The Comfort of Crows, A Backyard Year by Margaret Renkl. I haven’t fallen so much in love with a book in a long time. I’ve bought copies for my animal and nature loving family and friends and all say the same: “I feel like I wrote this.” Fifty-two entries taking the reader through the seasons of Margaret’s backyard and beyond in Tennessee. It clocks not only the changing seasons but also climate change, bird migration, animal behavior and so much more. Beautifully written, beautifully “felt.”

 When it comes to beautiful writing, it’s hard to beat Beryl Markham’s West With the Night, which also reads like a page-turning novel. I’ve read and reread this book over and over, and while there is some debate over whether she wrote it herself or not, the writing stands the test of time.

Alexandra Fuller’s “Africa” books takes the medium of memoir to another level. Writing about her childhood in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Malawi, and Zambia, Fuller writes about life and death in prose beautiful and unique to her. In her world, dramatic events become ordinary, yet there is not an ounce of melodrama in these pages. The worst that can happen in most people’s minds happens to the Fuller family on a regular basis, and yet Fuller’s books are some of the most hilarious I’ve ever read. I read these over and over.