Book Review: Vesper Flights

by Helen Macdonald Vesper flights is the name of the sunset behavior of swifts, who rise high into the air, out of sight, in order to reorient themselves to the world. Vesper Flights is also the name of a collection of essays by Helen Macdonald, and it, too, is a reorientation to the world, particularly …

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Q&A with JoeAnn Hart, author of Highwire Act & Other Tales of Survival

JoeAnn Hart, long-time contributor to EcoLit Books, is the author of three novels (including Float) and a forthcoming short story collection from Black Lawrence Press: Highwire Act & Other Tales of Survival. This collection, the winner of the 2022 Hudson Prize, includes stories that have been published by a number of literary journals, including Prairie …

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Book Review: The Gatekeeper of America’s Seasons: Edwin Way Teale’s four iconic environmental books

Author Edwin Way Teale, a somewhat forgotten naturalist extraordinaire, was a pleasing lyrical writer who followed the seasons across America in cross-country car trips with his wife Nellie four times in his lifetime.    These coast-to-coast meanderings across America resulted in four signature natural history books:  North With The Spring (1951), Autumn Across America (1956), Journey Into Summer (1960), and the Pulitzer …

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New and forthcoming environmental literature

So many new and exciting novels and books of nonfiction and poetry have come across our desks and inboxes as of late. Here are just a handful that caught our eyes… B/RDS Beatrice Szymkowiak B/RDS endeavors to dismantle discourses that create an artificial distinction between nature and humanity through a subversive erasure of an iconic work …

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Book Review: The Nature Book, a novel

By Tom Comitta Coffee House Press, 2023 Reviewed by JoeAnn Hart  “No words of my own can be added anywhere in the novel,” writes The Nature Book’s author, Tom Comitta, with a nod to the Oulipo group[1] and a whiff of Sol LeWitt[2], as he defines the constraints and rules of this extraordinary novel. Every …

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Catch up on our recent event

Ashland Creek Press was thrilled to host Reading Animals/Writing Animals, sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Writers’ Union of Canada, with Siskiyou Prize winner and Among Animals 3 contributor Nadja Lubiw-Hazard — and we’re delighted to present a recording of the event. The live event on Wednesday, May 24, was filled …

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Book Review: An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us

Guest book review by Gene Helfman. Put simply, reading An Immense World will change how you perceive the world. It certainly has altered my perception. I have decades of experience conducting research on, and teaching about, animal behavior. I thought I had a fairly sophisticated understanding of the natural world. But organisms and environments I …

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2022 Year in Review: Most popular books and posts

When I look at visitor stats for the past year, EcoLit Books has seen a steady increase in the number of daily visitors. We now average just over 200 unique visitors per day, with many days surpassing 300 and a few days over 500. For a website devoted to environmental and animal literature, these are …

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On Animals by Susan Orlean

Guest book review by Gene Helfman. “. . . are such rare, extraordinary kinships valuable because they remind us of a continuity with living creatures that we easily forget?”  Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief (turned into an Oscar-winning movie starring Meryl Streep) and The Library Book (a must read for any bibliophile), titled her latest book On Animals when …

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The Creative Lives of Animals: Understanding the artists around us

Creativity is something that is easier to identify than to explain. And one person’s definition of creativity may vary from your definition. For proof, you need only enter the modern art wing of a museum to hear “Why is that art?” uttered. But though creativity may be in the eye of the beholder, nobody would …

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Book Review: BITCH by Lucy Cooke

As a zoology student, Lucy Cooke was taught that the females of the species are exploited, weak, and passive. As a human animal, Cooke begged to differ. In Bitch: On the Female of the Species, she challenges this sexist mythology across species, from birds to primates to whales, showing that females can be just as sexually …

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Book Review: FELLOWSHIP POINT by Alice Elliott Dark

Alice Elliott Dark’s beautiful, sprawling novel Fellowship Point is about land and stewardship, about nature and conservation, but more than that, it is a book of friendship across the decades and about the complexities of women’s lives, told in part by two extraordinary narrators who experienced nearly a century of life in the world. Agnes …

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A new environmental journal Springs to life

As a fan of the Rachel Carson Center I was excited to see the recent launch of the first edition of Springs, their new environmental journal: The Rachel Carson Center (RCC) is pleased to announce the launch of Springs: The Rachel Carson Center Review. Our new open-access online publication features peer-reviewed articles, creative nonfiction, and artistic contributions that …

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Halcyon Journey: Searching for Kingfishers

Kingfishers are birds more often heard than seen. Walk next to Bear Creek here in the Rogue Valley and you will probably hear them, though seeing them is not so easy. Fortunately, we have a new book about the kingfisher by Marina Richie to shed light on this fascinating bird. Marina takes us along with …

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