On Monday, May 22, 2017, 3:30 – 5:00 the Natural History Society book club will discuss The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben.

Forester Peter Wohlleben makes the case that forests are social networks.  He believes that trees are like human families, with parents living near their children, communicating with them, supporting them as they grow.  Wohlleben shares his love of the forests in Germany in which he works, but his observations are relevant to forests in the Pacific Northwest as well.  Amazon’s description of this title states that “After learning about the complex life of trees, a walk in the woods will never be the same again.”

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At this meeting we will select books for reading the next few months.  Bring your suggestions for books you would like the group to read.  You can start by selecting a few titles from this list

The Natural History Society book club will meet on Monday, April 24, 2017, 3:30-5:00 to discuss The King of Fish: The Thousand-Year Run of Salmon by David Montgomery. For location, contact Jean at jltnatural@saveland.org

The salmon that symbolize the Pacific Northwest’s natural splendor are now threatened with extinction across much of their ancestral range.  Geologist David Montgomery sees the evolution and near-extinction of salmon as a story of changing landscapes.  He shows how a succession of historical experiences–in the United Kingdom, in New England, and now in the Pacific Northwest–repeat a disheartening story of overfishing and sweeping changes to rivers and seas that render the world inhospitable to salmon.  King of Fish concludes with provocative recommendations for reinventing the ways in which we make environmental decisions about land, water, and fish.

The Natural History Society book club will meet on Monday, March 27, 3:30-5:00 to discuss Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer.  For location, contact Jean at jltnatural@saveland.org

Publishers Weekly called Robin Wall Kimmerer “a mesmerizing storyteller with deep compassion and memorable prose” and went on to state that this book will appeal to “anyone interested in natural history, botany, protecting nature, or Native American culture.”  Botanist Kimmerer asks questions of nature with the tools of science.  She is a member of the Potawatomi Nation, whose teachings consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers.

Gathering Moss, an earlier book by Kimmerer, was the book selection for January 2016.

Astoria: Astor and Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark is the book selection for February 2017.  The Natural History Society book club will meet on Monday, February 27, from 3:30-5:00.  Contact Jean at jltnatural@saveland.org for location.

Astoria, a true adventure tale of the establishment of Fort Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River,  describes incredible hardships experienced in the wilderness and at sea over the course of three years, 1810 to 1813.  John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson were attempting to found a colony like Jamestown on the West Coast, to transform the United States into a Pacific trading power.  The members of the Astor Expeditions battled nature, starvation, and madness to establish the first American settlement in the Pacific Northwest.  The colony opened American eyes to the potential of the Western coast and its founders helped blaze the Oregon Trail.

The Natural History Society Book Club will read Elizabeth Gilbert’s book The Signature of All Things in the month of January 2017.  We will meet on Monday, January 23, from 3:30 – 5:00. Contact Jean at jltnatural@saveland.org for location.

The Signature of All Things is a fictional tale of Alma Whittaker, daughter of the richest man in Philadelphia in the early 1800s.  Alma becomes a gifted botanist who investigates the mysteries of evolution.  She falls in love with Ambrose Pike, a talented painter of orchids.  The book takes place all over the globe, from Philadelphia to Amsterdam to Tahiti to Peru.  It is set in that extraordinary moment in human history when all the old assumptions about science, religion, commerce and class were being challenged by new ideas.