My formative experiences as a writer took place largely in natural settings—as well as in the pages of many books. When I was a teenager I moved with my family to Jasper National Park, where I hiked and climbed and started writing my first stories. On one winter climb in a frozen ravine, I lost my footing and slid down an ice slope into a natural well. This became the seed of my first novel, Icefields. Living in a protected “wilderness” also helped me understand how precious and fragile the natural world is. I have published several novels and a collection of short fiction. I teach creative writing at the University of Alberta and live in a place with lots of trees.
Icefields is an award-winning historical novel set in the Canadian Rockies in the early 20th century, when the remote Jasper area was first being opened up to tourism and modern development. When an Irish doctor falls into a crevasse on an expedition, a journey begins for him that alters his understanding of the natural world and draws him into the stories of the people who live here. The novel has just been re-released in a new Landmark edition, with an afterword and an interview with the author.
For me, the best books are those that not only hold you captive while you’re turning the pages, but that alter your perception of the world long after you’ve finished reading. The Overstory had that effect on me. I have never looked at a tree the same way after finishing this novel. The characters themselves have their understanding of the world overturned and even shattered by encounters with trees, revealing the loss and devastation humans have perpetrated on nature, and sending them on transformative paths as they struggle to help protect what is left. A book that made me despair and then brought me hope.
The Overstory, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of-and paean to-the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers's twelfth novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours-vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see…
A novel set on an alien planet in the far future might seem an odd choice for a book about human impact on the natural world, but Dune was the first “environmental” book I ever encountered. I first read it as a teenager, and it’s no exaggeration to say my consciousness got expanded! Growing up in the oil and gas country of Alberta, I saw clear parallels between the reckless resource extraction in my own society and that depicted in the novel. The spice melange powers an entire civilization the same way crude oil has powered ours. There are so many layers to this novel it’s like an entire ecosystem itself. Paul Atreides not only awakens to his psychic power, but also to the ecological truths of a planet.
Before The Matrix, before Star Wars, before Ender's Game and Neuromancer, there was Dune: winner of the prestigious Hugo and Nebula awards, and widely considered one of the greatest science fiction novels ever written.
Melange, or 'spice', is the most valuable - and rarest - element in the universe; a drug that does everything from increasing a person's lifespan to making interstellar travel possible. And it can only be found on a single planet: the inhospitable desert world of Arrakis.
Whoever controls Arrakis controls the spice. And whoever controls the spice controls the universe.
I had never heard of “cosmoecological thought” before I read this first-person account of the life of a Yanomami shaman. For Davi Kopenawa and his people, the forest is everything—their library, their philosophy, their universe. The book is a mind-altering vision of what the Yanomami live and believe, but also a record of one Indigenous man’s sadness and bewilderment at the ecological shortsightedness of Western industrial society.
“I am leaving the drawings of these words on this paper skin so that [the] children and those who are born after them can one day see and understand…” – Davi Kopenawa
The Falling Sky is a remarkable first-person account of the life story and cosmo-ecological thought of Davi Kopenawa, shaman and spokesman for the Yanomami of the Brazilian Amazon. Representing a people whose very existence is in jeopardy, Davi Kopenawa paints an unforgettable picture of Yanomami culture, past and present, in the heart of the rainforest--a world where ancient indigenous knowledge and shamanic traditions cope with the global geopolitics of an insatiable natural resources extraction industry.
In richly evocative language, Kopenawa recounts his initiation and experience as a shaman, as well as his first encounters with outsiders: government officials, missionaries, road…
The first part of this book—“A lone human voice”—is one of the most unforgettably moving pieces of prose I have ever read. The book is a collage of personal accounts of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and its aftermath, focusing on the experiences of people who lived through it, and are still living with it. These stories testify to the inescapable fact that we a part of nature. To consider our impact on the natural world is to recognize the devastating impact we have on ourselves. The author was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2015 for this book and her other work.
'Absolutely essential and heartbreaking reading. There's a reason Ms. Alexievich won a Nobel Prize' - Craig Mazin, creator of the HBO / Sky TV series Chernobyl
- A new translation of Voices from Chernobyl based on the revised text -
In April 1986 a series of explosions shook the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. Flames lit up the sky and radiation escaped to contaminate the land and poison the people for years to come. While officials tried to hush up the accident, Svetlana Alexievich spent years collecting testimonies from survivors - clean-up workers, residents, firefighters,…
From the jacket copy: “An anthology dedicated to saving as many species from extinction as humanly possible. The single largest collection of…comics calling for planetary change… The Most Important Comic Book on Earth is a global collaboration bringing together a diverse team of more than 300 leading environmentalists, artists, authors, actors, filmmakers, musicians, and more to present over 120 stories to save the world.”
Purchasing this anthology helps support projects aiming to save some of the one million species facing extinction today. Is there a better reason to buy a book?
The Most Important Comic Book On Earth is a global collaboration for planetary change, bringing together a diverse team of 300 leading environmentalists, artists, authors, actors, filmmakers, musicians, and more to present over 120 stories to save the world.
Whether it's inspirational tales from celebrity names such as Cara Delevingne and Andy Serkis, hilarious webcomics from War and Peas and Ricky Gervais, artworks by leading illustrators David Mack and Tula Lotay, calls to action from activists George Monbiot and Jane Goodall, or powerful stories by Brian Azzarello and Amy Chu, each of the comics in this anthology will support projects…
Benghazi: A New History is a look back at the enigmatic 2012 attack on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya, its long-tail causes, and devastating (and largely unexamined) consequences for US domestic politics and foreign policy. It contains information not found elsewhere, and is backed up by 40 pages of citations and interviews with more than 250 key protagonists, experts, and witnesses.
So far, the book is the main -- and only -- antidote to a slew of early partisan “Benghazi” polemics, and the first to put the attack in its longer term historical, political, and social context. If you want to understand some of the events that have shaped present-day America, from political polarization and the election of Donald Trump, to January 6, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, Russian expansionism, and the current Israel-Hamas war, I argue, you need to understand some of the twists and turns of America's most infamous "non-scandal, scandal.”
I was in Benghazi well before, during, and after the attack as a US diplomat and co-director of a medical NGO. I have written three books, and have been a contributor to The NYT, Foreign Affairs, Forbes, Salon, The Financial Times, Newsweek, and others.
On September 11, 2012, Al Qaeda proxies attacked and set fire to the US mission in Benghazi, Libya, killing a US Ambassador and three other Americans. The attack launched one of the longest and most consequential 'scandals' in US history, only to disappear from public view once its political value was spent.
Written in a highly engaging narrative style by one of a few Western experts on Libya, and decidely non-partisan, Benghazi!: A New History is the first to provide the full context for an event that divided, incited, and baffled most of America for more than three years, while silently reshaping…
Interested in
environmentalism,
trees,
and
Brazil?
10,000+ authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them.
Browse their picks for the best books about
environmentalism,
trees,
and
Brazil.
