Beug
Pick from: NNRG Director of Forestry Kirk Hanson
“An illustrated key to identifying the mushrooms of the Cascadian bioregion, stretching from coastal Alaska to central California and Idaho, featuring nearly 1,100 full-color photographs and more than 3,000 species. In this unique and comprehensive field guide, mycologist Dr. Michael Beug helps mushroom hunters of all levels navigate an often bewildering array of species by clearly identifying features that separate one cluster from another. Whether you’re seeking hallucinogenic or medicinal varieties, or hunting mushrooms for dyeing fabric or making tonight’s dinner, this exceptionally useful guide will teach you how to quickly recognize what you find in the forest.”
The Midnight Feast
Author: Lucy Foley
Pick from: NNRG Program Coordinator Lauren McCaskill
“It’s the opening night of The Manor, the newest and hottest luxury resort, and no expense, small or large, has been spared. But under the burning midsummer sun, darkness stirs. Just outside the Manor’s immaculately kept grounds, an ancient forest bristles with secrets. And it’s not too long before the local police are called. Turns out the past has crashed the party, with deadly results.”
Lauren says: “I love a good whodunit, and while this isn’t exactly a forestry book, the local forest—and the community’s relationship with it—feature prominently in the story.”
The Trees Are Speaking: Dispatches from the Salmon Forests
Author: Lynda V Mapes
Pick from: NNRG Board President Christine Johnson
“In a bicoastal journey, environmental journalist Lynda V. Mapes connects the present and future of Pacific Northwest forests to the hard-logged legacy forests of the northeastern United States. With vibrant storytelling supported by science and traditional ecological knowledge, Mapes invites readers to understand the world where trees are kin, not commodities. The Trees Are Speaking is essential reading for those with a deep interest in environmental stewardship, Indigenous land rights, and the urgent challenges posed by climate change.”
The Backyard Bird Chronicles
Author: Amy Tan
Pick from: NNRG Board Member Kit Ellis
“Tracking the natural beauty that surrounds us, The Backyard Bird Chronicles maps the passage of time through daily entries, thoughtful questions, and beautiful original sketches. With boundless charm and wit, author Amy Tan charts her foray into birding and the natural wonders of the world.”
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