This collection of key literature on the climate emergency has been hand-curated by our Library team.
Have a recommendation for a Climate Classic? Contact our Head Librarian.
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Things We Didn’t See Coming | Steven Amsterdam
Things We Didn’t See Coming follows a single man over three…
June 3, 2023/by Anne Enith CooperOur Final Warning | Mark Lynas
Mark Lynas’ 2008 book Six Degrees soon became a must-read…
August 23, 2023/by Liz JensenThe Patterning Instinct | Jeremy Lent
Jeremy Lent’s iconic work, described by George Monbiot as…
June 9, 2023/by Anne Enith CooperActive Hope | Joanna Macy
“Active hope is not wishful thinking….Active hope is…
June 7, 2023/by Anne Enith CooperDoughnut Economics | Kate Raworth
In Doughnut Economics, Oxford academic Kate Raworth identifies…
November 20, 2022/by KatieOut Of Time | edited by Kate Simpson
If you compressed the whole of Earth’s history into a single…
March 27, 2023/by KatieOdds Against Tomorrow | Nathaniel Rich
New York City, the near future: Mitchell Zukor works on the…
February 7, 2023/by KatieThe Sea and Summer | George Turner
Francis Conway is Swill - one of the 90% in the year 2041…
February 7, 2023/by KatieThe Deluge | Stephen Markley
In the first decades of the 21st century, the world is convulsing,…
March 27, 2023/by KatieThe Grapes of Wrath | John Steinbeck
First published in 1939, Steinbeck’s powerful…
Watership Down | Richard Adams
This adventure novel about a small band of rabbits in southern…
May 29, 2023/by KatieThe Lorax | Dr. Seuss
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
Nothing…
June 3, 2023/by Anne Enith CooperNothing…
Oryx and Crake | Margaret Atwood
Oryx and Crake is the first book in Margaret Atwood’s dystopian…
March 27, 2023/by KatieThe Uninhabitable Earth | David Wallace-Wells
From its first line - “It is, worse, much worse, than you…
June 9, 2023/by Anne Enith CooperThe Future of Life | E.O. Wilson
“We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless,”…
June 8, 2023/by Anne Enith CooperThe Ministry for the Future | Kim Stanley Robinson
Established in 2025, the purpose of the new organisation…
February 7, 2023/by KatieThings We Didn’t See Coming | Steven Amsterdam
Opening on the eve of the millennium, when the world as we…
February 7, 2023/by KatieSilent Spring | Rachel Carson
Ever since its publication in 1962, Rachel Carson’s eloquent,…
June 9, 2023/by Anne Enith CooperThe End of Nature | Bill McKibben
“The planet, for the first time, has been entirely reconfigured.…
June 9, 2023/by Anne Enith CooperBewilderment | Richard Powers
“Life is something we need to stop correcting…Every one…
June 3, 2023/by Anne Enith CooperDoughnut Economics | Kate Raworth
Imagine two concentric circles, one inside the other: a social…
June 20, 2023/by Anne Enith CooperThe Drowned World | JG Ballard
When London is lost beneath the rising tides, unconscious…
February 7, 2023/by KatieThe Windup Girl | Paolo Bacigalupi
The Windup Girl is the ground-breaking and visionary modern…
February 7, 2023/by KatieSmall is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if people Mattered | E.F. Schumacher
When Schumacher’s original eco-bible was published in 1973,…
June 9, 2023/by Anne Enith CooperThe Climate Book | Greta Thunberg
In this collection of essays, interspersed with Greta Thunberg’s…
June 7, 2023/by Anne Enith CooperThis Changes Everything | Naomi Klein
“It is always easier to deny reality” writes Naomi Klein,…
June 8, 2023/by Anne Enith CooperClade | James Bradley
Clade is the story of one family in a radically changing world,…
June 3, 2023/by Anne Enith CooperWild: An Elemental Journey | Jay Griffiths
Wildness, to the celebrated writer-activist Jay Griffiths,…
June 7, 2023/by Anne Enith CooperFlight Behaviour | Barbara Kingsolver
"The flames now appeared to lift from individual treetops…
February 7, 2023/by KatieThe Sixth Extinction | Elizabeth Kolbert
In her ground-breaking and scientifically rigorous exploration…
June 7, 2023/by Anne Enith CooperArctic Dreams | Barry Lopez
"In the Arctic, the land begins to dream itself. Barry Lopez…
June 7, 2023/by Anne Enith Cooper