EARTH: THE GROUND WE STAND ON
It’s no coincidence that our planet and our soil bear the same name. Both are fundamental to our existence, and the existence of all other land-living life-forms. This month our book selection explores Earth, soil, and the deep geological layers that lie beneath the ground we stand on: ground that humankind has tended, ploughed, planted, fought over, mined, cherished – and poisoned – for centuries.
– April 2025
Non-Fiction
Earth: Over 4 Billion Years in the Making by Chris Packham and Andrew Cohen
A beautiful, full-colour book to accompany the 5 part BBC TV series telling the most important story of all, the deep history of our own planet. With the trademark dramatic storytelling techniques of The Planets and The Universe, Andrew Cohen and Chris Packham narrate the biography of the Earth, revealing the most epic events of its history, from the first seconds of its existence to the arrival of humans, including the moments where our planet’s future hung in the balance in the face of massive bombardments from space, extreme changes in climate, the collision of whole continents and more.
This is the epic 4 billion year story of the place we call home.
Underland: A Deep Time Journey by Robert MacFarlane
“To descend into the darkness is to descend into ourselves. It is to acknowledge the dirt and the darkness as parts of being, as integral parts of conscious and living systems.” Macfarlane’s transcendent exploration of deep time, interconnectedness, psychology and myth-making is told through the human and natural history of all that is hidden from the light. Travelling to subterranean rivers, ancient caves, underground networks and burial chambers, the acclaimed nature writer brings poetic sensibility, vivid storytelling, scientific insight, and a celebratory curiosity to bear on the interconnectedness between the surface world and the hidden landscapes below.
Earth Matters: How soil underlies civilization by Richard Bardgett
Richard Bardgett is a Professor of Ecology and has published widely on plant and soil interactions, nutrient cycling and soil ecology. In Earth Matters he describes the importance of soil, the many ways in which we depend on it, and how humans have worked with the soil throughout history.
It is easy to overlook the important role soil has for human life, yet entire societies have risen, and collapsed, through the management or mismanagement of soil; the Great Dusk Bowl in the United States testimony to the devastating consequences of mismanagement.
Bardgett analyses the role soil plays in our own lives, despite increasing urbanisation, and in the biogeochemical cycles that allow the planet to function effectively, Bardgett considers how superior soil management could combat global issues such as climate change, food shortages, and the extinction of species. Looking to the future, he argues it is vital for the future of humanity for governments worldwide to halt soil degradation, and to put in place policies for the future sustainable management of soils.
Soil, Soul, Society: A New Trinity for Our Time by Satish Kumar
Internationally-respected peace and environment activist Satish Kumar has been gently setting the agenda for change for over 50 years.
The age of sustainability is grounded on the knowledge that we ourselves are very much part of nature; that what we do to nature we in fact do to ourselves; and that the earth has a soul, which we share. Drawing on the example of Rabindranath Tagore, Kumar advocates living with awareness that our personal choices have political and poetic resonance. In this book, he inspires readers with the knowledge we are all leaders and can create change in our structures and mindsets for lasting peace and a sustainable culture and society. Celebrating an emerging global consciousness that reveres nature, the book explores how, as a global society, we need to embrace diversity and be aware of our role as pilgrims on this earth. Joyful and heart-centered, Satish Kumar reminds us that to bring about change in the world, we must embody the change we wish to see.
Dirt to Soil: One Family’s Journey into Regenerative Agriculture by Gabe Brown
Soil health pioneer Gabe Brown did not set out to write a book on no-till, regenerative agriculture but that was the end product of his research into a new method of farming that would bring back life to his farm, rather than taking away from it.
As a series of weather-related crop disasters put the Brown family farm on the brink of financial ruin, Brown took the bold decision to cut costs by omitting the use of most pesticides, insecticides and synthetic fertilisers. This was the catalyst that led to Brown experimenting with regenerative agriculture, a method of farming that undid the damage of conventional agricultural practices. He switched to no-till planting, started planting diverse cover crops mixes and changed his grazing practices. In doing so, Brown transformed a degraded farm ecosystem into one full of life starting with the soil and working his way up, one plant and one animal at a time.
Using these principles, Brown’s Ranch has grown several inches of new topsoil in only twenty years! The 5,000-acre ranch profitably produces a wide variety of cash crops and cover crops as well as grass-finished beef and lamb, pastured laying hens and pastured pork, all marketed directly to consumers.
The future is regenerative, no-till, organic farming and Dirt to Soil is the perennial bestseller to start you on that journey, for the betterment of the food we consume and the state of our shared planet.
Fiction
Earth by David Brin
Decades from now, an artificial black hole has fallen into the Earth’s core. As scientists frantically work to prevent the ultimate disaster, they discover that the entire planet could be destroyed within a year.
But while they look for an answer, some claim that the only way to save Earth is to let its human inhabitants become extinct: to reset the evolutionary clock and start over.
‘This book is not just a green globe-trotting adventure; it is also a thoughtful mix of warnings and promise.” – The Guardian
The Silo series by Hugh Howey
Set in a post-apocalyptic world where the remaining humans live in an underground silo, the surface world is shrouded in mystery and danger. The Silo series is a trilogy of novels by science fiction author Hugh Howey. The first book, Wool, began as a short story in 2011, became a novel and led to two more books: Shift and Dust.
The Earth, as they know it, has been ruined. These last humans live according to strict rules. Each rule must be followed or one will have to bear the consequences; banishment to the outside. A story about survival, control and access to information.
In this underground world alliances are made and broken, conflicts grow, doubt creeps in. Is the outside really as dangerous as everyone has been told? In that sense it’s allegorical. We so often see the natural world as dangerous, something to conquer, hide or escape from. The Silo series represents a polluted and poisoned earth much as ours is becoming.
Paradises Lost by Ursula K. Le Guin
This novella describes a multi-generational voyage on a ship destined for a distant Earth-like planet. Over successive generations apart from any semblance of an ecosystem (food is grown in “dirt” with few, carefully curated microbes, and there are no animals or insects on board), social fracture and growing religious fervour develop. Through Paradises Lost, Le Guin explores our connection with soil and environment, including the depth of its influence on us. It contains elements of eco-criticism with a critique of the idea that human beings are altogether separate from their natural environment. The novella has since been anthologized as well as adapted into an opera of the same name.
Books for Children
An Anthology of Our Extraordinary Earth by Cally Oldershaw
Explore the beauty and majesty of planet Earth in this compendium, with more than 100 incredible stories and images.
An Anthology of Our Extraordinary Earth looks at our constantly changing planet, with striking images and scientific ideas that are easy for children to understand. Starting at the centre of the Earth, the book examines each layer in forensic detail: from Earth’s metallic core, drilling through Earth’s tough crust until emerging out onto the planet’s surface, with its lush green rainforests, sparkling oceans, and snow-capped mountains, before sailing up into Earth’s airy atmosphere.
Poetry
POEM OF THE MONTH
Bog Iron by Fran Lock
For M.
for all our keeping faith with place, the bog
beneath its black tribunal of birds. its sedge
and heather, meadow-stealth, heath and rush.
for all we were. for small lives, girdled with
dirt. between the flush and swallow, circled
and astir. tread softly, so. the heavy weather
spread beneath our thick, wet step. walk out,
wincing into mirage; cross this awkward
cataract of sky. stand tall. hold yourself still
as a set bone. or bend, among the mongrel
moor-gold, palely quaked. this is our place.
your name, in the mottle-mouthed depths
of it. moss-mithered, mire-mossed, marsh-
mothered. your head in its hollow hood
of grass, lain in the lap of hollow grass,
slain in its cap of tannin and draught. for
all our numbered days, return. to reckon
with this wading pain. i too should sink.
with the lush muck of home. mantled in
sapric. richly seamed in peat. if we could
rise, from tracts of harried turf to sing
the renegade stink of it. exult in earth.
caked in these cloths of heaven – clods
of heaven – the bog, after all, its decent
scrim. its stain, and clot. our coat of sod
our pith, our skin. this survivalist’s rind.
We are honoured to present a new poem from Fran Lock who describes herself as, an author and some-time itinerant dog whisperer with Irish and Traveller roots living in Kent, England. It is dedicated to the author’s friend, who with her, shared a fascination and admiration for, in her words, “the powerful, nourishing, life-giving bog.”
For the British colonisers, the bog was synonymous with Ireland and the Irish; to be feared, drained and conquered. Mythological tales speak of bottomless pits where people can be lost. And if Heaney’s bog poems are a literature of postcolonial resistance, this poem is one of reverence for its life-giving ecosystem. Lock transforms the mythological fear of bodies sinking into the bog into willing sacrifice. There is a nod to Yeats in the words “tread softly” placing it firmly in the tradition of Irish poetry.
Lock masters sound patterning and rhythm in this poem which can read as an ode to the bog; a comforting “lap”, the “lush muck of home”, and “clods of heaven”. The poem is presented in the shape of a bog brick. This moving ecopoem speaks, by extension, to a healthier relationship with the Earth. It’s worth noting peatlands store more carbon than all the forests of the world combined yet cover merely three per cent of our planet.
Fran Lock has published numerous chapbooks and thirteen poetry collections including; Hyena! (2023) shortlisted for the 2023 T.S. Eliot Prize. Hyena! Jackal! Dog! (2021) Contains Mild Peril (2019), Raptures and Captures (2019), Ruses and Fuses (2018), Muses and Bruises (2017), Dogtooth (2017) and The Mystic and the Pig Thief (2014). She is an editor for Culture Matters and member of the Editorial Advisory Board for the Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry.
Contact our Librarian if you would like themed book lists to support teaching about climate change.
We’re always looking for contributors to our growing collection of literature to explain and explore the climate and biodiversity emergency. If you’re a writer or poet and would like to share your work or ideas, please get in touch! Contact mattroselibrary@gmail.com for prose or poetsrebelxr@gmail.com for poetry.