2021 books

The Overstory by Richard Powers (2019)

The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson (2020)

On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder (1937)

Atomic Habits by James Clear (2018)

The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss (1812) (read aloud with H)

extraterrestrial by Avi Loeb (2021)

The Practice by Seth Godin (2020)

World of Wonders by Aimee Nezhukumatathil (2020)

A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet (2020)

Wolf Willow by Wallace Stegner (1955)

The Remains of the Day by Kuzuo Ishiguro (1988)

Where the Buffalo Roam by Anne Matthews (1992)

We the Jury by Wayne Miller (2021)

The Silence by Don DeLillo (2020)

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (2005)

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (1844; translated from French by Jacques Le Clercq) (read aloud with H)

Planting in a Post-Wild World by Thomas Rainer and Claudia West (2015)

Billionaire Wilderness by Justin Farrell (2020)

I Hate Running and You Can Too by Brendan Leonard (2021)

Monogamy by Sue Miller (2020)

Raven’s Witness by Hank Lentfer (2020)

A Sense of Place, a Sense of Time by John Brinckerhoff Jackson (1994) (re-read)

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro (2021)

Suburbitat by Jim Tolstrup (2021)

Freedom by Sebastian Junger (2021)

Nocturnes by Kazuo Ichiguro (2009)

The Tallgrass Prairie: An Introduction by Cindy Crosby (2017)

Sorry for Your Trouble by Richard Ford (2020)

Grassland by Richard Manning (1997)

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard (1974)

Helgoland by Carlo Rovelli (2020; translation by Erica Segre and Simon Carnell, 2021)

The Ecology and Management of Prairies in the Central United States by Chris Heltzer (2010)

On Time and Water by Andri Snær Magnason (2019; translated from Icelandic by Lytton Smith, 2021)

Funny Weather by Olivia Laing (2020)

Great Plains by Ian Frazier (1989) (re-read)

Mortality by Christopher Hitchens (2010)

Powder Days by Heather Hansman (2021)

Food Rules by Michael Pollan (2009)

Humankind by Rutger Bregman (2019; translated from Dutch by Elizabeth Manton and Erica Moore, 2020)

This Is Your Mind on Plants by Michael Pollan (2021)

Prairie reading list

Since starting a shortgrass prairie garden in our yard in 2017, I’ve gone back to these books for reference and inspiration. I’ll update the list from time to time. If you have any to recommend, get in touch!

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Plants and gardening

Jewels of the Plains by Claude Barr (1983)

The Prairie Garden: a step-by-step guide to creating a shortgrass prairie garden by Rick Brune (1991)

Low-Water Native Plants for Colorado Gardens: Front Range & Foothills by the Colorado Native Plant Society (2016)

Low-Water Native Plants for Colorado Gardens: Prairies & Plains by the Colorado Native Plant Society (2016)

Edible Wild Plants of the Prairie by Kelly Kindscher (1987)

Medicinal Wild Plants of the Prairie by Kelly Kindscher (1992)

Messy Ecosystems, Orderly Frames by Joan Iverson Nassauer in Landscape Journal (1995)

Bringing Nature Home by Douglas Tallamy (2007)

Prairie Up by Benjamin Vogt

A New Garden Ethic by Benjamin Vogt

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Field guides

Prairie: A North American Guide by Suzanne Winckler (2004)

Peterson Field Guides: The North American Prairie by Ruth Carol Cushman and Stephen R. Jones (2004)

The Tallgrass Prairie: An Introduction by Cindy Crosby (2017)

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Natural history

The Prairie World by David S. Costello (1969)

The Shortgrass Prairie by Ruth Carol Cushman and Stephen R. Jones (1988)

Grassland by Richard Manning (1997)

Prairie: A Natural History by Candace Savage (2004)

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Fiction

The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder (1940)

Plainsong by Kent Haruf (2000)

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (1985)

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Narrative nonfiction

Great Plains by Ian Frazier (1989)

PrairyErth by William Least Heat-Moon (1991)

A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold (1949)