When we asked people to share books related to the theme of nature at our recent Open Book Night, we heard about titles related to both the natural world and to human nature, with an emphasis on humankind’s relationship to nature. The selections were mostly nonfiction titles this time, but  two readers chose novels to share with the group. We enjoyed hearing about different books that our library users love, so we’d like to pass along their reading recommendations here.

Our first book was Just Kids from the Bronx: Telling It the Way It Was: An Oral History  by Arlene Alda (2015), recommended by Roberta, who was was born in the Bronx in the late 1930s. She told us that it’s a quick read, broken into short chapters that are full of “human stuff.” She mentioned being taken back to a time when people in the Bronx didn’t lock their doors, and she recognized the games she played on the street as a child. She wrote, “This book interviews both famous and non-famous persons who were born in the Bronx in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. Very interesting and heartwarming.”

Melissa was reading Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer (1996), the true story of Chris McCandless, a young man who disappeared into the Alaskan wilderness in April 1992. She was struck by the portrayal of McCandless in the book, the exploration of his reasons for a solo trek into the wilds of Alaska, and by the positive reactions expressed by people who met him before his death. Into the Wild was made into a feature film in 2008, directed by Sean Penn. Chris McCandless's sister Carine published her own memoir last fall, The Wild Truth, in which she reveals the violent family dynamics that led her beloved brother to search for himself in the wild, and she shares her journey from dysfunction to redemption. 

Talking about Into the Wild  led people to think of other books about people setting off to discover nature and themselves. Cheryl Strayed’s 2012 memoir about a solo hike she undertook after her mother’s death, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, was recommended. Another recent memoir about a retreat to the wilderness we mentioned was The Consolations of the Forest: Alone in a Cabin on the Siberian Taiga by French writer Sylvain Tesson, who spent six months alone in a cabin on Lake Baikal. Jessica blogged about this book in the NYPL Reader’s Den last year and shared some of the books Tesson brought to keep him company, such as Thoreau’s Walden and The Arabian Nights.

The danger of underestimating the power and ferocity of nature as seen in Into the Wild reminded one reader of the story of Timothy Treadwell, the “grizzly man.” Treadwell wrote about his experiences interacting with bears in the Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska in his 1997 memoir Among Grizzlies. In 2003, he and his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, were killed and partially eaten by grizzlies in the park. The 2005 documentary film Grizzly Man by renowned director Werner Herzog chronicles Treadwell’s life and death. [Coincidentally, we’re having a free screening of Grizzly Man here at Mid-Manhattan on Saturday, July 11 at 2 p.m.]

Miriam chose to share a documentary film related to nature rather than a book. She recommended Watermark, a 2014 film by Jennifer Baichwal and Edward Burtynsky, which explores the ways people have shaped, manipulated, and depleted one of our most vital resources: water. Miriam noted that, in addition to documenting our dangerous water situation, Watermark is also a stunningly beautiful art film.

Another reader found the need to respect nature as an antagonist beautifully illustrated in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s 1931 novel Night Flight, based on the author’s experiences flying in Argentina as an airmail pilot. In the novel, a pilot is sent on a mail run despite poor weather conditions, and a thunderstorm becomes more and more threatening, possibly to the point of death. The reader also noted that Saint-Exupéry’s writing continued a tradition of adventure fiction in French, which called to mind the work of Jules Verne for another reader. Saint-Exupéry was a great admirer of Verne, whose science fiction novel Underground City or The Child of the Cavern, was inspiration for Night Flight.

From the perils of nature, we returned to human nature with our next book recommendation from Mike. He told us how much he enjoyed reading Courtney Maum’s 2015 novel, I am Having So Much Fun Here Without You. “It’s an easy to read, fresh novel, full of sarcastic and sometimes sad occasions and an age-old question: Is it possible to fall back in love with your spouse?” Mike also shared a quote he liked from the novel: “On weekends in Boston, she’d make me stand in crowded places and report back on whether I agreed with her about how clean people smelled. ‘Like mangos,' she said. ‘American girls always smell like fruit.’”

I chose Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms, and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories by Simon Winchester (2010) to tie in with the nature theme. The author combines extensive research and great storytelling in an exciting biography of the Atlantic Ocean that includes geology, archeology, cartography, history, art, literature, technology, commerce, and more. I thought it was a really fun and informative read. I alternated between reading and listening to the book; the author reads the audiobook, and he is an engaging reader as well as a compelling writer of narrative nonfiction.

Do you enjoy reading about sports? Is there a biography of an athlete or a team that really moved you, or perhaps a novel you love that has an athlete as its protagonist or a sporting event as a key moment or part of the setting?  Please come join the fun and share a book at the next Open Book Night on June 12! (And if you have a book you'd love to tell us about that doesn't quite fit the sports theme, that's perfectly okay, too.)

If you'd like to share book recommendations with other readers, join us at any or all of our upcoming Open Book Nights at the Mid-Manhattan Library, or on the steps of the Schwarzman Building this summer. The complete 2015 schedule is listed below.  We meet on the second Friday of the month at 6pm in the Corner Room on the First Floor, except for our special outdoor Open Books nights on June 26 and July 10, which will meet on the steps of the Schwarzman Building.  We'd love to see you there!

• February 13, 2015 - Love                                            See the Patron Picks List from Open Book Night, February 2015
• April 10, 2015 - New Beginnings                            See the Patron Picks List from Open Book Night, April 2015
• May 8, 2015 - Nature                                                    See the Patron Picks List from Open Book Night, May 2015
• June 12, 2015 - Sports
• June 26, 2015 - Open theme                                     Meet in the Outdoor Reading Room 
• July  10, 2015 - Open theme                                      Meet in the Outdoor Reading Room                
• August 14, 2015 - Travel       
• September 11, 2015 - New York
• October 9, 2015 - The Occult
• November 13, 2015  - Thanksgiving
• December 11, 2015 - Food and Cooking