Introducing: Rachel Hutchens, Book Recommendation Panelist
Rachel Hutchens of Bluff Lake Nature Center in Denver with just some of her book recommendations for readers of the Nature Book Guide
Introductions! We're a community at Nature Book Guide, and it is time to introduce one of our Book Recommendation Panel members:
Rachel Hutchens has been a member of the Book Recommendation Panel since the inception of the Nature Book Guide in September 2023. Rachel serves as Executive Director of Bluff Lake Nature Center, a nonprofit agency that owns and manages a 123-acre urban wildlife refuge and outdoor classroom in Denver. Bluff Lake educates individuals to be engaged, resilient, and curious; conserves a natural area in the city; furthers equity in outdoor access; and nurtures the health and well-being of communities and ecosystems.
Bluff Lake Nature Center is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. Rachel is busy leading a major capital campaign to improve its campus with new public and staff spaces, and increased accessibility.
We've always loved Rachel's book recommendations for readers of the Nature Book Guide. She enjoys recommending fiction, but she’s also been a champion of other works, like Braiding Sweetgrass! Here are some of our favorites:
For the Spring 2024 issue, Rachel recommended The Vaster Wilds: A Novel, Lauren Groff, Riverhead Books, 2023, 272 pages.
For the Winter 2023-2024 issue, Rachel recommended The Snow Child: A Novel, Eowyn Ivey, Reagan Arthur Books (Hardcover), 2012, 400 pages.
For the Autumn 2023 issue, Rachel recommended The Wall, Marlen Haushofer, (first published 1963), New Directions, 2022, 248 pages.
For the Summer 2023 issue, Rachel recommended The Summer Book, Tove Jansson (Translated from Swedish by Thomas Teal), New York Review of Books (paperback), 2008, 184 pages.
For the Winter 2022-2023 issue, Rachel recommended Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Milkweed Editions, 2015, 408 pages.
Rachel's fondness for great fiction brings richness to so many of our quarterly issues of the Guide. The stories allow us to dive into places, ecosystems, and cultures far from ours. Wonder is a theme that repeats through the fiction we recommend in each issue. We hope you enjoy the selections, too!
You can access the current and all the past issues of the Nature Book Guide via “Downloads” tab. Always free, our goal is to introduce readers to great books about the outdoors--books that inspire wonder, adventure, insight, and care for the natural world--be it fiction, nonfiction, essays, poetry, children's books, or works of advocacy.