Best natural history books according to redditors

One of the things that Patterson and Gimlin did that almost none of the current crop of researchers do is that they went out on horses, not on foot or in vehicles. It has been supposed that since they were on animals, that allowed them to get closer to Patty than they would otherwise been able to.

u/MrsBoombastic98 - You might be interested in When Roger Met Patty by William Munns. He was a Hollywood special effects and costume specialist who wrote about his detailed analysis of the costume in consideration about the techniques that were available at the time.

His conclusion was that there was no way for it to have been faked with any of the technology available to Hollywood costume makers at the time and for decades after. It really is a worthwhile read if you want to consider the challenges a hoaxer would have faced back then.

Size is going to be more or less the same between the two, adult size is going to be highly dependent on how much you feed them. I slow grow my animals and my male Jungle is a little over 2 years old and 4ft, 398g. If you do the whole feed it large meals once a week thing you can easily end up with a 400-700g animal in the space of a year. To give you an idea I fed him every 10 days up until he was a year old just about, then every 2 weeks, and once he hit 2 he's been getting a weaned rat every 3 weeks. I've never pushed large meals. I don't expect him to get any larger than 600-800g.

IJs go for $150-250 usually, real Jungles go for $250-500 depending on the line and quality of the parents. Cheap undocumented Jungles that may or may not turn yellow go for $100-150.

In terms of temperament I think IJs tend to be a little nicer as babies but you can get a shit head of either species so just go with what you like better. 99% of them will all tame down with patience and age. Buy a hook.

As for breeders, Nick Mutton (Inland Reptile) is always who I recommend first. He's the largest Carpet Python breeder in the US and works with everything pretty much. All of his animals come with lineage charts and they're all what he says they are. He wrote The Complete Carpet Python which is a coveted book in the Morelia community. My Jungle is from him and he's great to work with.

He and Justin Julander quite literally wrote the book on morelia keeping, The Complete Carpet Python. Beyond that his reputation is stellar in the business. If you get a chance listen to some of his interviews on Morelia Python Radio. Hell just listen to MPR regardless who the guest is. Lots of good info to be gleaned for anyone interested in snake keeping in general.

\>>> I tried to compile the rest of the books.

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But Beautiful: A Book About Jazz

by Geoff Dyer

(can't find the same edition)

"May be the best book ever written about jazz."—David Thomson, Los Angeles Times

In eight poetically charged vignettes, Geoff Dyer skillfully evokes the music and the men who shaped modern jazz. Drawing on photos, anecdotes, and, most important, the way he hears the music, Dyer imaginatively reconstructs scenes from the embattled lives of some of the greats: Lester Young fading away in a hotel room; Charles Mingus storming down the streets of New York on a too-small bicycle; Thelonious Monk creating his own private language on the piano. However, music is the driving force of But Beautiful, and wildly metaphoric prose that mirrors the quirks, eccentricity, and brilliance of each musician's style.

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The Tide: The Science and Stories Behind the Greatest Force on Earth

by Hugh Aldersey-Williams
Half of the world’s population today lives in coastal regions lapped by tidal waters. But the tide rises and falls according to rules that are a mystery to almost all of us. In The Tide, celebrated science writer Hugh Aldersey-Williams weaves together centuries of scientific thinking with the literature and folklore the tide has inspired to explain the power and workings of this most remarkable force.

Here is the epic story of the long search to understand the tide from Aristotle, to Galileo and Newton, to classic literary portrayals of the tide from Shakespeare to Dickens, Melville to Jules Verne.

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Return of the Sea Otter

by Todd McLeish

A science journalist's journey along the Pacific Coast from California to Alaska to track the status, health, habits, personality, and viability of sea otters--the appealing species unique to this coastline that was hunted to near extinction in the 18th and 19th centuries. These adorable, furry marine mammals--often seen floating on their backs holding hands--reveal the health of the coastal ecosystem along the Pacific Ocean. Once hunted for their prized fur during the 1700s and 1800s, these animals nearly went extinct. Only now, nearly a century after hunting ceased, are populations showing stable growth in some places. Sea otters are a keystone species in coastal areas, feeding on sea urchins, clams, crab, and other crustaceans. When they are present, kelp beds are thick and healthy, providing homes for an array of sealife. When otters disappear, sea urchins take over, and the kelp disappears along with all of the creatures that live in the beds. Now, thanks to their protected status, sea otters are floating around in coves in California, Washington, and Alaska.

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Why Women Will Save the Planet

by Friends Of The Earth, Jenny Hawley (Editor)

Women's empowerment is critical to environmental sustainability, isn't it? When Friends of the Earth asked this question on Facebook half of respondents said yes and half said no, with women as likely to say no as men. This collection of articles and interviews, from some of the leading lights of the environmental and feminist movements, demonstrates that achieving gender equality is vital if we are to protect the environment upon which we all depend. It is a rallying call to environmental campaigning groups and other environmentalists who have, on the whole, neglected women's empowerment in their work.

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Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea and Human Life

by George Monbiot

This book explodes with wonder and delight. Making use of remarkable scientific discoveries that transform our understanding of how natural systems work, George Monbiot explores a new, positive environmentalism that shows how damaged ecosystems on land and at sea can be restored, and how this restoration can revitalize and enrich our lives. Challenging what he calls his “ecological boredom,” Monbiot weaves together a beautiful and riveting tale of wild places, wildlife, and wild people. Roaming the hills of Britain and the forests of Europe, kayaking off the coast of Wales with dolphins and seabirds, he seeks out the places that still possess something of the untamed spirit he would like to resurrect.

He meets people trying to restore lost forests and bring back missing species—such as wolves, lynx, wolverines, wild boar, and gray whales—and explores astonishing evidence that certain species, not just humans, have the power to shape the physical landscape.

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To the River: A Journey Beneath the Surface

by Olivia Laing

To the River is the story of the Ouse, the Sussex river in which Virginia Woolf drowned in 1941. One midsummer week over sixty years later, Olivia Laing walked Woolf's river from source to sea. The result is a passionate investigation into how history resides in a landscape - and how ghosts never quite leave the places they love. Along the way, Laing explores the roles rivers play in human lives, tracing their intricate flow through literature and mythology alike. To the River excavates all sorts of stories from the Ouse's marshy banks, from the brutal Barons' War of the thirteenth century to the 'Dinosaur Hunters', the nineteenth-century amateur naturalists who first cracked the fossil code. Central among these ghosts is, of course, Virginia Woolf herself: her life, her writing and her watery death. Woolf is the most constant companion on Laing's journey, and To the River can be read in part as a biography of this extraordinary English writer, refracted back through the river she loved. But other writers float through these pages too - among them Iris Murdoch, Shakespeare, Homer and Kenneth Grahame, author of the riverside classic The Wind in the Willows.

the ones you listed are among my top faves- just got Over the garden wall on vinyl wooop- but i'd also add:

most things from Tim Burton's brain: Edward Scissorhands, Nightmare before Christmas, Corpse Bride, Frankenweenie. The disjoined, strange, bittersweet loneliness in his work for me always feels like the darkness in autumn.

I also like ParaNorman, Coraline too. Sometimes Gravity Falls has some halloweeny vibes sometimes.

Malick's Days of Heaven is visually stunning and some of the shots are deeply autumnal in tone and vibe and besides that it's a masterpiece if you're into gritty older critically acclaimed heavy hitting films (which i totally get some people aren't- i also like cheesy hallmark films to chill out to haha)

Considering you listed David Lynch's Twin Peaks, I recommend his "The Straight Story". I mean its Lynch, so its pretty strange, but its simple and moving and the autumnal scenery is beautiful.

Legends of the fall is good.

Bookwise, I'm reading The Nature of Autumn. It's great so far, poetic and all about the changes of nature during autumn. Good for reading before bed.

Ray Bradbury's The October Country is solid for halloween vibes.

Edit: I forgot the Shining! and Romero's Zombie films are classics.

May I suggest Wayne Barlowe's Expedition.

I'm saddened they don't have a print version anymore.

I'm going to second /u/MikeofthePalace with A Natural History of Dragons and number two in the series is called A Tropic of Serpents with number three, The Voyage of the Basilisk, coming out this year.

It should give you a nice wide range of settings too.

If you can get your hands on a hardcover copy I would definitely recommend it, they are absolutely gorgeous.

Definitely. I think it's a matter of their design process. If people aren't actually thinking about the geometries they are using it becomes an exercise of copy and paste. We have all been there at some point, but it's important to move into deeper territory if you want the Architecture and geometries you are making to have staying power in the long run. The novelty will wear off, and we will be left with some pretty sub-par buildings.

I just started reading Shapes by Philip Ball, but it seems interesting if anyone wants to check it out. It's not just a matter of understanding geometries, but also understanding how they work. Nature is a great starting point to understand these relationships in a more meaningful way.

I'm also really bothered by the way a lot of projects are meeting the ground plane. There doesn't seem to be much concern with that shift, and sometimes people lose sense of the human scale in their work. It's great that we have parametrics and can begin investigating more complex geometries, but we can't lose sight of basic design principals either. Strive to make it livable, and take the time to think about the materials and construction process.

History of our Continent, by the National Geographic, is a great book for North America.

Here it is: https://www.amazon.com/Our-Continent-Natural-History-America/dp/0870441531

Required Reading: Conifers of the Pacific Slope: A field guide to the conifers of California, Oregon, and Washington

Required Reading: Forest Trees of the Pacific Slope

Pick & Choose: New-to-Seattle reading list, 25 essential nature books

Nice to have: Ancient Forests of the Pacific Northwest

Nice to have: Conifer Country: A natural history and hiking guide to 35 conifers of the Klamath Mountain region

Nice to have: Timberline Mountain and Arctic Forest Frontiers

Here's one about tides.

A conservative/reactionary reading list:

Jean Bodin - Six Books of the Commonwealth (1576)

Robert Filmer - Patriarcha, or The Natural Power of Kings (1680)

Edmund Burke - Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Joseph de Maistre - Considerations on France (1797) and Essay on the Generative Principle of Political Constitutions and other Human Institutions (1809)

Thomas Carlyle - The French Revolution: A History (1837) and On Heroes and Hero Worship and the Heroic in History (1841)

Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil (1886) and Genealogy of Morals (1887)

Oswald Spengler - Decline of the West (1918)

Ernst Jünger - Storm of Steel (1920)

Jose Ortega y Gassett - Revolt of the Masses (1929)

Julius Evola - Revolt Against the Modern World (1934) and Men Among the Ruins (1953)

Bertrand de Jouvenal - On Power: The Natural History of Its Growth (1949)

Leo Strauss - Natural Right and History (1953)

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn - The Menace of the Herd (1943) and Liberty or Equality (1952)

I know I have mentioned it before, but has anyone else here read Expedition: Being an Account in Words and Artwork of the 2358 A.D. Voyage to Darwin IV? The author isn't a scientist, but evolution plays a big role in the book, particularly body plans, the constraints past history put on evolution, and the impact of the environment. I think he does a pretty good job with it, even if some of the outcomes are questionable. It was also made into a Discovery Channel Documentary back before they mostly abandoned science.

The author is the same guy who did the creature design for Avatar. Although the organisms in Avatar look and act completely different to those in Expedition, the role of body plans and environmental influences is the same, just starting from different base. In fact I was able to immediately identify him as the creature designer for the movie, and I have no doubt he got the role due to his work in Expedition (in fact he got the role around the same time the Discovery Channel movie of Expedition came out). He also did the creature design for a bunch of other movies such as the Hellboy movies, Pacific Rim, Titan A.E., several Harry Potter movies, The Hobbit, Galaxy Quest, etc.

My BRB-owning friends love this book.

For just some quick husbandry, Rainbows R Us is an extremely competent BRB breeder, and I trust their care information.

Little known? Are you quite sure?

I'd say this fits your criteria:

A Natural History of Dragons: A Memoir by Lady Trent https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1783292393/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_yykYDb39MMG7D

I have read it, and I remember it being a decent book. Might get around to the second one if I ever see it in a shop and remember.

Leo Strauss: Natural Right and History

I'd recommend anything by Paul Gruchow

• The Necessity of Empty Places
  
• Travels in Canoe Country
  
• Boundary Waters: The Grace of the Wild
  
• Journal of a Prairie Year
  
• Grass Roots: The Universe of Home
  

You should read this before so thoroughly dismissing the PGF: http://www.amazon.com/When-Roger-Patty-William-Munns/dp/1500534021/

You're right, that'd be a dichotomous key. They're extremely neat (to me)...but honestly, before having any plant taxonomy coursework, as base level beginner/kid, having a guide like this around was far more helpful and user friendly.

With dichotomous keys, you get to points where you have to know at least a bit of plant-specific scientific vocabulary, is all.

You people should collectively read Ring of Bright Water.