January 2025
Our Rebel Library’s recommendations this month include an acclaimed investigation into the people and systems responsible for the climate emergency, a thrilling exploration on the self-healing power of the natural world, and a wide-ranging short story collection by winners of Grist’s Imagine competition. Happy reading.
Non-Fiction
Overshoot by Andreas Malm and Wim Carton
As the fossil fuel industry continues to make its largest profits in history and safety limits head towards irreparable overshoot, Wim Carton and How to Blow Up a Pipeline author Andreas Malm ask how it came to this, and why despite all the warnings, business as usual continues. The world will spiral deeper into the danger zone unless fossil fuel capitalism is halted, they argue. This brave, provocative book is a clarion call for a revolutionary climate politics – not tomorrow, but now.
More and More and More: An All-Consuming History of Energy by Jean-Baptiste Fressoz
This thought-provoking book was published at the end of last year. It explores the challenge of the transition from fossil fuel and questions the notion of transition as it has been understood in the past. It warns of an uncomfortable truth in the modern conception, that ‘transition’ was originally promoted by energy companies, not as a genuine plan, but as a means to put off any meaningful change. Described as “eye-opening and frequently gobsmacking” by the Economist, this book gives a radical new history of energy.
Abundance: Nature in Recovery by Karen Lloyd
How should we restore nature and species, and why does it matter? What is lost when we choose not to engage in restoration of the natural world? And which parts of ourselves might we also lose if we choose not to help restore and renew the natural world before it’s too late?
In this collection, Karen Lloyd explores abundance and loss in the natural world, relating compelling stories of restoration, renewal and repair, describing how those working on the front lines of conservation are challenging the inevitability of biodiversity loss, as well as navigating her own explorations of the meaning of abundance in the Anthropocene.
It’s Not That Radical by Mikaela Loach
Loach aims to address new and familiar readers with this book. It provides a framework for problems and solutions in a language both rigorous and accessible. She shows how the climate crisis is rooted in colonialism and capitalist exploitation, arguing Green forms of capitalism such as electric vehicles are not the answer. Real solutions, she suggests, need to get to the roots of injustice. Furthermore, she points out you do not have to be perfect to act. She upholds that while personal growth involves discomfort, the goal isn’t merely to reach individual change and makes a call for collective action, and her book clears the path to taking part.
Fiction
Metamorphosis, Edited by Grist
The short fictions that make up this collection, chosen from worldwide submissions to Grist’s Imagine story competition, recognise the grief, anger and helplessness engendered by climate and ecological breakdown but focus on the positives: community, resilience, innovation and the power of the human imagination.
“Each story is crafted with beautiful and compelling prose, and while painting vastly different futures, they remain in conversation with one another—building on ideas and providing a kaleidoscopic array of possibilities.” – Justine Payton
Young Adult
Earthlings by Ray Star
What would the world be like if the species hierarchy imposed by humankind were turned on its head? Ray Star’s Earthlings trilogy explores the climate crisis, family dynamics, and friendships and speciesism. Perfect for readers of Lauren James and N.K. Jemisin.
Poetry
POEM OF THE MONTH
This is an extract from Fluvial by Helen Moore. Fluvial is the final section of her landscape ecopoem Dorset Waterbodies, a Common / Weal, made with the support of Arts Council England funding. It was a commission for the RiverRun project led by Cape Farewell, a UK-based not-for-profit arts organisation, which focusses on the climate emergency, bringing scientists and artists together to develop a cultural response.
It features in river / run, a trilogy of long-form landscape ecopoems about British rivers and Atlantic Salmon written by Helen Moore in collaboration with scientists and artists responding to the climate and wider ecological crisis, published at the end of last year by Cape Farewell. In this concrete poem, Moore demonstrates her belief that, “As we help wild river heal, so we help and heal ourselves”
Helen Moore is a British ecopoet, socially engaged artist and writer. She has published three ecopoetry collections, Hedge Fund, And Other Living Margins (Shearsman Books, 2012), ECOZOA (Permanent Publications, 2015) and The Mother Country (Awen Publications, 2019) exploring aspects of British colonial history. In 2020 her work was nominated for the Forward and Pushcart Prizes and she has also received grants from the Society of Authors and the Royal Literary Fund.
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.