Simply put, The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs by Tristan Gooley is a practical guide to backyard geology and earth science. Its purpose is to help you interact with the outdoors dynamically and with curiosity. It lends the reader to the subtle and not-so-subtle clues that are in our environment and, in turn, it polishes the skills we need to tune our senses towards nature’s ebb and flow.
So far, this is the only book I’ve read by Tristan Gooley but, based on my experience reading this book, I would not hesitate to pick up any of his other nature writings. He has studied natural navigation for a few decades now and has written many books in this realm that delve deep into nature’s habits. In The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs, his tone is casual and easy to follow yet inspirational and wondrous —so much so, that it reinvented and rekindled my relationship with nature. After all, this is why the BBC called him “The Sherlock Holmes of nature.”
Although I have a lot of really good things to say about this book overall, let’s talk about some of the cons before we get into the good stuff. Don’t worry, this bit is short.
Gooley knows too much!
At times, I felt a bit overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information presented in the book. Gooley frequently used specific plants and methods as illustrations, and over time, this became a bit daunting. On the positive side, it’s great that Gooley backed up his points with numerous examples and tips for us new natural navigators. On the flip side (and maybe this is just me), I felt like I didn’t fully grasp the benefits of the book because I got bogged down in the nitty-gritty details he included.
More illustrations would have made the experience more enjoyable. While I appreciated the existing illustrations, I often found myself turning to Google images to visualize features not directly depicted in the book. For instance, the constant mention of specific trees and plants with names I won’t likely remember, as well as other small details, flew right over my head. But hey, this could be more of a “me” problem than an issue with the book itself. Despite these challenges, I still see myself returning to the book— and this is just a good excuse to do so.
Now for the pros.
Nature Filter Unlocked
The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs shares a wide range of tips and tricks that apply to different environments. So if you’re in the UK or in the US, you are bound to find information that you can use in your own backyard. I’d like to mention that it also referred to navigation techniques that could prove useful south of the equator, but the majority of it was based on the northern hemisphere. Either way, the author’s approach to nature was informative, diverse, and easy to grasp as a beginner. It offers explanations for common natural phenomena while simultaneously adding to my knowledge bank other phenomena that I wasn’t familiar with. For example, did you know that fogbows are a thing? It’s like a rainbow, but it occurs when there is fog instead of rain.
I also enjoyed the anecdotal aspect of the book. A few of the chapters in The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs are solely dedicated to Gooley’s adventures and real-life scenarios in which he has used his natural navigation skills. Getting to see his knowledge and skills put into action made this book feel even more practical and applicable as Gooley walks the readers through his own lived experiences.
On a side note, if you are interested in partaking in some similar adventures, Gooley offers courses and events where you can put your knowledge to the test as well as learn more useful navigational skills.
To further my praise, I think the most important and satisfying aspect of having read this book is that it brought wonder back into the natural world. I can no longer look at leaves and roots as they are, ignore them, or walk past them. I now look deeper at their shape, color, orientation, and texture in order to understand why nature manifests itself as it does.
Reading this book unfolded nature’s canopy and revealed an entirely different and deeply complex world right before my eyes. It has always been there, but Gooley exposed its cogs and chains leaving them bare for us to admire. In this book, he gives you the tools to understand the world as the world wants to the understood.
Now, when I walk outdoors, I not only ponder on the interconnectedness and oneness of the world around me but also the physical manifestations of that. I have the tools to read the environment as it tells me what it wants me to know. This new skill set allows me to look at the world as a discoverer, explorer, and navigator reading the history of the roots and leaves around me. It is such an empowering feeling and it actively fuels my yearning to understand the universe.
Since reading The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs, I can’t help but scan the skies to predict and track the weather; to observe the contour of the trees, and the flow of the wind against their leaves. So much that has always been there; so many clues as to how the world runs its course. This book gave me the tools to appreciate and engage with it in a genuine and intuitive way that will be with me forever. I don’t scan the skies consciously anymore. It’s where my body and mind are drawn to when I step foot outdoors; where my gaze falls at the end of a cloudless night. The skies and the earth have never looked the same since reading this masterpiece, and hope they never will.
If everything that I’ve said thus far has not persuaded you yet, let me try one more time. Here’s the story of when I predicted a rainbow (which coincidently happened the same day I began writing this review).
The weather that day was grey and cloudy, to say the least. You could feel the thickness of the air around you as if it were a veil sticking to every inch of exposed skin. Either way, it was a great day. After a big pizza dinner, I spent some time sitting around the porch table with my family talking about our day and just spending time together. At this point, we were all waiting for the rain to come crashing down on us. The weather for the past few days had indicated that at some point or another, we would be getting thunderstorms and heavy rains.
Nevertheless, we were surprised when a subtle and light mist of rain settled down around us. It wasn’t the loud-mouthed rain we were expecting. It was quiet and shy, and if you leaned in close, you could even hear it whisper an apology for having to rain on our parade. Anyway, as I looked out at the mist, the sun’s position caught my eye. I noticed that it was somewhere around 40-45ish degrees up from the horizon, which is an observation that comes to me more naturally after reading Gooley’s book. At this realization, I followed the sun through the mist and looked in the direction opposite of the sun, where I would expect a rainbow to be. I
remembered that, according to Gooley, you would find a rainbow 42 degrees up from the horizon if the sunlight traveled through the rain at nearly that same angle. And no shit there I was, looking at a double rainbow! It was such an incredibly rewarding experience because without knowing it was there, I was able to figure it out based on the clues around me. And I get it, most people know that where there is sun and rain, a rainbow will most likely make an appearance. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t have been able to put together the relationship between the sun’s position and the rainbow if it wasn’t for this book.
In a sense, Gooley gave me the tools, perspective, and know-how to observe and therefore predict my environment. And this isn’t the first time either. Now, I’m always sure to point out that if you’re ever lost out in a forest and see birch trees, you can scrape the light part of the trunk and use it as sunblock (because it’s the birch’s own sunblock too). Likewise, I’ve been more observant when watching the sunset. I try to predict what the weather will be like the next day based on the sunset’s brightness and colors. That too is deeply rewarding.
These are the kinds of details that Gooley engrains in our brains once we’re through with the book, and fortunately, it is hard to turn off this filter when exploring the natural world henceforth. You will never unsee the knowledge you get from this book, and that was but some simple examples. Every time I walk past a field of clovers, I am reminded that clovers are good indicators of human/animal activity in the area. On the other hand, I also know that if I come across a clover field with a lot of 4 leaf clovers, this is an indication that some sort of chemical runoff mutated the clovers in the area (hence more signs of human activity).
What new things can you learn to perceive around you? If you’re looking to answer that question, The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs is the perfect book for you!
If you’re interested in reading some of the stuff he writes about, I’ve published a fieldnotes page with all of the notes I took while reading the book. I hope you find it helpful and if you read the book, I would love to know how it’s changed the way you view nature.
Thank you for taking the time to read my review 🙂 happy navigating!