Here are 100 books that The Falling Sky fans have personally recommended if you like
The Falling Sky.
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My first true religion was being a boy alone in the woods and feeling a deep connection to nature in all its aspects. I felt a connection with all life and knew myself to be an animal—and gloried in it. Since then, I've learned how vigorously humans fight our animal nature, estranging us from ourselves and the planet. Each of these books invites us to get over ourselves and connect with all life on Earth.
This book blew me away. I loved how it was told with a range of characters and stories converging into a single whole—like the forest and the trees. I learned more about trees than I ever thought I would care to know and loved every minute of it.
There's nothing more humbling, perhaps, than the vast forests that blanket our planet, and this novel and its unforgettable characters made me feel that in my bones. I'll never look at a tree or planet Earth quite the same way again.
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…
Whereas many seek out stories of human triumph and heroic deeds, I have always been captivated by stories that show humanity for what it is–a bastion of innovation and wonder but also a complex and ethically questionable force of nature. I began writing my book when I was twelve years old, and I immediately knew that my characters would not be one-sided, cast in light or shadow. Instead, they would love at times and hate others, try their hardest to do what is right, but sometimes end up doing more harm than good. Remember that a ‘hero’ is a product of perspective when reading these books.
Like The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Frank Herbert’s book tells the story of a man who could be the villain or the hero, depending on who you ask. I love watching how an intelligent yet malleable person can be swept up in feelings of duty, responsibility, and leadership only to make highly questionable decisions.
Paul Atreides’ moral ambiguity is undeniably engineered by the shifting and slimy political landscape of the Dune universe, driving home the idea in my mind that good worldbuilding can set the stage for truly complicated characters.
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’ve spent the past few years writing about the 1940 Katyń Massacre of 22,000 Polish prisoners of war by Stalin’s NKVD and the decades-long cover-up of their crime. My research has taken me far and wide across the recent history of eastern Europe but until the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 I was convinced the events I was studying belonged firmly in the past. Now, more than ever, we need to make an effort to understand the ways in which history informs the present. I most admire writers who combine a forensic attention to detail with a deep compassion for the individuals at the heart of every story.
One of the most beautiful and devastating books I’ve ever read, Chernobyl Prayer relates the story of the 1986 nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine from the point of view of those most closely involved. Nobel laureate Alexievich’s unique method of using verbatim witness accounts, which she edits into something closely resembling poetry, elevates this to the level of great literature. The Soviet government’s attempts to cover up the scale of the disaster are widely considered to have contributed to the final collapse of the Soviet Union.
'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,…
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.
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…
From about the age of 14, I have been exploring how unusual ideas and experiences might change a person’s life. This led me to become an author and experimental psychologist studying the effects of religious beliefs, rituals, and meditation exercises on our minds and bodies. I have spent a good part of the last 4 years putting together a book which tries to answer many of my questions on the varieties of meditation practices around the world.
A delightful 12th-century spiritual travel book. As a young man, the mystic Ibn Arabi travels through southern Spain, Portugal, and North Africa in search of holy figures. He meets plenty of them, who tell him of their daily spiritual and physical discipline and experiences of God. In one of my favorite depictions, Ibn Arabi is harshly told off by one of the individuals who refuses to acknowledge he is the one whom the young traveler seeks — if people learn of his spiritual eminence, he finally confides, he will never have a moment of peace; there will be a never-ending queue of individuals seeking guidance, healing, and prayers from him.
From about the age of 14, I have been exploring how unusual ideas and experiences might change a person’s life. This led me to become an author and experimental psychologist studying the effects of religious beliefs, rituals, and meditation exercises on our minds and bodies. I have spent a good part of the last 4 years putting together a book which tries to answer many of my questions on the varieties of meditation practices around the world.
Here we have fragments of the lives of female and male hermits living in the Egyptian desert, trying to live the Christian life away from the temptations of cities. Colourful depictions of their relationships, experiences with angels and demons, and the techniques used to move closer to God and conquer human frailty. These accounts are a superb antidote to today’s mindfulness which feels rather mind-numbing compared to these accounts of meditation.
The Desert Fathers were the first Christian monks, living in solitude in the deserts of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. In contrast to the formalised and official theology of the "founding fathers" of the church, the Desert Fathers were ordinary Christians who chose to renounce the world and live lives of celibacy, fasting, vigil, prayer and poverty in direct and simple response to the gospel. Their sayings were first recorded in the 4th century and consist of spiritual advice, anecdotes and parables. The Desert Fathers' teachings and lives have inspired poetry, opera and art, as well as providing spiritual nourishment and…
From about the age of 14, I have been exploring how unusual ideas and experiences might change a person’s life. This led me to become an author and experimental psychologist studying the effects of religious beliefs, rituals, and meditation exercises on our minds and bodies. I have spent a good part of the last 4 years putting together a book which tries to answer many of my questions on the varieties of meditation practices around the world.
From physical travel to the heavens to
elaborate meditations on Hebrew letter permutations and terrifying dialogues
with God: the richness of Jewish religious experience is narrated here with
historical detail and psychological insight. Its final chapters which bring us
close to our times are no less surprising: Scholem describes how the
disillusionment with a prophetic figure who converts to Islam to save his own
life sparked an atheist movement within Judaism. My favorite book on the psychology of
religious experience, though written by a historian.
From about the age of 14, I have been exploring how unusual ideas and experiences might change a person’s life. This led me to become an author and experimental psychologist studying the effects of religious beliefs, rituals, and meditation exercises on our minds and bodies. I have spent a good part of the last 4 years putting together a book which tries to answer many of my questions on the varieties of meditation practices around the world.
Tolstoy describes and plays with religious experiences across various of his novels. He doesn’t take them for granted: the initial enthusiasm and prospect of personal change seldom leads to real transformation. Here, though, in one of his last writings, we follow the contagious spell of true conversion of heart. When a serial murderer meets a pure soul his self is transformed and goes on to change the life of others.
Leo Tolstoy (September 9, 1828 – November 20, 1910) was a Russian writer who earned fame and global renown for his novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Writing during the late 19th century, Tolstoy lived during a literary period in which Realism flourished, and today his two novels are considered the apex of realist fiction. Tolstoy is also known for his complex and somewhat paradoxical persona, holding both moralistic and ascetic views during the final decades of his life.
I’ve been reading and writing environmental history since I was trapped indoors on a rainy afternoon nearly 40 years ago and by chance pulled Alfred Crosby’s The Columbian Exchange off a bookshelf. I read it in one gulp (it’s a short book and the rain lingered) and I’ve never been the same since. I regard the environmental as the most fundamental sort of history, because it places humankind and our history in its full context. I love to learn about how humans and their environments affect one another and to read histories that treat both together—because in reality they have always been, and always will be, intertwined.
Sometimes environmental history is written with passion and outrage, and this is one such case. Brazil’s Atlantic forest is 90% gone now, and Dean explains how, why, and when that happened. He regards it as a tragedy, and his sorrow and anger enliven his writing. You probably know the ongoing story of the shrinking Amazon rainforest. Forest history is a major category within environmental history, and this is one of the best. The impact of Brazil’s leaf-cutter ants, which Dean explains, defies belief.
Warren Dean chronicles the chaotic path to what could be one of the greatest natural disasters of modern times: the disappearance of the Atlantic Forest. A quarter the size of the Amazon Forest, and the most densely populated region in Brazil, the Atlantic Forest is now the most endangered in the world. It contains a great diversity of life forms, some of them found nowhere else, as well as the country's largest cities, plantations, mines, and industries. Continual clearing is ravaging most of the forested remnants. Dean opens his story with the hunter-gatherers of twelve thousand years ago and takes…
When I was twelve, my family moved to Brazil for a year because of my father’s work. I’ve been fascinated by the country and it has been always been the focal point of my research. Initially, my focus was how neighborhood associations in Rio’s favelas took advantage of new political opportunities during the transition to democracy in the mid-1980s. By the mid-1990s, however, the neighborhoods had all been occupied by heavily armed and occasionally violent drug gangs. Since then, I've tried to figure out the dynamics of this process, from the involved actors’ points of view. Including the voices of participants in drug gang life and those, like Bruno, who bring drugs to market.
Based on meticulous and ground-breaking research, this book examines the roles played by children and adolescents in the drug trade in Rio de Janeiro. The author and his team interviewed twenty-five young men involved with the drug trade, plus various other local actors. The testimonies reveal that the participation of children and adolescents is a function of a thriving drug market, the absence of alternative opportunities, and the corrupt and repressive nature of local security forces. I know of no other book with such unparalleled access to child combatants in Rio’s favelas.
