Catch up on your reading with the UGA Press Summer Sale and get 40% off all books during the month of June! Today we’re highlighting books about nature and the environment. Take a look at some of our best nature titles below, and use code 08JUNE40 at checkout to get 40% off. We’ve also included links to similar books in the same subject areas, so feel free to branch out beyond this list. Happy shopping!
Essays
Neighborhood Hawks: A Year of Following Wild Birds by John Lane is a memoir of a year of close observance of red-shouldered hawks and a growing love of the wild.
“John Lane’s adoring obsessions show us how wildness dwells on the edges of suburbia–and how it thrives within the spirit of a feral poet.”
—Drew Lanham, author of Sparrow Envy and The Home Place
See more nature essay collections from UGA Press
Buy here for $19.95 $11.97 with code 08JUNE40 at checkout
Sudden Spring: Stories of Adaptation in a Climate-Changed South by Rick Van Noy presents strategies for the real and present danger of climate change. Sudden Spring is a call to action to mitigate the current trends in our environmental degradation. By highlighting stories of people and places adapting to the impacts of a warmer climate, Van Noy shows us what communities in the South are doing to become more climate resilient and to survive a slow deluge of environmental challenges.
“By highlighting stories of people and places adapting to the impacts of a warmer climate, Van Noy shows us what communities in the South are doing to become more climate resilient and to survive a slow deluge of environmental challenges.”
—Amy Brady, Chicago Review of Books
Buy here for $32.95 $19.77 with code 08JUNE40 at checkout
Learning From Thoreau by Andrew Menard is an intimate intellectual walk with America’s most edgy and original environmentalist. Using both images and text, Menard offers a personal meditation on Thoreau’s thought, its originality, and its influence on the modern environmental movement
“An inimitable and wholly original meditation on Thoreau, who emerges here as a profoundly modern thinker in his own right. By placing Thoreau in counterpoint with a rich and often surprising array of contemporary writers, philosophers, and artists, Menard takes us on an exhilarating intellectual journey, spiraling upward from intimacy with the earth to the most speculative of prospects. Along the way, he renews our sense of beauty, deepens our capacity for ethical choice, and reminds us how to learn from the very act of learning.”
—Laura Dassow Walls, author of Henry David Thoreau: A Life
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Listening to the Savage: River Notes and Half-Heard Melodies by Barbara Hurd weaves rich explorations of science, history, mythology, literature, and music. The listening of the book delineates and champions a kind of attentiveness to what is not easily heard and is written in language that is as precise as it is poetic, providing original ways of engagement in the natural world.
“If Listening to the Savage is a call to listen-to reclaim a sense perhaps atrophied by a culture of distraction and ubiquity-it is more siren call than polemic, for the author implores herself, as much as the reader, to do the difficult work of fully inhabiting the world, the mind, and the body. . . . In prose that is stunning, searching, precise, querulous, and revelatory, Hurd demonstrates how attentiveness can be the writer’s best instrument.”
—Alexis Paige, Brevity
See more books by Barbara Hurd
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The Coasts
A High Low Tide: The Revival of a Southern Oyster by André Joseph Gallant asks: will Georgia’s wild oystermen adapt with the rise of aquaculture? The dawn of aquaculture in Georgia promises a sea change in the livelihoods of wild-harvest shellfishermen, should they choose to adapt to new methods. Gallant documents how these traditional harvesters are affected by innovation and uncertain tides and asks how threatened they really are.
“Gallant’s ability to explain the biology/ecology of the Georgia seacoast oyster is remarkable for both its depth and understandability. Likewise, his introduction of a cast of strongly individualistic characters involved in this unique coastal culture is key to creating a rich and compelling story of place. Moreover, his descriptions of the physical power and beauty of the region create a fascinating world that is a pleasure for any reader to enter.”
—Ronni Lundy, James Beard Award–winning author of Victuals
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Coastal Nature, Coastal Culture: Environmental Histories of the Georgia Coast, edited by Paul S. Sutter and Paul M. Pressly, is a collection of essays that explore the distinctive environmental history of the Georgia coast. The essays in this volume examine how successive communities of Native Americans, Spanish missionaries, British imperialists and settlers, planters, enslaved Africans, lumbermen, pulp and paper industrialists, vacationing northerners, Gullah-Geechee, nature writers, environmental activists, and many others developed distinctive relationships with the environment and produced well- defined coastal landscapes. Together these histories suggest that contemporary efforts to preserve and protect the Georgia coast must be as respectful of the rich and multifaceted history of the coast as they are of natural landscapes, many of them restored, that now define so much of the region.
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Coming to Pass: Florida’s Coastal Islands in a Gulf of Change by Susan Cerulean is a moving, personal look at a fragile landscape. Coming to Pass tells the story of a little-developed necklace of northern Gulf Coast islands. Both a field guide to a beloved and impermanent Florida landscape and a call for its protection, Susan Cerulean’s memoir chronicles the uniquely beautiful coast as it once was, as it is now, and as it may be as the sea level rises.
“In Coming to Pass, Susan Cerulean shows us the Florida coastal system with passion and insight. But she also has a lovely presence on the page – the kind of which I never tire. It’s easy to see why she so loves that landscape and seascape, because she brings them so alive.”
—Jan DeBlieu, author of Wind, winner of the John Burroughs Medal for Distinguished Natural History Writing
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Sapelo: People and Place on a Georgia Sea Island by Buddy Sullivan is an illustrated history of the unique people, culture, and ecological characteristics of this beautiful barrier island. Enhanced by a large selection of contemporary color photographs of the island as well as a selection of archival images and maps, Sapelo documents a unique island history.
“The book’s thematic approach is one of ‘people and place’: how prevailing environmental conditions influenced the way white and black owners used the land over generations, from agriculture in the past to island management in the present.”
—Southern Farm and Garden
Buy here for $34.95 $20.97 with code 08JUNE40 at checkout
See more books on coastal nature
Field Guides to Plants and Animals
Field Guide to the Wildflowers of Georgia and Surrounding States by Linda G. Chafin is a sweeping field guide to the diverse wildflowers of Georgia and ten surrounding states. Botanist Linda G. Chafin has organized the scientific information in a clear, logical, and accessible way. The guide includes nontechnical species descriptions and comparisons with similar plants, information on the habitats and natural communities that support Georgia’s wildflowers, and suggestions for the best places and times to see wildflowers.
“The well-organized field guide is written and laid out in a manner that will appeal to professional botanists as well as budding naturalists – and to anyone curious about what they are seeing in Georgia’s woods, fields, wetlands and even along roadsides.”
—Charles Seabrook, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Richly illustrated with over 600 color photographs, Wildflowers of the Eastern United States by Wilbur H. Duncan and Marion B. Duncan describes more than 1,100 wildflowers that can be found east of the Mississippi-in our woods and parks, along mountain trails or dunes, and even floating in streams. Whether you are a resident or a visitor, an amateur naturalist or a professional botanist, this guide will be a welcome addition to your library, classroom, or backpack.
“An excellent guidebook for anyone who appreciates the beauty of our natural environment. The marvelous photographs make the book a real bargain.”
—Bowling Green Daily News
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Appalachian Wildflowers by Thomas E. Hemmerly covers the wildflowers of the entire Appalachian region, which stretches from Quebec to northern Alabama, encompassing the Catskills of New York, the Berkshires of Massachusetts, the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee, and many mountain ranges in between. Using this book, readers will learn to identify this region’s wildflowers by shape, color, family, and habitat.
“This book concisely describes and illustrates with excellent color photographs more than 300 of these wildflower species. . . . The book is helpful to naturalists, botanists, and wildflower enthusiasts.”
—International Hawkwatcher
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The Field Herping Guide: Finding Amphibians and Reptiles in the Wild by Mike Pingleton and Joshua Holbrook is a useful herping guide for amateur and professional wildlife enthusiasts. Herping is the observation of amphibians and reptiles for recreation or for the production of citizen science–the cold-blooded equivalent of birding. The Field Herping Guide is the first book to explore the fun and fascinating world of observing herpetofauna across North America.
“This well-written book provides useful herpetological information for hobbyists, professionals, and casual observers alike.”
—Whit Gibbons, author of Snakes of the Southeast
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Landscape with Reptile: Rattlesnakes in an Urban World by Thomas Palmer is an original look at our relationship and interactions with rattlesnakes. In this authoritative and entertaining book, first published in 1992, Thomas Palmer introduces us to a community of rattlesnakes nestled in the heart of the urban Northeast, one of several such enclaves found near cities across the United States. Landscape with Reptile: Rattlesnakes in an Urban World by Thomas Palmer is an original look at our relationship and interactions with rattlesnakes.
“Prime nature writing, capably focused through multiple views of natural history, ecology, medicine, history, evolution, and anthropology.”
—Kirkus Reviews
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In Snakes of the Eastern United States by Whit Gibbons, stunning photographs, colorful geographic range maps, and comprehensive written accounts provide essential information about each species-including detailed identification characteristics, general ecology and behavior, and conservation status. Carefully researched and written, the guide is directed toward a general audience interested in natural history.
“I have always enjoyed learning about snakes and found this book to be the best source I have seen to continue doing so. Great job with awesome illustrations.”
—Jeff Corwin, Animal Planet
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Salamanders of the Southeast by Joe Mitchell and Whit Gibbons provides us with the most comprehensive and authoritative, yet accessible and fun-to-read, guide to these often secretive, always fascinating wonders of nature. Mitchell and Gibbons enumerate the distinguishing characteristics of salamanders, including how they are different from other amphibians and from reptiles, especially lizards. Also discussed are distribution, habitat, behavior and activity, reproduction, food and feeding, predators and defense, conservation, and taxonomy. Accompanying each account are photographs illustrating typical adults and variations and distribution maps for the Southeast and the United States.
“The authors suggest a number of ways in which landowners can manage their properties from the perspective of salamander habitat, including resources to guide in restoration of degraded areas. . . . [T]he authors have presented a perfect circle of argument within the book’s covers: salamanders are in trouble. . . and this is what you can do to help them out of trouble.”
—Jeff Boundy, Herpetological Review
Buy here for $26.95 $16.17 with code 08JUNE40 at checkout
See more field guides to animals
Field Guides to Hiking, Mountain Biking, Cycling, and River Rafting
Backpacking Overnights: North Georgia Mountains and Southeast Tennessee is a backpacker’s guide from one of the Southeast’s leading outdoor adventure authors. routes in this guide range from three to more than twenty-one miles. Each entry includes maps, complete driving and hiking directions, elevation gain, trail highlights, campsites, water sources, and trailhead GPS coordinates. You’ll also find invaluable information to help you choose gear, pick a route, and prepare for your own backpacking adventure.
Buy here for $19.95 $11.97 with code 08JUNE40 at checkout
Check out other guides to the outdoors from the UGA Press
Mountain Bike Trails: North Carolina Mountains, South Carolina Upstate by Jim Parham is the off-read cyclist’s guide to the Carolina mountains. This, the most current guidebook for the Carolina mountains, recommends more than 105 bike routes. Whether you’re in the habit of shredding the region’s most technical trails or just getting started on a mountain bike, you’ll find what you need to get where you’re going in this guide for all skill levels.
“Jim Parham was the original Southeast mountain bike trail guru, and with this book he proves he still has the touch. If you’re interested in complete and reliable information on the very best destinations in the region, it deserves a place on your bookshelf, and in your hydration pack.”
—Kent Cranford, Owner, Motion Makers Bicycle Shop, Asheville, NC
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Road Bike North Georgia: 25 Great Rides in the Mountains and Valleys of North Georgia by Jim Parham lays out rides for all ability levels. Twenty-five of the region’s best bike routes, ranging from 9 to 62 miles in length, are listed in this guide. Each route description includes complete directions, detailed map, elevation profile, road surface conditions, mileage and estimated riding times, points of interest and services available along the way.
Buy here for $12.95 $7.77 with code 08JUNE40 at checkout
In Joe Cook’s Oconee River User’s Guide, both novice and experienced water sports enthusiasts will find all the information required to enjoy the river, including detailed maps, put in and take out suggestions, fishing and camping locations, mile-by-mile points of interest, and an illustrated guide to the animals and plants commonly seen in an around the river. Daytrippers will enjoy Cook’s fascinating description of the cultural and natural heritage of this richly diverse waterway.
See more Georgia River Network Guidebooks from UGA Press
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