THE AIR WE BREATHE

As soon as we leave the womb, we breathe it in, and we don’t stop until we die. Weightless and invisible, it’s the element we take most for granted – yet air is as vital to our survival as the water we drink and the soil that nourishes us. Like water and soil, its balance is delicate – and we pollute it at our peril. This month’s selections highlight the power and fragility of the air we breathe and the atmosphere that the planet depends on.

– June 2025

Non-Fiction

Firmament: The Hidden Science of Weather, Climate Change and the Air That Surrounds Us by Simon Clark

A thin, invisible layer of air surrounds the Earth, sustaining all known life on the planet and creating the unique climates and weather patterns that make each part of the world different.

In Firmament, atmospheric scientist and science communicator Simon Clark offers a rare and accessible tour of the ins and outs of the atmosphere and how we know what we know about it. From the workings of its different layers to why carbon dioxide is special, from pioneers like Pascal to the unsung heroes working in the field to help us understand climate change, Firmament introduces us to an oft-overlooked area of science and not only lays the ground work for us to better understand the debates surrounding the climate today, but also provides a glimpse of the future that is possible with this knowledge in hand.

“An engaging account of something essential to life on Earth yet barely understood by most people: the atmosphere. If you don’t know your stratosphere from your troposphere, you will after reading this lively history… all the more powerful thanks to a final chapter that explains how this complex system is changing, and what that means for the future of humanity.” –Financial Times

Air Pollution by Kenneth Wark and Cecil Warden

There’s something almost apocalyptic in the way Wark and Warner expose the hidden symphony of urban breathlessness in Air Pollution: the authors do more than explain particulate matter—they make you feel the sulfur in your nostrils and the benzene filling your lungs.

The text carries the weight of foreknowledge. Combustion equations are laid out like rites, with every pollutant catalogued, and every measurement quantified. In a world teetering between technological triumph and ecological collapse, Air Pollution is both a cautionary tale meticulously illustrated by data and a requiem for clean air, told with scientific precision and literary restraint.

The Secret World of Weather: How to Read Signs in Every Cloud, Breeze, Hill, Street, Plant, Animal, and Dewdrop by Tristan Gooley

Bestselling author Gooley, reveals a secret world – one that we all live in, but very few see. Each day we pass dozens of small weather signs that reveal what the weather is doing all around us – and what is about to happen. The clues are easy to spot when you know how, but remain invisible to most people.

In The Secret World of Weather you’ll discover the simple rules that explain the weather signs. And you’ll learn rare skills that enhance every minute you spend outdoors, whether you are in a town, on a beach or in a wilder spot.

“I would recommend this book to all who seek explanations of the incredible variety of natural sights and sounds detectable in the open air.” – Weather, journal of the Royal Meteorological Society

Hot Air: The Inside Story of the Battle Against Climate Change Denial by Peter Stott

Ours is the age of global warming. Rising sea levels, extreme weather, forest fires. Dire warnings are everywhere, so why has it taken so long for the crisis to be recognised?

Here, for the first time, climate scientist Peter Stott reveals the bitter fight to get international recognition for what, among scientists, has been known for decades: human activity causes climate change. Across continents and against the efforts of sceptical governments, prominent climate change deniers and shadowy lobbyists, Hot Air is the urgent story of how the science was developed, how it has been repeatedly sabotaged and why humanity hasn’t a second to spare in the fight to halt climate change.

“Hot Air provides a deep insight into the nasty, iniquitous, and nefarious tactics used to deny the reality of climate change. Peter Stott’s first-hand account brilliantly documents the 30-year war against climate scientists in the name of fossil fuels, political expedience, and climate denial.” ― Prof. Mark Maslin, author of How to Save Our Planet

A Sky full of Kites by Tom Bowser

An inspirational account of one family’s journey from farming to rewilding and how they brought Red Kites back into Scotland’s skies.

Once Britain’s most common bird of prey, Red Kites had been wiped out by the early 1900s in Scotland and England following centuries of persecution. When some reintroduced kites began roosting on their 1,400-acre farm at Argaty in Perthshire, Tom Bowser’s parents, Lynn and Niall, decided to turn their estate into a safe haven. They began feeding the birds and invited the world to come and see them, learn about them and fall in love with them.

A Sky Full of Kites is the story of the Argaty Red Kite project, and the re-establishing of these magnificent raptors to Scotland, but it is also much more than that. Ill at ease with the traditional rural values of livestock farming, Lynn and Niall’s son Tom, who returned to work on the farm after a career in journalism, reveals his passion for nature and his desire to dedicate his family’s land to conservation.

Fiction

Coming Up For Air by George Orwell

Striking the balance between comical and pessimistic, this Orwellian novel follows George Bowling as he foresees the horrors of World War Two and attempts to escape the threat of violence and old age by retreating to his childhood town.

First published in 1939, Coming Up for Air is a novel by George Orwell examining how commercialism and capitalism are destroying the English countryside and opening the way for new threats. When an insurance salesman, George Bowling, wins money on a horserace, he decides to escape his disillusioned London life and attempt to relive his innocent childhood. He returns to his small town of birth in rural England and hides from the reality of the impending war.

“Coming Up for Air helps us to see that disillusionment with the present, through nostalgia, can lead only to further delusion. Orwell’s work, written in the midst of the rise of fascism and economic depression, can help us to see the importance of rationalism in opposition to idealism. As we face more problems at home and abroad, this message remains significant as ever, and the consequences of our failure to live up to it just as colossal.” – Patrick Maxwell, The London Magazine.

Young Adult

Don’t Call Me A Hurricane by Ellen Hagan

Five years after a hurricane tore through her Jersey Shore town, Eliza Marino is still piecing her life back together. Channeling her grief and fear into activism, she becomes determined to protect Clam Cove Reserve—a fragile stretch of marshland threatened by developers. Fighting to save the island is more than a cause; it’s how Eliza copes with the storm’s aftermath and the lingering dread that disaster could strike again.

When Eliza meets Milo at a party, he’s everything she resents: wealthy, a summer tourist, just passing through. She wants to hate him. But when she agrees—reluctantly—to teach him to surf, something shifts. As they spend time together, Eliza starts to let down her guard. Still, trust doesn’t come easy, and letting someone new into her carefully rebuilt life feels risky. Especially when Milo is hiding a painful secret of his own.

Told in lyrical verse, this poignant YA novel explores love, loss and resilience. Set against the backdrop of rising tides and vanishing shorelines, Eliza’s story is a powerful reflection on healing, community, and learning to connect with someone whose view of the world challenges—and maybe completes—your own.

Books for Children

The Weather: How the Sky Works by Jane Miler

In this colourful and engaging book, young readers will explore how weather happens, why the sky changes, and what makes our planet so full of surprises. Through simple explanations, vivid illustrations, fun facts, and easy experiments, kids will learn: how clouds form and rain falls, what causes winds, tornadoes, and hurricanes, how air pressure and temperature shape our daily weather, the tools scientists use to forecast storms, and amazing weather events from around the world

Perfect for curious minds ages 7–11, The Weather: How the Sky Works, makes complex science fun, friendly, and fascinating.

Poetry

POEM OF THE MONTH

Other than Personality Disorder, what term could you use to describe these people?

by Clare Shaw

These people are Arctic Terns

who launch their tiny weight into the wind.

Their problem is winter,

their problem is weather; they avoid storms

by taking the largest detours to find land.

They are abundant.

These people fly between poles

and they sleep on the wing – they spiral,

their endurance is legendary.

They will bite your head

if they have to: they will draw blood.

They sing a high song of alarm

and they know two summers;

They have been studied and trapped

and tracked in their journeys,

these people are remarkable-

they have magnets inside their heads,

they go where they have to.

They know the glow of the snow

on the water, the sea as a glimmer,

the mountains as blades in the sky.

And they are the subject of various papers.

And life is harsh, and days are endless.

This poem Other than Personality Disorder, what term could you use to describe these people? appears in Shaw’s latest collection, Towards A General Theory of Love which won a Northern Writers’ Award and was a Poetry Society Book of the Year. It takes us deftly into the life of the terns; one threatened by the climate emergency, as we are. Their problems are our problems, erratic and extreme weather. They sing, “a high song of alarm”, as we must. The poem uses beautiful sound patterning and an uneasy rhythm in its tight tercets to convey the remarkable strength of the terns and their point of view.

Clare Shaw (they/them) was born in Burnley, England in 1972. Their other poetry collections include Flood (Bloodaxe, 2018), Head On (Bloodaxe, 2012); and Straight Ahead (Bloodaxe, 2006), which received a Forward Prize Highly Commended for Best Single Poem.

Shaw is an advocate for accessibility in poetry and for poetry as a tool of personal and social change. They have founded or directed numerous poetry initiatives, including the Kendal Poetry Festival, Wonky Animals Poetry Collective, and the Lost Things Project. They have held poetry residencies in many settings, and collaborate with artists and academics in other disciplines, including photography, folk music, film, conservation, and design. Shaw was a lecturer at the University of Huddersfield and works with Wordsworth Grasmere, the Royal Literary Fund, and the Arvon Foundation.

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.