Ecology book club

Are you interested in our impact on planet earth? The web of life? Climate change? Nature? Ecology? If so, this book club is the place for you! Join us as we continue our journey of lifelong learning! The Ecology Book Club meets online each month on zoom. We generally meet on the fourth Wednesday of the month at 6:30 p.m. on zoom. Register for zoom link.

If prompted, the password is Cedar123. A few times a year, they also meet in person at the Lindeman Center (2660 Fawn Lake Dr. NE, East Bethel). 

Upcoming book club meetings

  • September 27, 2023, The Power of Trees:  How Ancient Forests Can Save Us If We Let Them, by Peter Wohlleben

  • October 25, 2023, When the Sahara Was Green:  How Our Greatest Desert Came to Be, by Martin Williams

  • Nov./Dec., 2023 (specific date yet to be determined), The Sloth Lemur's Song:  Madagascar from the Deep Past to the Uncertain Present, by Alison Richard

Book selections

Books are selected by the club members, and no scientific expertise or background is necessary to participate. You don't even need to have finished the book!

Submit a book suggestion

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Book club origins

The Ecology Book Club was originally developed as a capstone project for a group of Cedar Creek Master Naturalists in 2017. Since then, it has grown into a lively group that meets monthly to discuss and dissect books related to environmental issues. Fiction, non-fiction, heavy, light — we read it all!

Past books

  • An Immense World by Ed Yong
  • The Wild Life of Our Bodies by Rob Dunn
  • South Pole Station: A Novel by Ashley Shelby
  • For Love of Lakes by Darby Nelson
  • Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
  • The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
  • Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
  • The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben
  • Half Earth by E.O. Wilson
  • The Sixth Extinction by Rachel Kolbert
  • Conservation on the Northern Plains by Anthony Amato
  • The Rambunctious Garden by Emma Marris
  • The Life and Death of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan
  • Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv
  • The Nature Fix by Florence Williams
  • A Love Affair with Birds by Sue Leaf
  • Climate, A New Story by Charles Eisenstein
  • A Naturalist At Large by Bernd Heinrich
  • The Moth Snowstorm by Michael McCarthy
  • Bringing Nature Home by Doug Tallamy
  • The Wizard and the Prophet by Charles C. Mann
  • Deep Woods, Wild Waters: A Memoir by Douglas Wood
  • The New Wild: Why Invasive Species Will Be Nature's Salvation, by Fred Pearce
  • Listening Point by Sigurd Olson
  • Our Native Bees by Paige Embry
  • Mama's Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us About Ourselves by Frans de Waal
  • The Secret Wisdom of Nature by Peter Wohlleben
  • Vulture: The Private Life of an Unloved Bird by Katie Fallon
  • The Overstory by Richard Powers
  • Wild and Rare-Tracking Endangered Species in the Upper Midwest by Adam Regn Arvidson
  • The Wild Trees by Richard Preston
  • Rising by Elizabeth Rush
  • A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold
  • The Big Marsh by Cheri Register
  • Tales of the Shaman's Apprentice by Mark J. Plotkin
  • Minnesota's Geologist: The Life of Newton Horace Winchell by Susan Leaf
  • Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake
  • Life in the Treetops: Adventures of a Woman in Field Biology by Margaret D. Lowman
  • The Amazon: What Everyone Needs to Know by Mark. J. Plotkin
  • Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses by Robin Wall Kimmerer
  • The Myth of Human Supremacy by Derrick Jensen
  • Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel by Carl Safina
  • Wolf Island by David Mech
  • Underland: A Deep Time Journey by Robert MacFarlane
  • Origins: How Earth's History Shaped Human History by Lewis Dartnell
  • The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees by Douglas W. Tallamy
  • Life's Edge: The Search for What It Means to Be Alive by Carl Zimmer
  • This Is Your Mind On Plants by Michael Pollan
  • The Language of Butterflies by Wendy Williams
  • Finding The Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard
  • Owls of the Eastern Ice by Jonathan Slaght (with visit by the author!)
  • The Book of Hope – A Survival Guide for Trying Times by Jane Goodall
  • The Marsh Builders:  The Fight for Clean Water, Wetlands, and Wildlife, by Sharon Levy, Karen White, et al.
  • The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires That Run the World by Oliver Millman
  • A World Without Soil: The Past, Present & Precarious Futerr of the Earth Beneath our Feet by Jo Handelsman and Kayla Cohen
  • The Forest Unseen by David George Haskell
  • Summer World by Bernd Heinrich
  • Whole Brain Living: The Anatomy of Choice and the Four Characters That Drive Our Life by Jill Bolte Taylor
  • The Secret Life of Bats: My Adventures with the World's Most Understood Mammals by Merlin Tuttle
  • The Journeys of Trees, A Story About Forests, People, and the Future by Zach St. George