100 books like Green Deen

By Ibrahim Abdul-Matin,

Here are 100 books that Green Deen fans have personally recommended if you like Green Deen. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Furry Logic: The Physics of Animal Life

Matthew D. LaPlante Author Of Superlative: The Biology of Extremes

From my list on for feeling awestruck about the world.

Why am I passionate about this?

I spent the first decade of my journalistic career focused on calamity, malevolence, and suffering. By my early thirties, I wasn’t just struggling to feel happy about the world — I was struggling to feel anything at all. It was an encounter with awe — a visit to an aspen colony in central Utah that is the world’s largest known singular organism — that jarred me from this increasingly colorless world. As an author, teacher, researcher, and radio host, I strive to connect others with a sense of wonder — and I feel very fortunate that so many other science communicators continually leave me feeling awestruck for this amazing world.  

Matthew's book list on for feeling awestruck about the world

Matthew D. LaPlante Why did Matthew love this book?

Among the biggest frustrations in my life are the moments I call “commuter questions”. These are the sorts of ponderings that pop into my head when I’m making the 90-minute drive from my home to the university where I teach, and when — safe driver that I am — I can’t simply hop online to hunt for an answer. Inevitably, by the time I’ve found a parking spot on campus, the question has disappeared from my mind. But where do those questions go? Well, apparently, they somehow wind up in Bristol, England, where science writers Matin Durrani and Liz Kalaugher are based. In Furry Logic, Durrani and Kalaugher address in-and-out-of-your-head questions like “Can mosquitoes fly in a rainstorm?” and “How do eels generate electricity?” And the answers are delightful. 

By Matin Durrani, Liz Kalaugher,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

The animal world is full of mysteries. Why do dogs slurp from their drinking bowls while cats lap up water with a delicate flick of the tongue? How does a tiny turtle hatchling from Florida circle the entire northern Atlantic before returning to the very beach where it hatched? And how can a Komodo dragon kill a water buffalo with a bite only as strong as a domestic cat's?

These puzzles - and many more besides - are all explained by physics. From heat and light to electricity and magnetism, Furry Logic unveils the ways that more than 30 animals…


Book cover of Life's Engines: How Microbes Made Earth Habitable

David L. Kirchman Author Of Microbes: The Unseen Agents of Climate Change

From my list on microbes and the environment.

Why am I passionate about this?

Microbial ecologists once had the luxury of no one caring about their work. My colleagues and I had been busy showing that there are more microbes than stars in the Universe, that the genetic diversity of bacteria and viruses is mind-boggling, and that microbes run nearly all reactions in the carbon cycle and other cycles that underpin life on the planet. Then came the heat waves, wildfires, droughts and floods, and other unignorable signs of climate change. Now everyone should care about microbes to appreciate the whole story of greenhouse gases and to understand how the future of the biosphere depends on the response of the smallest organisms.

David's book list on microbes and the environment

David L. Kirchman Why did David love this book?

As a microbial ecologist, I didn’t need to be convinced that microbes make all life on Earth possible. I knew that Falkowski, a preeminent biological oceanographer, would be a trustworthy guide in the microbial world. What makes this book so much fun to read is how Falkowski mixes science with snippets of history, both his own and of early scientists.  

Yet, the science is the main story here and is fascinating. Microbes, specifically cyanobacteria, are the engines that first put oxygen in the atmosphere around 2.4 billion years ago, which set the stage for the evolution of more complicated lifeforms, including, eventually, Homo sapiens.  Microbes are also the ancestral source of what Falkowski calls nanomachines, which continue to power all organisms today. Falkowski convincingly argues that microbes are what make life on Earth possible. 

By Paul G. Falkowski,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Life's Engines as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

For almost four billion years, microbes had the primordial oceans all to themselves. The stewards of Earth, these organisms transformed the chemistry of our planet to make it habitable for plants, animals, and us. Life's Engines takes readers deep into the microscopic world to explore how these marvelous creatures made life on Earth possible--and how human life today would cease to exist without them. Paul Falkowski looks "under the hood" of microbes to find the engines of life, the actual working parts that do the biochemical heavy lifting for every living organism on Earth. With insight and humor, he explains…


Book cover of The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature

Jack E. Davis Author Of The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea

From my list on placed-based nature writing.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a writer and professor of environmental history who divides his time between two “villes,” Gainesville, Florida, and Harrisville, New Hampshire. On April 16, 2018, while in my campus office excoriating a graduate student for his sloppy writing, I learned that my book The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea won the Pulitzer Prize in History. The chastened student subsequently revised his work and turned in a perfect paper, and I’ve been trying to live up to the distinction of the prize ever since. My first effort to do so will appear in the form of my latest book, The Bald Eagle: The Improbable Journey of America’s Bird.

Jack's book list on placed-based nature writing

Jack E. Davis Why did Jack love this book?

Like Rachel Carson, Lanham is a scientist who avoids the stilted style of his profession. His book was also a finalist for the John Burroughs Medal, and like Janisse Ray, he published with Milkweed Editions, a powerhouse publisher in environmental literature. As a black man and lover of nature, Lanham describes himself as an “unusually colored fish out of water.” Growing up in rural South Carolina, he was surrounded by woods and wetlands that beckoned his curiosity on solitary wanderings. Everything captivated him: insects, reptiles, rocks, plants, and, especially, birds. When baptized in his grandmother’s authoritarian religious faith, he questioned the ritual but not the algae and “little black commas of tadpoles” in the devotional waters. Sometime after, he came to believe in Nature’s worthiness for worship, a faith that forms the heart of this elegant book. 

By J. Drew Lanham,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Home Place as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"In me, there is the red of miry clay, the brown of spring floods, the gold of ripening tobacco. All of these hues are me; I am, in the deepest sense, colored." From these fertile soils of love, land, identity, family, and race emerges The Home Place, a big-hearted, unforgettable memoir by ornithologist and professor of ecology J. Drew Lanham.

Dating back to slavery, Edgefield County, South Carolina-a place "easy to pass by on the way somewhere else"-has been home to generations of Lanhams. In The Home Place, readers meet these extraordinary people, including Drew himself, who over the course…


Book cover of Explaining Humans: What Science Can Teach Us About Life, Love and Relationships

Ed Thompson Author Of A Hidden Force: Unlocking the Potential of Neurodiversity at Work

From my list on challenging perceptions of neurodiversity.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a young businessperson in London in my early 30s, I was as ignorant of neurodiversity as much of the rest of the world. In the mid-2010s, I got fascinated by the topic thanks to conversations with autistic family members, who encouraged me to bring some of my expertise in corporate diversity programs to the field of “neurodiversity at work”. The topic of neurodiversity chimed with me, too, as I’d suffered a traumatic brain injury in a serious car accident, and there were aspects I could relate to. I founded neurodiversity training company Uptimize to help ensure organizations across the world understand how the importance of embracing and leveraging different types of thinkers.

Ed's book list on challenging perceptions of neurodiversity

Ed Thompson Why did Ed love this book?

Explaining Humans engagingly begins, “It was five years into my life on Earth that I started to think I’d landed in the wrong place. I must have missed the stop.”

Part popular science, part memoir, part clarion call for neuroinclusion, Pang’s book is full of sophisticated and memorable observations about humans, neurodiversity, and Pang’s own neurodivergence.

I particularly enjoyed her comparison of the teamwork between human cells (neutral, effective, politics-free!) with that of typical human collaboration…and how much it made me realize that we can all substantially improve the latter at work to get the best out of each other and fulfill our collective potential.

By Camilla Pang,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Explaining Humans as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

WINNER OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY INSIGHT INVESTMENT SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE 2020

How proteins, machine learning and molecular chemistry can teach us about the complexities of human behaviour and the world around us

How do we understand the people around us? How do we recognise people's motivations, their behaviour, or even their facial expressions? And, when do we learn the social cues that dictate human behaviour?

Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder at the age of eight, Camilla Pang struggled to understand the world around her and the way people worked. Desperate for a solution, Camilla asked her mother if there was…


Book cover of Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture

Jennifer Grayson Author Of A Call to Farms: Reconnecting to Nature, Food, and Community in a Modern World

From my list on rethinking the modern industrial existence.

Why am I passionate about this?

Blame it on the issues of National Geographic and books on ancient mythology I devoured as a child or my family’s obsession with Frontier House, but I’ve always been one of those people who felt misplaced in time—longing to live a life more immersed in the natural world. That yearning has only grown stronger as the world has rapidly technologized and globalized since my childhood. Luckily, I’ve been able to channel it into some fascinating work as a journalist and author writing about the environment, food systems (I’m also a lifelong foodie with a passion for traditional foods), and cultural history.

Jennifer's book list on rethinking the modern industrial existence

Jennifer Grayson Why did Jennifer love this book?

My love of this book started out with its quirky cover photo. It’s slightly misleading because the book isn’t about women’s place in the home; it’s about how we all have lost our sense of purpose, meaning, and self—and our human creativity—by living in a consumerist society that trades autonomy for endless want.

The first half is my favorite. Hayes delves into the shared-by-the-sexes history of homemaking in Medieval Europe and then unpacks the path to relentless productivity in the post-industrial age. I wish I had known about this book when my first daughter was born. I would have felt less alone in my frustration at the unfairness of modern motherhood, and empowered earlier to make more intentional life choices.

By Shannon Hayes,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Mother Nature has shown her hand. Faced with climate change, dwindling resources, and species extinctions, most Americans understand the fundamental steps necessary to solve our global crises-drive less, consume less, increase self-reliance, buy locally, eat locally, rebuild our local communities.

In essence, the great work we face requires rekindling the home fires.Radical Homemakers is about men and women across the U.S. who focus on home and hearth as a political and ecological act, and who have centered their lives around family and community for personal fulfillment and cultural change. It explores what domesticity looks like in an era that has…


Book cover of The Wizard of Us: Transformational Lessons from Oz

Ngan H. Nguyen Author Of One Million Steps: Lessons From A Legendary Hike

From my list on that get you thinking.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm fascinated by how our world operates, from the macro-level to the microlevel and metaphysics. It creates more depth and makes life infinitely colorful and exciting, even in the most mundane things. I've been studying personal development and spirituality for almost 20 years now, and I find the journey of growth and becoming to be rewarding. Books that help me expand my horizon and think differently enable this process, and I find that to be exciting.

Ngan's book list on that get you thinking

Ngan H. Nguyen Why did Ngan love this book?

For anyone growing up in western culture, you’ve probably have heard of the story of The Wizard of Oz or are familiar with pieces of it. The excellent storyteller and teacher, Jean Houston, whom I’ve had the opportunity to study with and a good friend of my dear mentor, Mary Morrissey, shares insights that make this story personal. It is a story of transformation, of Dorothy traversing a new land, conquering her adversaries, and finally discovery the path home by tapping her feet together three times. Why, she asked the good witch why she wasn’t just told that in the beginning, the good witch’s response was, “because you wouldn’t have believed me anyway.” Maybe the journey is part of the process that enables us to build the awareness to open our doors.

By Jean Houston,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Wizard of Us as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Take the journey of a lifetime with Human Potential visionary Jean Houston as she guides you through mythic Oz to become an essential human for the new world.

Learn how to expand your mind, open your heart, and find the courage to connect with your own life journey with The Wizard of Us, an accessible guide to help you envision the world as you choose to create it.

With specific and easily understandable exercises and epiphanies, The Wizard of Us harkens to the classic tale and defines the hero’s journey through the skills and internal qualities that live within each…


Book cover of Heating, Cooling, Lighting: Sustainable Design Strategies Towards Net Zero Architecture

Lori Dennis and Courtney Porter Author Of Green Interior Design

From my list on the future of design and sustainable living.

Why are we passionate about this?

After specializing in minimalism and zero/low-waste in luxury residential design, Lori Dennis Inc. was tapped to author two books on Green Interior Design. The mission is to make sustainable design and living fun and accessible. Both Lori Dennis and Courtney Porter discovered their passions for design at an early age, spawned from resourcefulness and creative resstaint. Having lived in NYC and LA, Lori and Courtney have a love of cities, community, and the great outdoors.

Lori's book list on the future of design and sustainable living

Lori Dennis and Courtney Porter Why did Lori love this book?

When we think about the fundamental purpose of interior space, creating shelter is about heating, cooling, and lighting. This recommendation is more for the professional designer than the DIY’er, but it is the handbook for a reason. It breaks down all of the fundamentals and their importance and emphasizes net-zero design strategies for sustainable building. 

By Norbert M. Lechner, Patricia Andrasik,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Heating, Cooling, Lighting as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The essential guide to environmental control systems in building design

For over 25 years Heating, Cooling, Lighting: Sustainable Design Strategies Towards Net Zero Architecture has provided architects and design professionals the knowledge and tools required to design a sustainable built environment at the schematic design stage. This Fifth Edition offers cutting-edge research in the field of sustainable architecture and design and has been completely restructured based on net zero design strategies. Reflecting the latest developments in codes, standards, and rating systems for energy efficiency, Heating, Cooling, Lighting: Sustainable Design Strategies Towards Net Zero Architecture includes three new chapters:

Retrofits: Best…


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 The Weekend Homesteader: A Twelve-Month Guide to Self-Sufficiency

Holly Worton Author Of If Trees Could Talk: Life Lessons from the Wisdom of the Woods

From my list on nature connection.

Why am I passionate about this?

Holly Worton is an author, podcaster, and speaker. She writes nonfiction books about her adventures to inspire people to get outdoors and reconnect with nature so they can reconnect with themselves. Holly enjoys spending time outdoors, walking and running long-distance trails, and exploring Britain's sacred sites. Travel is important to her: she's originally from California and now lives in England, but has also lived in Spain, Costa Rica, Mexico, Chile, and Argentina. Holly is a member of the Druid order OBOD, and nature connection is an important part of her spirituality.

Holly's book list on nature connection

Holly Worton Why did Holly love this book?

Even if you aren’t interested in becoming fully self-sufficient, this book is an eye-opening and exciting look at the possibilities available to us. Growing our own food (even some of it) can help us to reconnect with nature. It’s also very empowering.

By Anna Hess,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Weekend Homesteader as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Whether you want to live off the grid in a fully self-sufficient way, or just turn your backyard into your own small homestead, here is advice on backyard chicken care, how to plant a no-till garden that heals the soil, composting, canning, and much more.

The Weekend Homesteader is organized by month-so whether it's January or June you'll find exciting, quick-to-do projects that allow you to start your own homestead without getting overwhelmed. If you need to fit homesteading into a few hours each weekend and would like to have fun while doing it, these projects will be right up…


Book cover of The Unsettlers: In Search of the Good Life in Today's America

Jennifer Grayson Author Of A Call to Farms: Reconnecting to Nature, Food, and Community in a Modern World

From my list on rethinking the modern industrial existence.

Why am I passionate about this?

Blame it on the issues of National Geographic and books on ancient mythology I devoured as a child or my family’s obsession with Frontier House, but I’ve always been one of those people who felt misplaced in time—longing to live a life more immersed in the natural world. That yearning has only grown stronger as the world has rapidly technologized and globalized since my childhood. Luckily, I’ve been able to channel it into some fascinating work as a journalist and author writing about the environment, food systems (I’m also a lifelong foodie with a passion for traditional foods), and cultural history.

Jennifer's book list on rethinking the modern industrial existence

Jennifer Grayson Why did Jennifer love this book?

I read this in the early days of my fantasizing about off-grid living, and I found a true kindred spirit in Sundeen and the remarkable new-gen back-to-the-land pioneers he followed to write the three deep-dive stories that form this beautiful book.

Sundeen is a master of the immersive journalism genre in the vein of Jon Krakauer or Sebastian Junger and a true writer’s writer (i.e., never in love with the sound of his own voice, yet blows you away with the choiceness and poignancy of his storytelling). That this book isn’t yet more widely known is astonishing.

By Mark Sundeen,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

“An in-depth and compelling account of diverse Americans living off the grid.” —Los Angeles Times

The radical search for the simple life in today’s America.

On a frigid April night, a classically trained opera singer, five months pregnant, and her husband, a former marine biologist, disembark an Amtrak train in La Plata, Missouri, assemble two bikes, and pedal off into the night, bound for a homestead they've purchased, sight unseen. Meanwhile, a horticulturist, heir to the Great Migration that brought masses of African Americans to Detroit, and her husband, a product of the white flight from it, have turned to…


Book cover of Furry Logic: The Physics of Animal Life
Book cover of Life's Engines: How Microbes Made Earth Habitable
Book cover of The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature

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