A group of children are holidaying with their parents in a crumbling lakeside mansion. Having long since diagnosed the adults as boozy, self-absorbed, and allergic to consequence, they retreat into a shadow society of their own, closer to feral than filial. When the storms come and the lights go out, the grown-ups drink through […]
As Watkins’ celebrated Gold, Fame, Citrus showed, she has never been interested in comfortable fiction. Her latest novel, set in the Mohave desert, digs deeper into the discomfort through its protagonist Rose, an on-and-off Twelve-Stepper circling an old flame and craving another baby. The Yellow Pine of the title –a real solar farm in […]
Donna M Cameron’s novel is a striking hybrid of thriller, love story, family reckoning, and sly polemic about a planet on fire. Jagger Eckerman, on the run from his billionaire father and his hit men, hides deep in a rain forest in a cave already occupied by Nia — a woman on a mission […]
As climate chaos, inequality, and social fragmentation intensify, humanity faces an imminent choice, argues the renowned ecological thinker Jeremy Lent. We can either continue with a system built on extraction and endless growth – or we can reimagine civilization itself. The result is Ecocivilization, a radical yet feasible alternative to a world built […]
If you are paralysed by fear whenever you think of what lies ahead, futurologist Florence Gaub’s book is the perfect antidote, briskly challenging that notion that we have no say in the future, either as individuals or citizens. Her advice to everyone, whether or not they are policymakers, is to combine creativity with […]
Solastalgia – the word used to describe the grief we feel at the loss of beloved landscapes, creature and ecosystems – is woven through Frances Weller’s much-loved work about the importance of embracing, rather than denying our personal and existential grief. “Grief,” he writes, “offers a wild alchemy that transmutes suffering into fertile […]
Clear-eyed, eloquent and cogent, Natasha Walters’s argument that the eco-crisis is a feminist crisis could not come at a better moment. Wildfires, floods, heat domes, pollution and rising seas are not the only dangers facing women: authoritarian states, online misogyny and climate breakdown are endangering their wellbeing, lives and safety too. Yet Western feminism, […]
“This fascinating and gripping book has the power to open our eyes and shift our thinking in ways that few others can. Read on and get ready.” -Kate Raworth In this timely account of Britain’s response to wildfires, heatwaves and flooding, David Shukman, the BBC’s former science and environment correspondent, doesn’t pull his punches. Why, […]
Puchner’s engrossing multi-generational portrait of a groups of family and friends in Montana is a thoughtful examination of love, loss, and the enduring effects of past choices. But it is in its depiction of the desecration of wildlife and the creeping effects of climate breakdown that it excels. The story starts by an idyllic […]
Elizabeth Gilbert may be best known for her searching memoirs, but her curiosity extends, in this enthralling historical novel, to the world of plants. The story follows Alma Whittaker, a brilliant and observant woman born into a botanical family in Philadelphia, who dedicates herself to the study of mosses. Through years of meticulous observation, […]