100 books like Every Woman's Guide To Saving The Planet

By Natalie Isaacs,

Here are 100 books that Every Woman's Guide To Saving The Planet fans have personally recommended if you like Every Woman's Guide To Saving The Planet. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Book cover of The Future We Choose: The Stubborn Optimist's Guide to the Climate Crisis

Zoe Weil Author Of The Solutionary Way: Transform Your Life, Your Community, and the World for the Better

From my list on people who want to build a better future.

Why am I passionate about this?

I want to live in a future where all life can thrive. Toward that end, I spend my days teaching and writing about how we can solve the problems we face in our communities and world and build such a future. No surprise then that I read extensively about solutions to problems, looking for those that are visionary while being practical and which truly strive to do the most good and least harm for everyone. As a systems thinker, I’m always looking for books that recognize how interconnected our political, economic, production, food, legal, energy, and other systems are and that offer ideas that will have the fewest unintended negative consequences. 

Zoe's book list on people who want to build a better future

Zoe Weil Why did Zoe love this book?

I’m not a fan of either Doomsday or Pollyanna-ish books, especially in relation to climate change. I’ve read lots of books on this subject, and this is my favorite.

It doesn’t shy away from explaining what’s at stake and what is likely to happen if we don’t stop the escalation of climate-heating gases in our atmosphere, but it offers us a path toward solving this potential catastrophe that we can and must take together.  

By Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked The Future We Choose as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

'Everyone should read this book' MATT HAIG
'One of the most inspiring books I have ever read' YUVAL NOAH HARARI
'Inspirational, compassionate and clear. The time to read this is NOW' MARK RUFFALO
'Figueres and Rivett-Carnac dare to tell us how our response can create a better, fairer world' NAOMI KLEIN

*****

Discover why there's hope for the planet and how we can each make a difference in the climate crisis, starting today.

Humanity is not doomed, and we can and will survive. The future is ours to create: it will be shaped by who we…


Book cover of Climate Justice: Hope, Resilience, and the Fight for a Sustainable Future

Tara Shine Author Of How to Save Your Planet One Object at a Time

From my list on climate change and sustainability.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an environmental scientist with over 25 years experience working on climate change and sustainability. 20 of those years were spent working internationally on environmental policy in developing countries, advising the World Bank and the OECD, and being a climate change negotiator in the UN. I am a thought leader who advised the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice and The Elders Foundation. In 2018 I co-founded my business, Change by Degrees, which works with people and organisations to transform business for good. I am passionate about fairness between people and between people and the planet and enjoy communicating in a hopeful and positive way about the future we can choose.

Tara's book list on climate change and sustainability

Tara Shine Why did Tara love this book?

Mary Robinson is the former President of Ireland, an advocate for a people-centred and rights-based approach to climate action and my former boss.

In her book she tells the story of her own journey to climate justice and allows many of the people who influenced and informed her to tell their own stories.

Their experiences of the injustice of climate impacts on small islands, farmers, women, and workers make a compelling case for urgent, rights-based climate action.

By Mary Robinson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Climate Justice as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

_______________
'As an advocate for the hungry and the hunted, the forgotten and the ignored, Mary Robinson has not only shone a light on human suffering, but illuminated a better future for our world' BARACK OBAMA

SHORTLISTED FOR THE IRISH BOOK AWARDS 2018

Holding her first grandchild in her arms in 2003, Mary Robinson was struck by the uncertainty of the world he had been born into. Before his fiftieth birthday, he would share the planet with more than nine billion people - people battling for food, water, and shelter in an increasingly volatile climate. The faceless, shadowy menace of…


Book cover of Bright New World: How to Make a Happy Planet

Tara Shine Author Of How to Save Your Planet One Object at a Time

From my list on climate change and sustainability.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an environmental scientist with over 25 years experience working on climate change and sustainability. 20 of those years were spent working internationally on environmental policy in developing countries, advising the World Bank and the OECD, and being a climate change negotiator in the UN. I am a thought leader who advised the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice and The Elders Foundation. In 2018 I co-founded my business, Change by Degrees, which works with people and organisations to transform business for good. I am passionate about fairness between people and between people and the planet and enjoy communicating in a hopeful and positive way about the future we can choose.

Tara's book list on climate change and sustainability

Tara Shine Why did Tara love this book?

This is the children’s book I wish I had written. 

It is full of exciting ideas about how we can create a better future through innovation, technology, and care for nature and people. 

It inspires children about the possibilities of what lies ahead if human work together instead of adding to their anxieties through climate despair. 

Beautifully illustrated.

By Cindy Forde, Bethany Lord (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Bright New World as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 9, 10, 11, and 12.

What is this book about?

“In Cindy Forde’s environmentalist manifesto Bright New World, Earth’s perilous situation fades in comparison to vibrant, sustainable possibilities.”—ForeWord Reviews

Bright New World is a lavishly illustrated glimpse into a future not too far from our own time – a world in which today's children have grown up and tackled the world's most pressing social and environmental problems.

In a series of lush, detailed scenes, readers will enter a world of solar-powered vehicles, regenerated rainforests, skyscraper farms, insect-based snacks, recovering coral reefs, wave-powered electricity, and much more.

Bright New World's vision may be bold and optimistic, but everything in the book…


Book cover of Climate Worrier: A Hypocrite's Guide to Saving the Planet

Tara Shine Author Of How to Save Your Planet One Object at a Time

From my list on climate change and sustainability.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an environmental scientist with over 25 years experience working on climate change and sustainability. 20 of those years were spent working internationally on environmental policy in developing countries, advising the World Bank and the OECD, and being a climate change negotiator in the UN. I am a thought leader who advised the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice and The Elders Foundation. In 2018 I co-founded my business, Change by Degrees, which works with people and organisations to transform business for good. I am passionate about fairness between people and between people and the planet and enjoy communicating in a hopeful and positive way about the future we can choose.

Tara's book list on climate change and sustainability

Tara Shine Why did Tara love this book?

Colm describes his book as a ‘hypocrite’s guide to saving the planet’ and he is very honest about the contradictions in his own life as he tries to live sustainably.

He uses humour and storytelling to engage the reader and to help all of us feel overcome by the scale of the climate challenge to give ourselves a break and keep on going. 

By Colm O'Regan,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Climate Worrier as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Bestselling author Colm O'Regan is a worrier. A professional one. Caution is his watchword. Risk aversion is his love language. Now Colm is grappling with the biggest worry of all: the whole 'planet being on fire' thing and how exactly we can help.

Don't worry, this isn't a book telling you how to live off the grid and make your own planet-friendly soap from woodlice (that's the sequel). Instead, Climate Worrier is about the journey, about trying (and often failing) to be part of the solution to the big issues, while not despairing at the endless hypocrisies that come from…


Book cover of Under the Sky We Make: How to Be Human in a Warming World

Kathryn Kellogg Author Of 101 Ways to Go Zero Waste

From my list on sustainability focused.

Why am I passionate about this?

Kathryn Kellogg is the founder of Going Zero Waste, a lifestyle website dedicated to helping others live a healthier and more sustainable life. She’s a spokesperson for plastic-free living for National Geographic, Chief Sustainability Officer at the One Movement, and author of 101 Ways to Go Zero Waste which breaks eco-friendly, sustainable living down into an easy step by step process with lots of positivity and love. She’s a spokesperson for plastic-free living for National Geographic and Chief Sustainability Officer at the One Movement. 

Kathryn's book list on sustainability focused

Kathryn Kellogg Why did Kathryn love this book?

I can’t stand it when people say individual actions don’t matter – because they do. And Kimberly Nicholas gets that. In this book, she acknowledges yes, companies and governments are hugely responsible for the mess we’re in. But individuals can create real, significant, and lasting change to solve this problem.  She also explores finding purpose in a warming world, both reflecting on her scientific finds and her life experiences. 

By Kimberly Nicholas,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Under the Sky We Make as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

** Los Angeles Times bestseller **

It's warming. It's us. We're sure. It's bad. But we can fix it.

After speaking to the international public for close to fifteen years about sustainability, climate scientist Dr. Nicholas realized that concerned people were getting the wrong message about the climate crisis. Yes, companies and governments are hugely responsible for the mess we're in. But individuals CAN effect real, significant, and lasting change to solve this problem. Nicholas explores finding purpose in a warming world, combining her scientific expertise and her lived, personal experience in a way that seems fresh and deeply urgent:…


Book cover of Our Last Best Act: Planning for the End of Our Lives to Protect the People and Places We Love

Elizabeth Fournier Author Of The Green Burial Guidebook: Everything You Need to Plan an Affordable, Environmentally Friendly Burial

From my list on if you literally want to go green when you die.

Why am I passionate about this?

Saving the planet one death at a time is truly what the world needs now: to reduce our carbon footprint and go out in eco-friendly style. As the one-woman funeral service in the rural town of Boring, Oregon, I support the philosophy of old-school burial practices that are kinder to both humans, the earth, and our wallets. I have humbly been baptized the Green Reaper for my passionate advocacy of green burial, and as an undertaker and the owner and undertaker of Cornerstone Funeral, the first green funeral home in the Portland area. I love to devour all literature possible on green burial and environmentally friendly death care.

Elizabeth's book list on if you literally want to go green when you die

Elizabeth Fournier Why did Elizabeth love this book?

A meaningful and absolutely pleasurable read that supports a treasured purpose in our complex world and justly speaks to one of the genuine accountabilities of being human: caring for and interring our dead. How do we plan for our final needs after passing and retain climate and community? Mallory faced these problems after her parents died in nearly identical biking mishaps a few years apart. She has inspired me greatly with how she writes about one of my favorite subjects. And how extra enjoyable to have my work attributed a few times throughout her book.

By Mallory McDuff,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Our Last Best Act as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

As we begin to contemplate death and to embark on practical planning for life's end, many of us long to leave a legacy beyond a transfer of money and property--one that ensures a sustainable earth for our loved ones, our communities, and generations to come. But where do we even begin?

With the sudden deaths of both of her parents, Mallory McDuff found herself in a similar position. Utterly unprepared both emotionally and practically, she began to research sustainable practices around death and dying, determined to honor their commitment to caring for the earth. For McDuff, an educator and environmentalist,…


Book cover of Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future

Benjamin von Brackel Author Of Nowhere Left to Go: How Climate Change Is Driving Species to the Ends of the Earth

From my list on that help you understand the biodiversity crisis.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a science journalist I have concentrated on the consequences of climate change. It´s the most frightening as fascinating experiment, we conduct with our planet. In 2018 I wrote a book on extreme weather together with climate scientist Freddy Otto from the University of Oxford (Angry Weather). After this I got immersed in a different climate consequence: How it is affecting biodiversity and with it the foundation of our societies. But what I also love is good storytelling. I quickly get bored with texts that have no dramaturgy or that don't give the reader any pleasure—unlike the fantastic and highly relevant books on this list.

Benjamin's book list on that help you understand the biodiversity crisis

Benjamin von Brackel Why did Benjamin love this book?

I have to start with a confession: I buy many books on the climate and biodiversity crisis—as this is my main focus as a science journalist—but in many cases, I have to quit reading after several chapters. Even if they are of relevance—they often are simply too depressing and a mere accumulation of horrible facts.

This does not apply to the books of Elizabeth Kolbert—which is all the more amazing as her topic is hard stuff: How men alter and destroy nature, which we depend on. But nonetheless: I can´t stop reading it. Kolbert travels far and takes her readers to magical places that appear to be from a different planet. And by this she pulls one deeper and deeper into complicated issues, she manages to explain in a fascinating and readable way.

By Elizabeth Kolbert,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Under a White Sky as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sixth Extinction returns to humanity’s transformative impact on the environment, now asking: After doing so much damage, can we change nature, this time to save it?

RECOMMENDED BY PRESIDENT OBAMA AND BILL GATES • SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR WRITING • ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time, Esquire, Smithsonian Magazine, Vulture, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal • “Beautifully and insistently, Kolbert shows us that it is time to think radically about the ways…


Book cover of The Struggle for Social Sustainability: Moral Conflicts in Global Social Policy

Faye Miller Author Of Producing Shared Understanding for Digital and Social Innovation: Bridging Divides with Transdisciplinary Information Experience Concepts and Methods

From my list on social sustainability.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have long been interested in understanding the role of knowledge in social-ecological systems. After experiencing and surviving a series of geological disasters in childhood, I began writing nonfiction and fiction about the importance of human relations and socio-cultural dimensions of sustainability. Since completing a PhD developing a knowledge ecosystems model for research innovation, I've published widely across areas such as knowledge management, information and computer sciences, higher education, and social policy. I'm a researcher in social technology, a qualified career development practitioner, and educator. I'm currently Director and Principal Consultant at Human Constellation. I've led and partnered on projects with many organizations including Reddit, Twitter, CSIRO, the Australian National University, and Harvard University. 

Faye's book list on social sustainability

Faye Miller Why did Faye love this book?

While future speculation inspires our research imaginations, I believe that our hopes for humanity will never be fully realized without building the critical capacity to connect research into policy processes in governments and intergovernmental organizations. This edited volume of authoritative essays is a pivotal contribution towards accelerating social progress and quality of life. The book contains useful clarification on the meaning of a relatively new term social sustainability, in light of pressing global sustainability issues, such as growing inequality, changing world population, ageing societies, and migration. Based on evidence-based pragmatic wisdom from distinguished academics with international policy experience, these essays examine social sustainability from morally conflicting perspectives - i.e. social cohesion, social justice, social wellbeing - and how they can be navigated through and implemented meaningfully by stakeholders.

By Christopher Deeming (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Struggle for Social Sustainability as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The ongoing social crises and moral conflicts evident in global social policy debates are addressed in this timely volume.
Leading interdisciplinary scholars focus on the 'social' of social policy, which is increasingly conceived in a globalised form, as new international agreements and global goals engender social struggles. They tackle pressing 'social questions', many of which have been exacerbated by COVID-19, including growing inequality, changing world population, ageing societies, migration and intersectional disadvantage.
This ground-breaking volume critically engages with contested conceptions of the social which are increasingly deployed by international institutions and policy makers. Focusing on social sustainability, social cohesion, social…


Book cover of A Good Drink: In Pursuit of Sustainable Spirits

Lou Bustamante Author Of The Complete Cocktail Manual: Recipes and Tricks of the Trade for Modern Mixologists

From my list on the future of cocktails by SF Bay Area writers.

Why am I passionate about this?

While the Bay Area’s impact on the way we eat as a country, being at the forefront of the farm-to-table and seasonal produce movement, cocktails are being equal consideration. Why not? Distilled spirits are agricultural products, the same way wine and beer are, and so it reasons that we would worry about how they are made, their history, and the future. Can cocktails be made in a more sustainable way? Can I use beets in my cocktail? Do spirits have a sense of place? And will applying beer to a wound help it heal (note: it won’t)? Here’s a selection of books that explore the past, present, and possible future of how you drink.

Lou's book list on the future of cocktails by SF Bay Area writers

Lou Bustamante Why did Lou love this book?

In A Good Drink, Farrell explores what it takes to drink sustainable cocktails, from farm to glass.

In Mexico she talks to families growing agave for mezcal and how the process helps regenerate the land and wildlife, while in South Carolina she talks to distillers who are focusing their production on heritage grains. Even bars are trying to reduce their impact, focusing on a London bar that is reducing water use and waste.

By Shanna Farrell,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Good Drink as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Shanna Farrell loves a good drink. As a bartender, she not only poured spirits, but learned their stories-who made them
and how. Living in San Francisco, surrounded by farm-to-table restaurants and high-end bars, she wondered why the
eco-consciousness devoted to food didn't extend to drinks.
The short answer is that we don't think of spirits as food. But whether it's rum, brandy, whiskey, or tequila, drinks are
distilled from the same crops that end up on our tables. Most are grown with chemicals that cause pesticide resistance
and pollute waterways, and distilling itself requires huge volumes of water. Even bars…


Book cover of Envisioning Futures for Environmental and Sustainability Education

Victoria W. Thoresen Author Of Sustainable Development, Education and Learning: The Challenge of Inclusive, Quality Education for All

From my list on what education is and needs to become.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have always been concerned about the happiness and well-being of other people, whether they are friends or strangers, rich or poor, young or old. To me, they are all members of one human family. I became engaged in community actions at an early age, and in addition to my work as a teacher, teacher trainer, and international educational consultant, I have been involved in many efforts to reconcile conflicts, ensure justice, and foster collaboration. My interest in civil rights, as well as my concern for the environment, led me to dedicate much of my time to developing global education and education for sustainable development.

Victoria's book list on what education is and needs to become

Victoria W. Thoresen Why did Victoria love this book?

I was impressed by this book because of its comprehensive, diverse, and inspiring articles about how people realize their hopes and dreams for a just, sustainable future for all through the practice of envisioning.

Not only does the book describe many of the steps that might be needed to create desired futures, but it also illustrates how such steps involve education and community-building.

Book cover of The Future We Choose: The Stubborn Optimist's Guide to the Climate Crisis
Book cover of Climate Justice: Hope, Resilience, and the Fight for a Sustainable Future
Book cover of Bright New World: How to Make a Happy Planet

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,355

readers submitted
so far, will you?

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in sustainability, Australia, and CEOs?

Sustainability 47 books
Australia 334 books
CEOs 67 books