Recommend

I think that the Nature of Oaks fixed the issues Tallamy had with his earlier work I reviewed. Bringing Nature Home felt too text-book for me. I understood what he was going for, but it was less-enjoyable of a read. This book stayed more narrative. Furthermore, I often lament that nature and ecology books are too broad. Learning about the intelligence of birds is great, but that is far too many species to track, so I greatly enjoyed that the main focus of this book was on a single genus of plants, and only in North America. That said, the fact that it focused on oaks did not limit Tallamy. While it examined oaks throughout the year, he used it as a jumping off point into interactions with and even between insects. Different seasons have different interactions. I might be inclined to say that the book was more simple than some of the others, but that might also be due to the fact that I have more background on the subject. But simple or not, I still learned plenty. My favorite bit of knowledge was learning of ant-caterpillar symbiosis. I knew of ants farming fungi, and ants caring for aphids, but not that some ants build little dens for certain co-evolved caterpillars to be safe, receiving secreted sugars in return. I recommend this book, especially for beginners, but also the more advanced.