Author David Gessner recently targeted President Barack Obama in a book video. In the video embedded above, he shared five reasons on why the President should read his book, My Green Manifesto: Down the Charles River in Pursuit of a New Environmentalism.

According to The Boston Globe, it worked (with a little help from a newspaper column). Obama’s two young daughters, Sasha and Malia, were reportedly seen carrying a bag full of books that included Gessner’s nonfiction title.

What book would you recommend to the president?

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Naturalist and writer John Hay (pictured, via) passed away on February 26th at 95-years-old.

Hay wrote eighteen titles, including: In the Company of Life, Mind the Gap: The Education of a Nature Writer, and The Run. In 1965, he won the John Burroughs Prize for The Great Beach. According to The Cape Code Times, he co-founded the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History and served as museum president for 25 years.

Author David Gessner profiled Hay in his book, The Prophet of Dry Hill. In a tribute at Beacon Broadside, Gessner wrote: “John had spent a lifetime fighting to both live inside and preserve that wildness, and it was often a depressing fight. He watched the things he loved about Cape Cod be defiled, and watched the rest of the country head in the same direction … Worse John had been consistently ignored and misunderstood, labelled impractical and airy and snobbish. This hurt, but it didn’t stop him.”