Love Life on the Brink? Readers share 100 books like Life on the Brink...

By Philip Cafaro (editor), Eileen Crist (editor),

Here are 100 books that Life on the Brink fans have personally recommended if you like Life on the Brink. 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 Ecological Ethics: An Introduction

Haydn Washington Author Of A Sense of Wonder Towards Nature: Healing the Planet Through Belonging

From my list on the environmental crisis and possible solutions.

Why am I passionate about this?

My passion is life, hence why I became an environmental scientist, and why I became a conservationist at age 18, leading the campaign to protect Wollemi National Park in Australia. My sense of wonder towards nature has transformed my life. As Aldo Leopold observed, we ‘live in a world of wounds’ as the ‘more-than-human’ world is rapidly declining. But it doesn’t have to be this way, positive if challenging solutions exist. Hence why I write about environmental science, ecological economics, ecological ethics, denial, human dependence on nature, meaningful sustainability, and what we each can do to give back to Nature.

Haydn's book list on the environmental crisis and possible solutions

Haydn Washington Why did Haydn love this book?

Patrick Curry tackles the great hidden issue of ethics – whether we extend moral standing to nonhuman nature. He considers anthropocentrism and instead proposes ecocentrism. This is a big topic but Curry provides an excellent introduction for the general public to think about this essential issue.

By Patrick Curry,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

In this thoroughly revised and updated second edition of the highly successful Ecological Ethics, Patrick Curry shows that a new and truly ecological ethic is both possible and urgently needed. With this distinctive proposition in mind, Curry introduces and discusses all the major concepts needed to understand the full range of ecological ethics.

He discusses light green or anthropocentric ethics with the examples of stewardship, lifeboat ethics, and social ecology; the mid-green or intermediate ethics of animal liberation/rights; and dark or deep green ecocentric ethics. Particular attention is given to the Land Ethic, the Gaia Hypothesis and Deep Ecology and…


Book cover of A New Environmental Ethics: The Next Millennium for Life on Earth

Haydn Washington Author Of A Sense of Wonder Towards Nature: Healing the Planet Through Belonging

From my list on the environmental crisis and possible solutions.

Why am I passionate about this?

My passion is life, hence why I became an environmental scientist, and why I became a conservationist at age 18, leading the campaign to protect Wollemi National Park in Australia. My sense of wonder towards nature has transformed my life. As Aldo Leopold observed, we ‘live in a world of wounds’ as the ‘more-than-human’ world is rapidly declining. But it doesn’t have to be this way, positive if challenging solutions exist. Hence why I write about environmental science, ecological economics, ecological ethics, denial, human dependence on nature, meaningful sustainability, and what we each can do to give back to Nature.

Haydn's book list on the environmental crisis and possible solutions

Haydn Washington Why did Haydn love this book?

Rolston discusses the need for new environmental ethics, in effect an ‘Earth Ethics’. Beautifully written, Rolston considers how humanity values nature, and the need to change our path to reach an ecologically sustainable future.

By Holmes Rolston III,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

This Second Edition of A New Environmental Ethics: The Next Millennium for Life on Earth offers clear, powerful, and often moving thoughts from Holmes Rolston III, one of the first and most respected philosophers to write on the environment and often called the "father of environmental ethics." Rolston surveys the full spectrum of approaches in the field of environmental ethics and offers critical assessments of contemporary academic accounts. He draws on a lifetime of research and experience to suggest an outlook, and even hope, for the future. This forward-looking analysis, focused on the new millennium, will be a necessary complement…


Book cover of Sustaining Life on Earth: Environmental and Human Health through Global Governance

Haydn Washington Author Of A Sense of Wonder Towards Nature: Healing the Planet Through Belonging

From my list on the environmental crisis and possible solutions.

Why am I passionate about this?

My passion is life, hence why I became an environmental scientist, and why I became a conservationist at age 18, leading the campaign to protect Wollemi National Park in Australia. My sense of wonder towards nature has transformed my life. As Aldo Leopold observed, we ‘live in a world of wounds’ as the ‘more-than-human’ world is rapidly declining. But it doesn’t have to be this way, positive if challenging solutions exist. Hence why I write about environmental science, ecological economics, ecological ethics, denial, human dependence on nature, meaningful sustainability, and what we each can do to give back to Nature.

Haydn's book list on the environmental crisis and possible solutions

Haydn Washington Why did Haydn love this book?

Soskolne edits one of the most important books on sustainability ever written, but written in a way the layperson can understand. It is over 400 pages long, but this is because it covers a multitude of deep topics by experts in the field. It is not waffle, does not indulge in denial, and is one of the most constructive books I have read that seriously addresses meaningful sustainability.

By Colin L. Soskolne (editor), Laura Westra (editor), Louis J. Kotzé (editor)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Sustaining Life on Earth as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

As global warming, famine, and environmental catastrophes have become daily news items, achieving a sustainable environment to maintain the future of life on Earth has become a global concern. Sustaining Life on Earth is an important contribution toward assessing such problems and making the Earth hospitable to life for generations to come. With an interdisciplinary team of international scholars, this masterfully edited collection approaches the problems facing sustainability from a perspective of global governance. To date, powerful economic forces have misguided decision-making processes in favor of short-term gain rather than long-term sustainability. As global awareness has increased and individual citizens…


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Book cover of Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure

Tap Dancing on Everest by Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route up…

Book cover of The Dream of the Earth

Brian Thomas Swimme Author Of Cosmogenesis: An Unveiling of the Expanding Universe

From my list on science books on the universe with a spiritual inclination.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I learned science's story of the universe–that it began as a primordial plasma that transformed itself into stars, galaxies and a living planet that then transmogrified into plants and animals and consciousness–when I learned the details of how the universe began as small as an acorn and then magically transformed that acorn of elementary particles into two trillion galaxies, I was beset with one, piercing, lifelong question: WHY ISN'T EVERYONE WAKING UP EACH MORNING STUNNED OUT OF THEIR MINDS? My entire professional life has been an effort to draw others into this amazement, into life as an ongoing celebration.

Brian's book list on science books on the universe with a spiritual inclination

Brian Thomas Swimme Why did Brian love this book?

Thomas Berry was a cultural historian who studied the cultures of Europe, China, America, India, and the Indigenous worlds with a single burning question in his mind: What is the role of humanity in the universe? Of course, this idea that humanity has a cosmic role is the opposite of the view promoted by modern science of an evolving universe that is going nowhere.

Given his professional background in the humanities, it is surprising that Berry names science as the primary revelation of the divine. He is committed to the idea that the sciences have discovered a common creation story, one that will play an important role for centuries to come. 

When I first met Thomas Berry and asked him about my personal role in the universe, he said simply, "Tell science's story of a developing universe; but tell it with a feeling for its music. That's what the spiritual…

By Thomas Berry,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Dream of the Earth as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This landmark work, first published by Sierra Club Books in 1988, has established itself as a foundational volume in the ecological canon. In it, noted cultural historian Thomas Berry provides nothing less than a new intellectual-ethical framework for the human community by positing planetary well-being as the measure of all human activity.

Drawing on the wisdom of Western philosophy, Asian thought, and Native American traditions, as well as contemporary physics and evolutionary biology, Berry offers a new perspective that recasts our understanding of science, technology, politics, religion, ecology, and education. He shows us why it is important for us to…


Book cover of The Malthusian Moment: Global Population Growth and the Birth of American Environmentalism

Giorgos Kallis Author Of Limits: Why Malthus Was Wrong and Why Environmentalists Should Care

From my list on living within limits.

Why am I passionate about this?

I wrote a book on Limits. Limits is the core question of modern environmentalism. But I want to break environmentalism out of the grip of Malthusianism and a set of ideas about our world as being inherently limited, that have delegated us environmentalists to party-pooping prophets of doom. I want to reclaim a radical notion of self-limitation which is what makes the environmentalist movement unique – a claim that a free life worth living is a life lived within limits, a simple life so that others may simply live. It is not the planet that is asking us to limit ourselves, but we that desire it.

Giorgos' book list on living within limits

Giorgos Kallis Why did Giorgos love this book?

This is a brilliant intellectual history of US environmentalism and its rooting on what in the 1960s was seen as a global ‘population bomb’. The global population kept growing in the 1980s and 1990s, but slower, and the bomb has, for the time being at least, been defused. It is time for environmentalists like myself to reflect on the legacy of our roles as prophets of unrealised doom, and this book helps us get the historical record right. Paul Ehrlich is a key figure in this story of overpopulation scare, that was not a marginal academic debate, but one that made it into the political mainstream, and around which Ronald Reagan fashioned his persona, as the ever optimist who unlike Jimmy Carter, did not succumb to limits of growth, and the pessimism of Ehlrich and his likes. What I learned from this book is that unless environmentalists develop a positive…

By Thomas Robertson,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Although Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962) is often cited as the founding text of the U.S. environmental movement, in The Malthusian Moment Thomas Robertson locates the origins of modern American environmentalism in twentieth-century adaptations of Thomas Malthus's concerns about population growth. For many environmentalists, managing population growth became the key to unlocking the most intractable problems facing Americans after World War II-everything from war and the spread of communism overseas to poverty, race riots, and suburban sprawl at home.

Weaving together the international and the domestic in creative new ways, The Malthusian Moment charts the explosion of Malthusian thinking in…


Book cover of A Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change

Jeremy Bendik-Keymer Author Of Involving Anthroponomy in the Anthropocene: On Decoloniality

From my list on how we got to climate change and mass extinction.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m the grandson of a coal miner from a multi-generational, Ohio family. What matters most to me is having some integrity and being morally okay with folks. I never thought of myself as an environmentalist, just as someone trying to figure out what we should be learning to be decent people in this sometimes messed-up world. From there, I was taken into our environmental situation, its planetary injustice, and then onto studying the history of colonialism. This adventure cracked open my midwestern common sense and made me rethink things. Happily, it has only reinforced my commitment to, and faith in, moral relations, giving our word, being accountable, and caring.

Jeremy's book list on how we got to climate change and mass extinction

Jeremy Bendik-Keymer Why did Jeremy love this book?

Steve’s book is analytically challenging, but he has great examples and a knack for conceptualizing the core problems that are making it so hard for our world to grapple with climate change and things like mass extinction. He shows how there are three interlocking problems that all go back to how the modern state system was created as something competitive and uncoordinated, abstract from the land it’s on, and short-sighted with its politics.

By Stephen M. Gardiner,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Climate change is arguably the great problem confronting humanity, but we have done little to head off this looming catastrophe. In The Perfect Moral Storm, philosopher Stephen Gardiner illuminates our dangerous inaction by placing the environmental crisis in an entirely new light, considering it as an ethical failure. Gardiner clarifies the moral situation, identifying the temptations (or "storms") that make us vulnerable to a certain kind
of corruption. First, the world's most affluent nations are tempted to pass on the cost of climate change to the poorer and weaker citizens of the world. Second, the present generation is tempted to…


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Book cover of The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier,

The coaching book that's for all of us, not just coaches.

It's the best-selling book on coaching this century, with 15k+ online reviews. Brené Brown calls it "a classic". Dan Pink said it was "essential".

It is practical, funny, and short, and "unweirds" coaching. Whether you're a parent, a teacher,…

Book cover of Parenting on Earth: A Philosopher's Guide to Doing Right by Your Kids and Everyone Else

Travis Rieder Author Of Catastrophe Ethics: How to Choose Well in a World of Tough Choices

From my list on philosophy books for everyone.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a philosopher and bioethicist at Johns Hopkins University, where I teach students and conduct scholarship mainly for my colleagues and policymakers. But my popular writing is driven by the belief that many of the things I find interesting to think and write about are interesting not because I’m an academic—but because I’m a human, and so it’s likely that other humans would find them interesting too. So, while I enjoy dissecting esoteric scholarship as much as the next professor, my passion is exploring important ideas in a format that everyone can enjoy. This has been the goal of my first two books and will hopefully be the goal of many more.

Travis' book list on philosophy books for everyone

Travis Rieder Why did Travis love this book?

This book is a bit of a gut punch, as it’s asking one of the hardest questions for those of us who are parents: how do we raise our kids in this scary, modern world? The heart of the dilemma buried in this question is that we want to do everything we can for our kids, but in a world of dwindling resources, spending so many of them and passing on as much privilege as we can feels like trying to best position our children on a sinking ship.

While I have come to terms with the idea that I ought to sacrifice my own interests in the name of calming a world on fire, it’s quite something else to realize that perhaps I ought to sacrifice some interests of the person whom I love most in the world—that perhaps they’re not entitled to everything I want to give them.…

By Elizabeth Cripps,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Parenting on Earth as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Being parents and being human: building hope for our children in a fragile world.

Environmental catastrophes, pandemics, antibiotic resistance, institutionalized injustice, and war: in a world so out of balance, what does it take—or even mean—to be a good parent? This book is one woman’s search for an answer, as a moral philosopher, activist, and mother.

Drawing on the insights of philosophy and the experience of parent activists, Elizabeth Cripps calls for parents to think radically about exactly what we owe our children—and everyone else. She shows how our children’s needs are inseparable from the fate of the earth and…


Book cover of The Most Important Comic Book on Earth: Stories to Save the World

Thomas Wharton Author Of Icefields

From my list on human impact on the natural world.

Why am I passionate about this?

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. 

Thomas' book list on human impact on the natural world

Thomas Wharton Why did Thomas love this book?

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?

By DK, DK, DK

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Most Important Comic Book on Earth as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 14, 15, 16, and 17.

What is this book about?

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…


Book cover of Half-Earth Socialism: A Plan to Save the Future from Extinction, Climate Change and Pandemics

Gareth Dale Author Of Revolutionary Rehearsals in the Neoliberal Age

From my list on Degrowth from a fellow traveller.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I grew up I assumed growth is good. Tomatoes grow, so do people—and economies too? Certainly, recessions were bad: many workers were made ‘redundant’. But as we grew older we noticed that growth continued yet people’s lives were getting harder. Looking back, the 1970s in Britain appears a golden age: almost everyone had plenty to eat, society was relatively equal, and all to a soundtrack of fabulous music. With climate change and other environmental threats it’s getting more obvious with each passing season that a global social transformation is required. These are the questions that have driven my own research, on climate politics, growth ideology, and technology fetishism.

Gareth's book list on Degrowth from a fellow traveller

Gareth Dale Why did Gareth love this book?

Should one species dominate half the entire planet? To some that seems greedy, but others think it’s not enough.

This book suggests a middle way: half the planet for us, but no more. It’s the most sumptuous book on my list, and even comes with an online game (which my students enjoyed playing in class). The book blends fictional passages with socio-ecological analysis. One fantasy paints a disturbingly plausible eco-dystopia, another portrays an attractive utopia—a future where people develop forms of democratic planning to enable rich human lives amidst flourishing fauna and flora.

Along the way, Vettese and Pendergrass introduce us to a galaxy of visionaries—from William Morris to Otto Neurath to Ursula Le Guin—who have developed ideas and planning techniques that could make that utopia real.

By Troy Vettese, Drew Pendergrass,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Half-Earth Socialism as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Over the next generation, humanity will confront a dystopian future of climate disaster and mass extinction. Yet the only "solutions" on offer are toothless cap-and-trade programs, catastrophic geoengineering schemes, and privatized conservation, which will do nothing to reverse the damage suffered by the biosphere. Indeed, these mainstream approaches assume that consumption in the Global North can continue unabated. It can't.

What we can do, environmental scholars Troy Vettese and Drew Pendergrass argue, is strive for a society able to provide a comfortable standard of living while stabilizing the environment: half-earth socialism. This means:
- Rewilding half the Earth to absorb…


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Book cover of In This Together: Connecting with Your Community to Combat the Climate Crisis

In This Together by Marianne E. Krasny,

In This Together explores how we can harness our social networks to make a real impact fighting the climate crisis. Against notions of the lone environmental crusader, Marianne E. Krasny shows us the power of "network climate action"—the idea that our own ordinary acts can influence and inspire those close…

Book cover of Stop Saving the Planet!: An Environmentalist Manifesto

Erik D. Curren Author Of The Solar Patriot: A Citizen's Guide to Helping America Win Clean Energy Independence

From my list on solving the climate crisis.

Why am I passionate about this?

Drawing on my own experience as a local elected official and citizen lobbyist at all levels of government, I write books to help get citizens involved in the biggest challenges of our day. As an activist for clean energy, I wanted to write an easy-to-use guide to help ordinary citizens to become effective champions for more solar power in America. The Solar Patriot is my third book and my second on solar power. For two decades I have worked as a communications consultant and advocate for solar power, renewable energy, and climate solutions. Now, I’m writing a call to action for America off of fossil fuels as soon as possible to meet the urgent challenge of the climate crisis.

Erik's book list on solving the climate crisis

Erik D. Curren Why did Erik love this book?

A welcome corrective to the trend of X number of things you can do in your personal life to save the Earth that won't threaten the rule of greedy polluters over the economy and government, Price's lighthearted book welcomes the reader with a smile but strikes hard against propaganda from corporate polluters while she stands up for climate justice. To help readers make a real difference, as opposed to doing things that feel helpful but really aren't like buying a Prius, Price does actually offer a few personal life changes, like buying less stuff or buying higher quality stuff at lower quantity. But most of her ideas are about thinking differently about the environment--such as Redefine Economy or even Redefine Extremism (greedheads, not environmentalists, are the real extremists). Or getting active in public policy--from the strikingly simple "Vote!" to "Join up locally--government & economy R us."

By Jenny Price,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Stop Saving the Planet! as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

We've been "saving the planet" for decades now and the crises have only got worse. Many of us-environmentalists included-continue to live deeply unsustainable lives. At home, affluent citizens "buy green"; while at work, they maximise profits with dirty energy and toxic industries that are poisoning poorer communities.

With brevity, humour and plenty of attitude, Jenny Price tracks "save the planet" enthusiasm through strategies that range from ridiculously ineffective (Prius-buying and carbon trading) to flat-out counterproductive (greenwashing and public subsidies to greenwash). We need to imagine far better ways to use and inhabit environments. Why aren't we cleaning up the messes…


Book cover of Ecological Ethics: An Introduction
Book cover of A New Environmental Ethics: The Next Millennium for Life on Earth
Book cover of Sustaining Life on Earth: Environmental and Human Health through Global Governance

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Environmentalism 198 books