Books on Nature: What and How to Read

I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, 'This is what it is to be happy.'

~ Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar

Often we hear the word 'nature' and we start imagining a place away from the human civilisation where we occasionally retire into. It's the forest and wild animals, spread over an exotic landscape. But, if you think about it, nature goes far beyond that. It's there in every cell of your body; it's also out there… millions of light years away, in a distant planet.

From the subatomic to the cosmic, you can interact with nature at various levels. Similarly you can read and understand it from different perspectives with varying degree of depth. To make matters simpler, let me suggest you three ways to go about your reading on the subject of nature.

The first approach is through the pursuit of our innate curiosities about the physical world. It can be done by making scientific or philosophical enquiry into nature. This, of course, would encompass a wide range of subjects — from biology to geology to astrophysics and beyond. Still… we have to start somewhere. So allow me to briefly mention a couple of books.

First, Cosmos by Carl Sagan. Cosmos is a Greek word for the order of the universe. It is, in a way, the opposite of Chaos. It implies the deep interconnectedness of all things. That's what the book explores. Written by one of the greatest science communicators, the book constantly reminds the reader that the cosmos is not just out there in the stars and planets, it's within us. It also reminds us that we are literally made of stars and each one of us holds a little universe within. If you are looking to find transcendence beyond religious understanding, this book can be a good place to start.

On one side we have the physical universe, and on the other, there is life interspersed in the rarest of places. What is this life that we see around us? How did it evolve on Earth? To answer these questions we may have to turn to a book called Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne.

In order to get a scientific understanding of the life on Earth we have to understand the evolution. What Darwin argued almost two hundred years back has gone through a tremendous scrutiny and therefore multiple additions. Chapter by chapter, the author dispels common misunderstandings and fears about evolution and confirms the scientific truth that supports this amazing process of change. He weaves together many threads of genetics, geology and molecular biology, and presents a simpler perspective.

As Coyne puts it:

If the entire course of evolution were compressed into a single year, the earliest bacteria would appear at the end of March, but we wouldn't see the first human ancestors until 6 a.m. on December 31st. The golden age of Greece, about 500 BCE, would occur just thirty seconds before midnight.

Now let's change our approach and try to experience the natural world through fictional stories.

Remember The Jungle Book, the classic tale of Mowgli? Written by Rudyard Kipling in late 1800s, this book narrates the story of a little boy, Mowgli, who loses his family and is brought up by wolves. The child in you would get fascinated by the animal kingdom and the laws they follow in the jungle.

What I particularly enjoy about this book is its ever-present reminder that the world of the jungle is a world of nature, red in tooth and claw. Yes, it’s violent, endlessly circling and returning to the themes of death and danger, but in the world of the animals, the adventures and dangers exist because they are necessary parts of life. At the same time you’d be tempted to consider the ‘Nature Vs Nurture’ debate while reading this book.

Wait... there is more.

It's another tale of an Indian boy left adrift… this time in the Pacific in a lifeboat… WITH A TIGER! You guessed it: Life of Pi. Yes, the book is about the boy's struggle for survival; yes, it's about the vastness of the ocean and the wild nature of the tiger; however, at a philosophical level, the book goes much deeper than what appears on the surface and explores some of the fundamental questions of existence. I have to admit that it's one of the most spiritually enlightening stories that I have come across in the modern literature.

Here's a profound quote from the book that has stuck with me:

There are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God, as if Ultimate Reality, as if the sustaining frame of existence, were something weak and helpless. These people walk by a widow deformed by leprosy begging for a few paise, walk by children dressed in rags living in the street, and they think, "Business as usual." But if they perceive a slight against God, it is a different story. Their faces go red, their chests heave mightily, they sputter angry words. The degree of their indignation is astonishing. Their resolve is frightening.

Now let's return to the point where we started: nature as a therapeutic experience. Once again, I have got a couple of books for you.

The first one is called How to Connect with Nature by Tristan Gooley. Here the author emphasises on the benefits of connecting with nature. I think, somewhere inside we all know it. How our connection with nature allows us to see each living thing, object and idea within its own intricate network. How it provides an escape from the most mundane things and offers a surreal pleasure.

Going back to nature is like going back to our roots. It’s where we evolved. There comes a moment when these basic activities allow us to meet our ancestors briefly. Glancing past some nettles, we catch a glimpse of their hairy faces smiling back at us and grunting something to the effect of, “We might have been savages, but we weren’t idiots,” before they slope off to settle a mild dispute by clubbing someone to death.

The good-old days, right?

And now… the final book of the day. It’s The Nature Fix by Florence Williams.

This book explores the science behind what poets and philosophers have known for eons: place matters. It matters where we live, where we spend our time. Aristotle believed walks in the open air clarified the mind. Darwin, Tesla and Einstein walked in gardens and groves to help them think. Teddy Roosevelt, one of the most hyperproductive presidents of all time, would escape for months to the open country. Walt Whitman warned of the city’s “pestiferous little gratifications” in the absence of nature.

And sadly, that's where we have reached. Our growing disconnectedness with nature affects our well being. More so, it affects our children's lives. Can we turn it around? Well, for starters, we can pick this book.

On that note, let's sign off and spend some time away from the shining bright lights of our cellphones.

Goodbye!

Note: This piece was first published here.