Up North Again, by journalists and outdoor enthusiasts Doug Bennet and Tim Tiner, gives readers a glimpse of the natural wonders of southern Shield country (the “up north” of most Ontario city dwellers). It is an entertaining, fact-filled fireside read for the generally curious, rather than an exhaustive field guide, even when read as a companion to Bennet and Tiner’s first book, the bestselling Up North.

Divided into 150 entries with accompanying black-and-white illustrations that cover everything from creepy-crawlies to the heavens, the information is wide-ranging, often telling the reader as much about etymology as entomology. For instance, the elderberry’s scientific genus, Sambucus, is responsible for the Italian liqueur’s name, and the “mander” in gerrymander comes from salamander. Only occasionally does the information become trivia for trivia’s sake, as when the use of the word “chiaroscuro” becomes an excuse for mentioning Caravaggio’s painting techniques.

The anthropomorphic entries evoke the sensation that the reader, too, is watching as “Big Daddy Blue,” the indigo bunting, belts out a cover version of a favourite song. Sidebars list each creature’s vital statistics. An appendix gives an overview of the year outdoors, bringing together the individual entries and underlining the book’s unwritten theme: everything is interconnected. Through its anecdotes, Up North Again gently reminds us that just as we can have an impact on nature, nature also has an impact on us – a woodpecker, for example, can force the last-minute cancellation of a space-shuttle mission.

Recounting Native American creation myths, borrowing from ancient Chinese and Greek stories of how the gods mapped out the stars, and referring to anecdotes from the lives of such scientists as Darwin and Linnaeus, Up North Again is an excellent modern digest of how the natural world has captured and fascinated the human imagination.