Selected Titles on Amazon Nature, History and Culture
To get the very best out of visiting the Amazon rainforest, some understanding of the environment, its creatures, and its natural history goes a long way. We highly recommend being an informed traveler!
There are many exceptional titles written about Amazon nature. Below we list two reading lists. The first list is of some of the most important readily available works of Amazon natural history and the second is a more complete list broken down by subject. Books that we are aware of as being available in paperback are indicated by an asterisk (*). All of the works listed are important ones, though some that we know to be especially relevant to our programs are marked by the pound symbol (#). There are new books available all the time, but these are a start.
Reading List A: Readily Available Works
1. Natural History
*Tropical Nature, by Adrian Forsyth and Ken Miata, Macmillan Publishing Company, 1984
*Neotropical Companion, Kricher, Princeton University Press, 1990
2. Field Guides
#Floods of Fortune, Ecology and Economy along the Amazon, Michael Goulding, Nigel Smith, Dennis Mahar, Columbia University Press, 1996
*# Neotropical Rainforest Mammals, Emmons, Louise H. 1997, University of Chicago Press
*#A Guide to the Birds of Venezuela, Schauensee, R.M. & Phelps, W.H. Jr 1978, Princeton, Princeton Univ. Press. (Best guide in English to the birds of the Eastern Amazon)
*#Amazon Insects – A Photo Guide, Castner, James L., available from Feline Press, P.O. Box 357219, Gainesville, FL 32635 USA
3. General Guides
Insight Guides: Amazon Wildlife, APA Publications (HK), Ltd., 1992 The Amazon: Past, Present, and Future, Gheerbrant, Alain, Discoveries Series, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York
4. Travels
*#White Waters and Black, MacCreagh, Gordon, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1985 (first published 1926)
*# The Naturalist on the River Amazons, Bates, Henry Walter, Penguin Books, first edition 1863, (paperback edition 1989)
Reading List B: Comprehensive Reading
1. Children’s Publications
# The Great Kapok Tree, Cherry, Lynne, 1990, Orlando, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
The Tropical Rainforest, George, Jean Craighead, Crowell, 1990 Color the Rainforest, Living Planet Press, 1990
2. Accounts of Amazon Travels
*# The Naturalist on the River Amazons, Bates, Henry Walter, Penguin Books, first edition 1863, (paperback edition 1989)
# In Trouble Again, O’Hanlon, Redmond, 1988, New York, The Atlantic Monthly Press
Jacques Cousteau’s Amazon Journey, Cousteau, Jacques,1984, New York, Harry Abrams, Inc. Publishers
#Brasilian Adventure, Fleming, Peter, 1961, Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company
Amazon, Kelly and London, 1983, Holt, Rhinhart, and Winston
*#White Waters and Black, MacCreagh, Gordon, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1985 (first published 1926)
*#The Rivers Amazon, Shoumatoff, Alex, 1978, Sierra Club Books, San Francisco
The Cloud Forest, Peter Matthiessen, 1961
Los Passos Perdidos, Allejo Carpentier, A good novel in Spanish about the Amazon
3. Tropical Forest Descriptions
*# Rio Negro, Rich Life in Poor Water, Goulding Michael, SPB Academic Publishing, 1988, ISBN 90-5103-016-9
*# Tropical Nature, Forsyth, Adrian, 1984, Macmillan Publishing Company
*# Neotropical Companion, Kricher, Princeton University Press, 1990
*# A Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro, Wallace, Russell Alfred, 1853, London, Reeve and Co. (Dover reprint 1889 edition)
*# The High Frontier, Moffett, Mark, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1993
4. Rainforest Issues
# Alternatives to Deforestation, Anderson, Anthony, ed., Columbia University Press, New York, 1990
*# In the Rain Forest, Caufield, Catherine, U. of Chicago Press, 1984 *# The Fate of the Forest, Hecht, Susanna., Verso Publ, 1989
*# The Primary Source: Tropical Forests and Our Future, Myers, Norman, 1984, New York, W.W. Norton Press
# The Deluge and the Ark, Peterson, Dale. 1989, Houghton Mifflin Company
*# The World is Burning, Shoumatoff, Alex, Avon Books, New York, 1990
* Dreams of Amazonia, Stone, Roger D., Penguin Travel Series, 1985
5. Selected Works on The Philosophy of Conservation and the Natural World
*# The Maine Woods, Thoreau, Henry D., Penguin Books, New York, 1988 [This account of the state of the north american northeastern forest in the 19th century is comparable to current state of Amazonias forests.]
#Naturalist, Edward Wilson, Island Press, Washington DC, 1994
*# Encounters with the Archdruid, McPhee, John, 1971, (paperback, 1990, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York
*# Walden, Thoreau, Henry D., (paperback ed., 1971), Princeton University Press, Princeton
*# Biophilia, Wilson, E.O., 1984, Harvard University Press, Cambridge
*#Triste Tropiques, Claude Levi-Strauss, 1992
6. Field Guides
*# Neotropical Rainforest Mammals, Emmons, Louise H. 1997, University of Chicago Press
*# A Guide to the Birds of Venezuela, Schauensee, R.M. & Phelps, W.H. Jr 1978, Princeton, Princeton Univ. Press. (Best guide in English to the birds of the Eastern Amazon)
#Latin American Insects and Entomology, Charles Hogue, University of California Press, Berkely, 1993
*Birds of Tropical America, Hilty, Steve, Chapters Publishing Ltd., Shelborne, Vermont, 1994
South American Birds: A Photographic Aid to Identification, John S. Dunning, 1987
*A Guide to the Birds of Columbia, Steven Hilty and William Brown, 1986
A Guide to the Birds of South America, Schauensee,
Insects of an Amazon Forest, Penny, Norman D. and Arias, Jorge R., Columbia University Press, 1982, New York
Nomes Vulgaris de Plantas Amazonicas, Marlene Freitas da Silva, Pedro Luiz Braga Lisboa, Regina Celia Lobato Lisboa, Instituto Nacional Pesquisas da Amazonia, Manaus, 1977
A Complete Introduction to Tarantulas, David, Al, THF Publications, Neptune City, New Jersey, 1987
The Piranha Book, E. Myers, George, THF Publications, Neptune City, New Jersey, 1972
Catalogue of the Neotropical Squamata: Part 1. Snakes, Part 2. Lizard and Amphibians, Peters, James., Roberto Donoso-Barrios and Braulio Orejas-Miranda, Smithsonian
Butterflies of South America, D’Abrera, Bernard, Hill House, 1984
Exotic Tropical Fishes, Axelrod, Herbert, R., T.F.H. Publications, Inc., Neptune City, New Jersey, 1985
Snakes of the World, Mattison, Chris, Facts on File Publications, New York, 1986
7. History and Natural History of the Brasilian Amazon
*# The Naturalist on the River Amazons, Bates, Henry Walter, Penguin Books, first edition 1863, (paperback edition 1989)
# Red Gold: the Conquest of the Brasilian Indians, Hemming, J. 1987, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press
*# The Discovery of the Amazon, Medina, J.T. ed., 1988, New York, Dover Publications,
# Through the Brasilian Wilderness, Roosevelt, Theodore. 1914, New York.
*# A Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro, Wallace, Russel Alfred, 1853, London, Reeve and Co. (Dover reprint 1889 edition)
# The Amazon Rubber Boom 1850-1920, Weinstein, B. 1983, Stanford, Stanford Univ. Press
Explorers of the Amazon, Smith, Anthony, 1990, Viking Penguin, Inc., New York