Environmental Literature

The Overstory unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fable that range from antebellum New York to the late 20th-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. An air force loadmaster in the Vietnam War is shot out of the sky, then saved by falling into a banyan. An artist inherits 100 years of photographic portraits, all of the same doomed American chestnut. A hard-partying undergraduate in the late 1980s electrocutes herself, dies, and is sent back into life by creatures of air and light.

This near-future trilogy is the first chance for English-speaking listeners to experience this multiple-award-winning phenomenon from Cixin Liu, China's most beloved science fiction author. In The Dark Forest, Earth is reeling from the revelation of a coming alien invasion - in just four centuries' time. The aliens' human collaborators may have been defeated, but the presence of the sophons, the subatomic particles that allow Trisolaris instant access to all human information, means that Earth's defense plans are totally exposed to the enemy.

Among the most celebrated and beloved novels of 2021, Anthony Doerr’s gorgeous third novel is a triumph of imagination and compassion, a soaring story about children on the cusp of adulthood in worlds in peril, who find resilience, hope—and a book. In Cloud Cuckoo Land, Doerr has created a magnificent tapestry of times and places that reflects our vast interconnectedness—with other species, with each other, with those who lived before us, and with those who will be here after we’re gone.

The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, using fictional eyewitness accounts to tell the story of how climate change will affect us all. Its setting is not a desolate, post-apocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us - and in which we might just overcome the extraordinary challenges we face.

Extras, the final book in the Uglies series, is set a couple of years after the "mind-rain", a few earth-shattering months in which the whole world woke up. The cure has spread from city to city, and the pretty regime that kept humanity in a state of bubbleheadedness has ended. Boundless human creativity, new technologies, and old dangers have been unleashed upon the world.

Year 2197. Earth is suffering from the consequences of an environmental catastrophe. Cities the size of continents are drowning in a toxic industrial fog. Max Bourne is a typical teenager. Like billions of other people, he is forced to live in the protective shell of the individual life support module. His habitat is the virtual Layer. But one day, circumstances force the young man to leave the in-mode. He has no idea that fate will lead him through unimaginable hardships, bring him face to face with military AIs, and teach him to survive in the distant Outlands.

The cabin had always been a special retreat for Isherwood Williams, a haven from the demands of society. But one day while hiking, Ish was bitten by a rattlesnake, and the solitude he had so desired took on dire new significance. Ish headed home when he finally felt himself again—and noticed the strangeness almost immediately. No cars passed him on the road; the gas station not far from his cabin looked abandoned; and he was shocked to see the body of a man on the roadside near a small town. Without a radio or phone, Ish had no idea of humanity’s abrupt demise.

Someone is watching Piper, and she thinks she knows who it is: the bushman. But there’s more than one danger lurking in this temperate rainforest. Poachers are taking down old growth trees and jeopardizing plans for a park, a project Piper is passionate about. When she pressures her husband, Ben, a natural resources officer, to identify the culprits, he takes his drone into the wilderness to track them down. And then, just as a snowstorm hits, he goes missing.

Everyone knows everyone in the tiny town of Bourne, but the Mitchell triplets are especially beloved. Mirabel is the smartest person anyone knows, and no one doubts it just because she can’t speak. Monday is the town’s purveyor of books now that the library’s closed - tell her the book you think you want, and she’ll pull the one you actually do from the microwave or her sock drawer. Mab’s job is hardest of all: get good grades, get into college, get out of Bourne.

Enjoy the freedom of the outdoors, the beauty of the countryside and the charm of all creatures, great and small, in this bumper short-story collection. Enid Blyton loved the countryside, animals and birds, and she wrote many wonderful stories to teach children all about the natural world. Each story is perfect for young children and is the ideal length for bedtime or classroom story time.

Four books. Four months. Nine Realms. Exiled and hunted, Cerulia, Princess of Weirandale, knows she has one destiny. Her enemies failed to kill her, and no one harboring her is safe. Raised in obscurity, she has no resources, no army, nothing that can help her against her enemies. Except their gods.

A bomb explodes on a sunset charter cruise out of Friday Harbor at the height of tourist season and kills everyone on board. Now this fishing and boating community is in shock and asking who would commit such a heinous crime—the largest act of mass murder in the history of the San Juan Islands.

When the spaceship Viking encounters a variety of adversaries in the Asteroid Belt - including a prospector and his family, a cyborg, the solar system's greatest sculptor, and an evil industrialist - a confrontation begins that transforms the human solar system.

When a black snake threatens to destroy the Earth and poison her people’s water, one young water protector takes a stand to defend Earth’s most sacred resource.

David Fisher pushes paper for the EPA in a world that's a lot like ours...only different. In this California - and throughout the alternate United States - all gods are real, science doesn't exist, and magic rules everything, running imp-driven computers and creating anxiety-inducing bumper-to-bumper flying-carpet rush hours. Unfortunately, unchecked magic use can leave dangerous residues, creating hours of mind-numbing deskwork for David and his fellow bureaucrats at the Environmental Perfection Agency.

This is not how soccer-star Zack Martin thought his summer would go. When the captain's prank means trouble for the whole squad, Zack’s left with no choice but to take one for the team and cover for him. Now he’s trading parties and beach days for community service at a seaside conservation center—fair enough. But thanks to his new reputation, the cute intern, Chip, won’t even give him a shot. Still, Zack finds himself falling for Chip between dolphin encounters and shark costume disasters, which means he suddenly has way more on the line than he ever expected.

This gripping, deeply thoughtful book considers the future of civilization in the light of what we know about climate change and related threats. David Orr, an award-winning, internationally recognized leader in the field of sustainability and environmental education, pulls no punches: Even with the Paris Agreement of 2015, Earth systems will not reach a new equilibrium for centuries.

As fossil fuel prices rise, oil insecurity deepens, and concerns about climate change cast a shadow over the future of coal, a new energy economy is emerging. Wind, solar, and geothermal energy are replacing oil, coal, and natural gas, at a pace and on a scale we could not have imagined even a year ago. For the first time since the Industrial Revolution, we have begun investing in energy sources that can last forever. Plan B 4.0 explores both the nature of this transition to a new energy economy and how it will affect our daily lives.

Jason Zhou survives in a divided society where the elite use their wealth to buy longer lives. The rich wear special suits, protecting them from the pollution and viruses that plague the city, while those without suffer illness and early deaths. Frustrated by his city's corruption and still grieving the loss of his mother, who died as a result of it, Zhou is determined to change things, no matter the cost.

Colleen and Rich Gundersen are raising their young son, Chub, on the rugged California coast. It’s 1977, and life in this Pacific Northwest logging town isn’t what it used to be. For generations, the community has lived and breathed timber; now that way of life is threatened. Colleen is an amateur midwife. Rich is a tree-topper. It’s a dangerous job that requires him to scale trees hundreds of feet tall - a job that both his father and grandfather died doing. Colleen and Rich want a better life for their son - and they take steps to assure their future.