10 Best Nature Literature Criticism Books

In a time that looms around the corner of today, in a place on the edge of our nation, it is a crime to dissent, a crime to assemble, a crime to stand up for one’s life. Despite all this – or perhaps because of it – the Dandelion Insurrection appears … Under a gathering storm of tyranny, Zadie Byrd Gray whirls into the life of Charlie Rider and asks him to become the voice of the Dandelion Insurrection. With the rallying cry of life, liberty, and love , Zadie and Charlie fly across America leaving a wake of revolution in their path. Passion erupts. Danger abounds. The lives of millions hang by a thread. The golden soul of humanity blossoms …and wonders start to unfold! Author Rivera Sun creates mythic characters from everyday people. She infuses the story of our times with practical solutions and visionary perspectives , drawing the reader into a world both terrifying and inspiring… a world that can be our own! Reviewers have enthusiastically called The Dandelion Insurrection.. . “The handbook of the coming revolution”. Part fact, part fiction and part prophecy, you will enjoy The Dandelion Insurrection. From the reviewers: ” Close your eyes and imagine the force of the people and the power of love overcoming the force of greed and the love of power. Then read The Dandelion Insurrection. In a world where despair has deep roots, The Dandelion Insurrection bursts forth with joyful abandon.”– Medea Benjamin, co- founder of CodePink ” I love this book! It beautifully captures the revolution of love that is sweeping the globe, told as an epic novel that will set your heart on fire. A rare gem of a book, a must read, it charts the way forward in this time of turmoil and transformation,…you will love The Dandelion Insurrection!”– Velcrow Ripper, Canadian Academy Award (Genie) winner, director of Occupy Love ” This novel will not only make you want to change the world, it will remind you that you can.”– Gayle Brandeis, author of The Book of Dead Birds , winner of the Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction ” THE handbook for the coming revolution!”– Lo Daniels, Editor of Dandelion Salad ” The Dandelion Insurrection is an updated, more accurate, less fantastical Brave New World or 1984.”– David Swanson, journalist, author, peace activist ” The Dandelion Insurrection is a prayer seven billion hearts strong and counting.”– Megan Hollingsworth, Founder of Extinction Witness ” Rivera Sun’s The Dandelion Insurrection takes place in a dystopia just a hop, skip and jump away from today’s society. A fundamentally political book with vivid characters and heart stopping action. It’s a must and a great read.”– Judy Rebick, activist and author of Occupy This! ” …a beautifully written book just like the dandelion plant itself, punching holes through the concert of corporate terror, and inviting all to join in the insurrection.”– Keith McHenry, co-founder of the Food Not Bombs Movement

An award-winning poet offers a brilliant introduction to the joys–and challenges–of the genre In Don’t Read Poetry , award-winning poet and literary critic Stephanie Burt offers an accessible introduction to the seemingly daunting task of reading, understanding, and appreciating poetry. Burt dispels preconceptions about poetry and explains how poems speak to one another–and how they can speak to our lives. She shows readers how to find more poems once they have some poems they like, and how to connect the poetry of the past to the poetry of the present. Burt moves seamlessly from Shakespeare and other classics to the contemporary poetry circulated on Tumblr and Twitter. She challenges the assumptions that many of us make about “poetry,” whether we think we like it or think we don’t, in order to help us cherish–and distinguish among– individual poems. A masterful guide to a sometimes confounding genre, Don’t Read Poetry will instruct and delight ingenues and cognoscenti alike.

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2020 by Buzzfeed , Library Journal , The Millions , and The Rumpus Effortlessly blending biography, criticism, and memoir, National Book Award- winning poet and best-selling memoirist Mark Doty explores his personal quest for Walt Whitman. Mark Doty has always felt haunted by Walt Whitman’s bold, perennially new American voice, and by his equally radical claims about body and soul and what it means to be a self. In What Is the Grass , Doty―a poet, a New Yorker, and an American―keeps company with Whitman and his Leaves of Grass , tracing the resonances between his own experience and the legendary poet’s life and work. What is it then between us? Whitman asks. In search of an answer, Doty explores spaces―both external and internal―where he finds the poet’s ghost. He meditates on desire, love, and the mysterious wellsprings of the poet’s enduring work: a radical experience of transformation and enlightenment, queer sexuality, and an obsession with death, as well as unabashed love for a great city and for the fresh, rowdy character of American speech. In riveting close readings threaded with personal memoir and illuminated by awe, Doty reveals the power of Whitman’s persistent presence in his life and in the American imagination at large. How does a voice survive death? What Is the Grass is a conversation across time and space, a study of the astonishment one poet finds in the accomplishment of another, and an attempt to grasp Whitman’s deeply hopeful vision of human possibility. 3 illustrations

“This is the finest kind of travel: not just across continents, but through time, space and our infinite minds. The journey is the joy, and Emily Thomas a terrific guide.” – Mike Parker How can we think more deeply about our travels? This was the question that inspired Emily Thomas’ journey into the philosophy of travel. Part philosophical ramble, part travelogue, The Meaning of Travel begins in the Age of Discovery, when philosophers first started taking travel seriously. It meanders forward to consider Montaigne on otherness, John Locke on cannibals, and Henry Thoreau on wilderness. On our travels with Thomas, we discover the dark side of maps, how the philosophy of space fuelled mountain tourism, and why you should wash underwear in woodland cabins… We also confront profound issues, such as the ethics of ‘doom tourism’ (travel to ‘doomed’ glaciers and coral reefs), and the effect of space travel on human significance in a leviathan universe. The first ever exploration of the places where history and philosophy meet, this book will reshape your understanding of travel.