Books I Love:

Recommended Books on the Activism, Human Reflections, & the Environment:

• American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau (Library of America) by Bill McKibben (2008)
  • Bill McKibben’s selection of the last two centuries’ best and most significant environmental writing, from Carson to Muir to Thoreau.
• American Environmental History An Introduction (Columbia Guides to American History and Culture by Carolyn Merchant (2007)
  • The ways in which diverse peoples have changed, shaped, and conserved the natural world over time, exposing humanity’s relationship with nature and the origins of modern environmental problems.    
• A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman (1991)
  • A “grand tour” of the realm of human senses—Ackerman’s musings into many questions about the human sensory experience of life on Earth.
• A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold (1986)
  • Portraits of the idyllic nature found in the untouched American landscape.
• Civil Disobedience, Solitude, and Life Without Principle (Literary Classics) by Henry David Thoreau (1998)
  • Henry David Thoreau’s declaration of his principles, living as an individualist and opponent of injustice. 
• Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future by Bill McKibben (2008)
  • Bill McKibben’s examination of the global economic system and his recommendations for a more sustainable economic future.
• Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey (1990)
  • An account of Edward Abbey’s seasons spent working as a park ranger in Utah, as well as his reflections on the condition of the wilderness that remains and the bleak future of a civilization that cannot coexist with the natural world. 
• Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World by Linda Hogan (2007)
  • Chicksaw poet and novelist Linda Hogan details her connections to Earth with insight and stories that are distinctly Native American.
• Ecology (Second Edition) by Carolyn Merchant (2007)
  • A collection of essays containing new directions, ideas, and possibilities for helping to repair Earth’s ecological problems.
• Fighting for Hope by Petra Kelly (1991)
  • Petra Kelly on environmental activism.
• Finding Beauty in a Broken World (Vintage) by Terry Tempest Williams (2009)
  • A part-memoir and part examination of how nature and humans both clash and connect.
• How to be Alone: Essays by Jonathan Franzen (2003)
  • A collection of essays on the persistence of loneliness in postmodern, imperial America. 
• If You Love This Planet: A Plan to Save the Earth (Revised and Updated) by Helen Caldicott (2009)
  • An easy-to-understand explanation of the scientific and medical consequences of environmental destruction, and what we must do to repair the Earth.
• Into the Wild by John Krakauer (1997)
  • The true story behind the adventure of a young man whose fatal attempt to live alone in nature captured national headlines.
• John Muir: Nature Writings: The Story of My Boyhood and Youth; My First Summer in the Sierra; The Mountains of California; Stickeen; Essays (Library of America) by John Muir (1997)
  • A collection of John Muir’s writings on his experiences in the wildernesses of Alaska and the American West.
• Loving This Planet: Lading Thinkers Talk About How to Make a Better World by Helen Caldicott (2012)
  • An accessible overview of key contemporary environmental issues and interviews of notable environmental scientists and thinkers on environmental problems and potential solutions.
• Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (Harper Perennial Modern Classics) by Annie Dillard (2007)
  • Annie Dillard’s personal narrative of a year spent out in nature in Virginia’s Roanoke Valley.
• Radical Ecology: The Search for a Livable World (Revolutionary Thought and Radical Movements) by Carolyn Merchant (2005)
  • How the “radical ecology” movement can transform science and society to better life on this imperiled planet.
• Rational Reality: New Discoveries of Interrelatedness That are Transforming the Modern World by Charlene Spretnak (2011)
  • An exploration of the dynamic relationships among all living creatures and elements of the earth.
• Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place by Terry Tempest Williams (1992)
  • Terry Tempest William’s moving account of experiencing her mother’s illness, environmental change, and the interrelatedness of events and lives on earth.
• Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (reprinted 2002; originally 1962)
  • The book that launched the modern environmental movement: a biologist’s examination of the connections between the proliferation of toxins into the environment and their health—human, plant, and animal—consequences.
• The End of Nature by Bill McKibben (2006)
  • A classic work on Earth’s current ecological crisis: includes details on what has worked, what hasn’t worked, and possible solutions for the future.
• The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture by Lawrence Buell (1996)
  • An extensive study of how literature has historically represented the natural environment—with an emphasis on Thoreau’s Walden.
• The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis and Literary Imagination by Lawrence Buell (2005)
  • A critical summary of the emerging discipline of “ecocriticism.”
• The Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman, and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods by Julia “Butterfly” Hill (2001)
  • The story of the “environmental Rosa Parks,” Julia Butterfly Hill, a 25-year-old activist who risked her life to protect trees.
• The Sense of Wonder (Harper Reprint Edition) by Rachel Carson and Nick Kelsh (1998)
  • Rachel Carson’s vision of the natural world, its importance, and the wonder it inspires.
• Unbowed: A Memoir (Vintage) by Wangari Maathi (2007)
  • Wangari Maathi’s telling of her environmental initiatives which were born in Africa but which spread all over the world.
• Walden; Or, Life in the Woods (Forgotten Books) by Henry David Thoreau (2008)
  • The writings of Henry David Thoreau’s of his stay alone in the woods at Walden Pond, Massachusetts.
• Walking with the Comrades by Arundhati Roy (2011)
  • Arundati Roy exposes a little-known rebel movement in India that fights against the corrupt Indian government which seeks to put mineral exploitative corporate interests ahead of the interests of its own people. 
• We are the Ones We Have Been Waiting for: Inner Light in a Time of Darkness by Alice Walker (2007)
  • Alice Walker’s compilation of stories detailing how individuals matter and can make a positive difference in the lives of others as well as the larger world in which they live.
• Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail (Vintage) by Cheryl Strayed (2013)
  • The story of one woman’s journey on a more than 1,000-mile hike in the American Northwest and what she learned about life along the way.

Recommended Books on Agriculture, Land, & Food Issues:

• All Over Creation by Ruth L. Ozeki (2004)
  • Runaway Yumi Fuller sees that it’s agribusiness versus activists when she returns to her hometown, a farming community now filled with genetically engineered potatoes, 25 years later. 
• Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver, Camille Kingsolver, and Steven L. Hopp (2008)
  • Barbara Kingsolver and her family vow, for one year, to only eat locally—consuming foods that were raised or cultivated in their own neighborhood or yard.
• A Thousand Acres: A Novel by Jane Smiley (2003)
  • King Lear set in a late 20th century agrarian community.
• Bringing It to the Table: On Farming and Food by Wendell Berry and Michael Pollan (2009)
  • Wendell Berry exposes the origins of food and provides a reminder of the importance of taking the time to understand where food comes from, what is in food, and what that means for those who consume it.
• Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace by Vandana Shiva (2005)
  • Vandana Shiva on how genetic engineering, culture theft, and natural resource privatization are linked to fundamentalism, violence against women, and the destruction of the planet.
• Ecology of a Cracker Childhood (The World as Home) by Janisse Ray (2000)
  • Janisse Ray on how her childhood growing up in rural isolation with a fundamentally religious family morphed into a passion to save the South’s pine forests. 
• Making Peace with the Earth: Beyond Resource, Land, and Food Wars by Vandana Shiva (2012)
  • An outline of how a paradigm shift away from consumerism and globalization to earth-centered politics and economics could better the health of the planet and its inhabitants.    
• My Year of Meats by Ruth L. Ozeki (1999)
  • Protagonist Jane gets a new job and discovers some unsettling truths about the meatpacking industry.
• Prodigal Summer: A Novel by Barbara Kingsolver (2001)
  • A story of three protagonists over one summer, in one place: “Everything alive is connected to every other by fine, invisible threads…”
• Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss (2013)
  • An investigation into the rise of the processed food industry and its link to the emerging global obesity epidemic.
• Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education by Michael Pollan (2003)
  • Michael Pollan’s meditation on the human-nature relationship.
• Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis by Vadana Shiva (2008)
  • Vandana Shiva highlights the connections between industrial agriculture and climate change, as well as the steps that must be taken to avoid ecological and economic disaster. 
• Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply by Vandana Shiva (2000)
  • Vandana Shiva’s investigation of how local, small-scale farming is superior to the traditional big agribusiness model.
• The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan (2002)
  • A close examination of four plants—apple, tulip, Cannabis, and potato—and their histories, as well as how they developed reciprocal relationships with humans over time.
• The Jungle (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) by Upton Sinclair and Introduction by Eric Schlosser (2006)
  • An early 1900s examination of Chicago’s meatpacking industry.
• The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan (2007)
  • An examination of the social, political, economic, and ecological implications of Americans’ various eating habits.
• The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture by Wendell Berry (1996)
  • Wendell Berry’s thoughts on what constitutes as “good farming.”

Recommended Books on Animals & Animal Rights:

• Animal Liberation: The Definitive Classic of the Animal Movement by Peter Singer (reprinted 2009, originally 1975)
  • Details the realities of factory farming and animal product testing and offers alternatives to such realities, tackling the environmental, social, and moral issues surrounding animal rights.    
• Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson (2010)
  • Temple Grandin’s experiences living with autism and career as an animal scientist offer her enormous insight into the ways that animals think, act, and feel.
• Animal Underworld: Inside America’s Black Market for Rare and Exotic Species by Alan Green (2006)
  • Veteran investigative journalist Alan Green exposes the oftentimes illegal and exploitative exotic animal trade.
• Death at Sea World: Shamu and the Dark Side of Killer Whales in Captivity by David Kirby (2013)
  • David Kirby exposes activists’ battle against the multimillion-dollar marine park industry over the controversial and lethal consequences of keeping killer whales in captivity.
• Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer (2010)
  • Half-memoir and half-investigation of the origins of meat eating and what it means for human society, the animals, and the planet.
• Eat Like You Care: An Examination of the Morality of Eating Animals by Gary L. Francione and Anna Charlton (2013)
  • An investigation into animal ethics and the benefits of a vegan diet.
• Free the Animals: The Story of the Animal Liberation Front by Ingrid E. Newkirk (2000)
  • Stories of animal liberation and an examination of the animal rights movement.
• Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know by Alexandra Horowitz (2010)
  • Life from a dog’s point of view, as written by a cognitive psychologist.
• In the Shadow of Man by Jane Goodall (2010)
  • Jane Goodall on her famous experience living among and studying wild chimpanzees.
• Killing for Profit: Exposing the Illegal Rhino Horn Trade by Julian Rademeyer (2013)
  • An examination of the corrupt, exploitative, dangerous, and illegal rhino horn trade.
• The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy-and Why They Matter by Marc Bekoff and Jane Goodall (2008)
  • Instances of animal emotion and details of the supporting science.
• The Whale Warriors: The Battle at the Bottom of the World to Save the Planet’s Largest Mammals by Peter Heller (2008)
  • Descriptions of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s campaigns to end whaling in Antarctica.
• We Animals by Jo-Anne McArthur (2013)
  • Photography investigating animals in the human environment.
• When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson and Susan McCarthy (1996) 
  • A thorough exploration of the emotions of animals.

Recommended Books on an Apocalyptic Future:

• A Friend of the Earth by T.C. Boyle (2001)
  • Follow gritty protagonist Tyrone Tierwater on 2025 adventure in a world changed by global warming. 
• He, She, and It by Marge Piercy (1993)
  • Post-apocalyptic science-fiction drama set in a future world controlled by technology and corporate power.
• Into the Forest: A Novel by Jean Hegland (1998)
  • Sisters struggling to survive in the not-so-distant future; a world plagued by war, upheaval, and environmental calamity.
• MaddAddam: A Novel by Margaret Atwood (2013)
  • Third book in Atwood’s post-apocalyptic trilogy, concluding Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood; environmental collapse, corporate domination, and rebellion.
• Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood (2004)
  • Post-apocalyptic cautionary tale detailing life on a planet ravaged by climate change and genetic engineering experiments gone wrong. 
• Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler (1993)
  • Eighteen-year-old Lauren Olamina, a young African-American woman afflicted with “hyperempathy syndrome,” embarks on a journey to escape the post-apocalyptic calamity in her gated community, founding a new religion along the way.  
• Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler (1998)
  • Follow-up to Parable of the Sower, Lauren, now a leader, must now decide what is most important: her daughter and followers, or her religion which may change the future of humanity on the imperiled planet.
• The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood (2009)
  • The second book of the post-apocalyptic Maddaddam trilogy, in which two women—Ren and Toby—must navigate life in a dangerous, changed world. 
• Through the Arc of the Rainforest by Karen Tei Yamashita (1990)
  • Post-apocalyptic tale taking place in a mysterious field of plastic in the Brazilian rainforest amid environmental destruction, commercialization, poverty, and religious rapture.      
• Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy (1985)
  • Connie Ramos, declared to be clinically insane, actually just has the ability to tune into the future and communicate with the year 2137.
• World Made by Hand: A Novel by James Howard Kunstler (2009)
  • Cautionary tale of an American future affected by climate change, high oil prices, and economic collapse.

Recommended Books on Climate Change & Global Warming:

• Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for US Energy Policy by Arjun Makhijani (2007)
  • Arjun Makhijani presents a compilation of ideas and knowledge that can help people make more environmentally friendly decisions in regard to using energy.
• Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet by Bill McKibben (2011)
  • Bill McKibben on how anthropogenic climate change has rendered Earth a changed, dangerous new planet.
• Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change by Elizabeth Kolbert (2006)
  • Acclaimed New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert on climate change, its causes, its effects, and its implications for the planet and society.
• Freedom: A Novel by Jonathan Franzen (2010)
  • Complicated family life in a world with an ever-degrading environment.
• The Discomfort Zone by Jonathan Franzen (2007)
  • Jonathan Franzen’s recollection of his growth from child to adult, and the connections he observes between birdwatching, marriage, and global warming. 
• The Global Warming Reader: A Century of Writing About Climate Change by Bill McKibben (2012)
  • A comprehensive anthology of literature written on the topic of global warming over the past 100 years.

Recommended Books on Ecofeminism:

• Alice Walker Banned by Alice Walker (1996)
  • Alice Walker explores the various ways in which others have tried to censor her work.
• Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge by Vandana Shiva (1999)
  • Vandana Shiva exposes capitalism’s exploitation of the Earth and its implications; specifically, for women, plants, and animals.
• Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History by Florence Williams (2012)
  • Florence Williams investigates historical and contemporary popular images, attitudes, and science of breasts.
• Earthcare: Women and the Environment by Carolyn Merchant (1995)
  • Associating women with nature: contemporary instances and thinking, historical examples, and the implications of such thought.
• Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, Nature by Karen J. Warren (1997)
  • A culturally diverse and multidisciplinary view of Ecofeminist activism and scholarship.
• Ecofeminist Philosophy by Karen J. Warren (2000)
  • The meaning of Ecofeminism from a Western perspective.
• Grandmothers of the Light: A Medicine Woman’s Sourcebook by Paula Gunn Allen (1992)
  • A collection of goddess stories from a variety of Native American civilizations and the myths that have traditionally guided female shamans.
• In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose by Alice Walker (2003)
  • Thirty-six essays on Alice Walker’s perspective on her life and society as a whole—written as an African American, mother, writer, and feminist.
• Reweaving the World: The Emergence of Ecofeminism by Irene Diamond (1990)
  • An anthology celebrating the ecology, radical feminist, and feminist spirituality movements.
• Spider Woman’s Granddaughters: Traditional Tales and Contemporary Writing by Native American Women by Paula Gunn Allen (1990)
  • A compelling anthology of narratives written by Native American women.
• Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Development by Vandana Shiva (2010)
  • Vandana Shiva highlights the ways in which women are creating and safeguarding essential sources of knowledge and vision about life on earth.
• Sula by Toni Morrison (1997)
  • The story of two girls, Nel and Sula, and how their lives change as they grow into women.
• The Color Purple by Alice Walker (1982)
  • Celie, a poor African American woman, recounts 20 years of her life, from age 14 when she is abused and raped by her father, to her eventual discovery of her true feeling, loving, and creative self. 
• The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution by Carolyn Merchant (1990)
  • A close look at the Scientific Revolution showing how the typical modern scientific worldview condones the exploitation of nature, uninhibited commercial expansion, and a new socioeconomic order that subordinates women. 
• The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (1998)
  • Futuristic cautionary tale of a highly-patriarchal society in which females are strictly controlled—barred from jobs or money—and are assigned by men to various classes where they must perform specific duties.
• The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions by Paula Gunn Allen (1992)
  • An exploration of the vital role of women in American Indian traditions.
• The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess by Starhawk (1989)
  • An exploration of Goddess worship religions and how the practice of rituals has adapted and developed over time.
• The Woman Who Watches Over the World: A Native Memoir by Linda Hogan (2002)
  • Poet and novelist Linda Hogan details her early life as a Chickasaw Native American woman in this stunning memoir.
• When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice by Terry Tempest Williams (2013)
  • Terry Tempest Williams’ thoughts on the importance of having a voice that is heard by others and the implications of the tendency around the globe to silence women.
• Wide Sargasso Sea: A Novel by Jean Rhys (1992)
  • The “mad woman” from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre grows up in the Caribbean in a time of social, political, economic, and environmental change, which eventually drives her “crazy.”

Recommended Books on Environmental Justice and Racism:

• All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life by Winona LaDuke (1999)
  • First-hand Native American account on resisting environmental and cultural destruction.
• Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko (reprinted 2006, originally 1977)
  • Native American and traumatized World War II veteran Tayo returns to his hometown on the Laguna Pueblo Reservation to regain inner peace.
• Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class and Environmental Quality by Robert D. Bullard (2000)
  • Robert D. Bullard chronicles the efforts of five African American communities, empowered by the Civil Rights Movement to link environmentalism with issues of social justice.
• Last Standing Woman (History and Heritage) by Winona LaDuke (1999)
  • A historical fiction novel detailing the lives of seven generations of Anishinaabe Native Americans.
• Mean Spirit: A Novel by Linda Hogan (1991)
  • Oklahoma during 1920s oil boom story of two imperiled Osage Indian families: the Blankets and the Grayclouds.
• People of the Whale: A Novel by Linda Hogan (2009)
  • Native American Thomas Witka Just fights in Vietnam War and later returns to his hometown, where his tribe is fighting over the decision to hunt whales.
• Possessing the Secret of Joy: A Novel by Alice Walker (2008)
  • Tribal African woman Tashi submits to female genital mutilation out of loyalty to her tribe’s threatened customs, and suffers from physical pain and emotional trauma. 
• Power: A Novel by Linda Hogan (1999)
  • Sixteen-year-old Omishto of the Taiga tribe must decide whether to be loyal to her Westernized mother or to her Aunt Ama and the people of her tribe.
• Solar Storms by Linda Hogan (1997)
  • Coming-of-age story of 17-year-old Native American Angela and a depiction of the connections between people to their history and the land.
• The God of Small Things: A Novel by Arundhati Roy (2008)
  • The story of the childhood of twin brother and sister Rahel and Estha, as things unravel in the house of a once-affluent Indian family.
• The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck (reprinted 2004, originally 1931)
  • The story of a Chinese peasant farmer, Wang Lung, and the cyclical nature of life, human passions, good and evil, and the human will to survive and thrive against all odds.
• The Hungry Tide: A Novel by Amitav Ghosh (2006)
  • An adventure story of Piya Roy, an American marine biologist of Indian descent as she travels to lush islands in the Bay of Bengal (India) in search of a rare species of river dolphin, where she is forced to navigate a difficult social and political climate.
• The Monkey Wrench Gang (P.S.) by Edward Abbey (2006)
  • Comedy, chaos, and a call to protect the American wilderness.
• The Way to Rainy Mountain by N. Scott Momaday (1976)
  • Native American journey of the Kiowa people of Oklahoma told in three voices: the ancestral Kiowa voice of Momaday’s father, historical commentary, and Momoday’s own voice. 
• Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (reprinted 1994, originally 1958)
  • A once proud Nigerian Ibo man, Okonkwo, is driven from his village into exile as the arrival of missionaries quickly works to destroy the Ibo culture.  
• Picking Up: On the Streets and Behind the Trucks with the Sanitation Workers of New York City by Robin Nagle (2013)
  • An anthropologist’s investigation of the men and women of New York City’s Department of Sanitation.

Recommended Books on Fracking & Natural Gas:

• Fracking Pennsylvania: Flirting with Disaster by Walter M. Brasch (2013)
  • An investigation of the natural gas industry and fracking in Pennsylvania—namely, corruption, health risks, and societal implications.
• Raising Elijah: Protecting Our Children in an Age of Environmental Crisis by Sandra Steingraber (2011)
  • Sandra Steingraber explains many child health issues and their connections to environmental hazards, specifically fracking.    
• The End of Country: Dispatches from the Frack Zone by Seamus McGraw (2012)
  • Journalist and Pennsylvania native Seamus McGraw reveals the conflict between petroleum giants and their corporate and political backers versus local people who intend on profiting from fossil fuel extraction—but who are unwilling to sacrifice their values or way of life. 
• The Real Cost of Fracking: How America's Shale Gas Boom is Threatening Our Families, Pets and Food by Michelle Bamberger and Robert Oswald; forward by Sandra Steingraber (2014)
  • The human and animal health risks of fracking are exposed by a pharmacologist and a veterinarian.
• Under the Surface: Fracking, Fortunes, and the Fate of the Marcellus Shale by Tom Wilbur (2012)
  • A book-length journalistic overview of shale gas development—specifically that of the Marcellus Shale region of the United States—and the controversies surrounding such energy production.

Recommended Books on Natural Disasters:

• A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster by Rebecca Solnit (2010)
  • An investigation into human demonstrations of altruism, resourcefulness, and generosity that tend to surface in the midst of natural disasters.
• Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster by Mike Davis (1999)
  • A list of the natural disasters that have historically wracked the Los Angeles area, current crises, and predictions of future ecological calamities.
• Race, Place, and Environmental Justice After Hurricane Katrina: Struggles to Reclaim, Rebuild, and Revitalize New Orleans and the Gulf Coast by Robert D. Bullard (2009) 
  • An examination of environmental justice issues in the places devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
• Strong Motion: A Novel by Jonathan Franzen (2001)
  • Amid a series of damaging and deadly earthquakes occurring in Boston, Louis Holland moves to the ravaged city, falls in love, and discovers the causes of the ecological chaos.

Recommended Books on Nuclear Issues:

• About a Mountain by John D’Agata (2010)
  • John D’Agata’s move to Las Vegas and subsequent research into the Federal government’s plans to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.
• Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety by Eric Schlosser (2013)
  • Investigative journalist Eric Schlosser works to uncover the secrets of America’s nuclear arsenal: accidents, near-misses, heroism, and technological breakthroughs.
• Nuclear Power is Not the Answer by Helen Caldicott (2007)
  • A look past propaganda at the actual costs and environmental consequences of using nuclear power. 
• Savage Dreams: A Journey into the Landscape Wars of the American West by Rebecca Solnit (2000)
  • The exploration of an American Eden—Yosemite National Park—and an Armageddon—the Nevada Nuclear Test Site—and what both places mean for culture, politics, and the environment.
• The Cost of Living by Arundhati Roy (1999)
  • Arundhati Roy’s examination of two great illusions of India’s progress—massive dam projects and the explosion of the country’s first nuclear bomb—and how such follies have adversely affected millions for the comfort and betterment of but a few.
• Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Svetlana Alexievich and Keith Gessen (2006)
  • A collection of personal interviews with people affected by the 1986 nuclear meltdown in Chernobyl.
• War in Heaven: The Arms Race in Outer Space by Helen Caldicott and Craig Eisendrath (2007)
  • Insight into the U.S. agenda of putting dangerous weapons in space.

Recommended Books on Oil:

• Oil and Honey: The Education of an Unlikely Activist by Bill McKibben (2013)
  • Environmental author and activist Bill McKibben’s personal and global story of the mission to mitigate anthropogenic global warming.
• Oil on Water: A Novel by Helon Habila (2011)
  • Journalist Rufus and reporter Zaq embark on a twisting adventure to find the wife of a wealthy British oil executive who has been kidnapped in the oil-rich and environmentally devastated Nigerian Delta. 
• Snake Oil: How Fracking’s False Promise of Plenty Imperils Our Future by Richard Heinberg (2013)
  • A declassification of oil and gas industry propaganda and a probe into the truths about hydraulic fracturing.
• Sweet Crude: Taming the Sands of Libya by V.C. Thomas (2012)
  • A story of the oil trade, Islam, and unrest in the Middle East, as TexOil President Roland Moran attempts to exploit the rich oil fields of Libya.
• The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk (1994)
  • Post-apocalyptic cautionary tale set in California, which is now a place of corporate control, rebellion, environmental collapse, and danger.

Recommended Books on the Ocean: Pollution & Exploitation:

• Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food by Paul Greenberg (2011) 
  • An examination of humanity’s damaged relationship with the ocean and the creatures it holds—chiefly four fish: salmon, sea bass, cod, and tuna.
• Ocean: The World’s Last Wilderness Revealed by the American Museum of Natural History (2008)
  • A visual guide to the world’s oceans.
• Seasick: Ocean Change and the Extinction of Life on Earth by Alanna Mitchell (2012)
  • An explanation of the challenges facing the world’s oceans and an examination of potential ocean conservation solutions.
• Song for the Blue Ocean: Encounters Along the World’s Coasts and Beneath the Sea by Carl Safina (1999)
  • Scientist and fisherman Carl Safina’s exploration of earth’s changing seas.
• The Empty Ocean by Richard Ellis (2003) 
  • The story of ocean exploitation by humans and chances for the recovery of the seas today.
• The End of the Line: How Overfishing is Changing the World and What We Eat by Charles Clover (2006)
  • An examination of the modern fishing industry and why it is inherently unsustainable, with a focus on America’s appetite for fish.
• The Sea Around Us (Oxford First Edition) by Rachel Carson (1951)
  • Rachel Carson’s prophetic ruminations on the effect of human activity on the world and its oceans.
• Under the Sea-Wind by Rachel Carson (2007)
• Rachel Carson’s first published book paints an all-encompassing picture of the world’s seas and shores.

Recommended Books on Toxics & Pollution:

• A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr (1996)
  • The story of the families of eight leukemia victims affected by industrial pollution in Woburn, Massachusetts, suing two large corporations in a challenging legal landscape. 
• Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver (2003)
  • Codi Noline returns to her Arizona hometown to care for her ailing father where confronts the topics of love, forgiveness, history, and the environment.
• Animal’s People: A Novel by Indra Sinha (2009)
  • Loose fictional narrative detailing post-1884 Union Carbide explosion in Bhopal, India; narrator Animal used to be human before the industrial accident twisted his bones and left him walking on all fours.
• A Place on Earth: A Novel by Wendell Berry (reprinted 2001, originally 1983)
  • Follows the changes and transitions in the daily lives of townspeople in the post-World War II rural community of Port William, Kentucky.
• Body Toxic: An Environmental Memoir by Susanne Antonetta (2002)
  • Susan Antonetta tells the story of her family’s history, her childhood, and her life as a woman living in a polluted America.
• Chasing Molecules: Poisonous Products, Human Health, and the Promise of Green Chemistry by Elizabeth Grossman
  • Acclaimed journalist Elizabeth Grossman reveals the hidden toxic dangers behind everyday products, and the new scientific revolution that seeks to provide consumers with “benign by design” toxin-free products.
• Dying from Dioxin: A Citizen’s Guide to Reclaiming our Health and Rebuilding Democracy by Lois Marie Gibbs (1999)
  • Lois Gibbs on the implications of Love Canal, her experience as an environmental and public health activist, and how citizens must make their voices heard in order to protect their health.
• Having Faith: An Ecologist’s Journey to Motherhood by Sandra Steingraber (2003)
  • The month-by-month story of an ecologist’s pregnancy and examination the role of the mother’s body as the first environment of an unborn child, which is threatened by environmental hazards.
• Living Downstream: An Ecologist’s Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment by Sandra Steingraber (2010)
  • An easy-to-understand scientific guide to environmental toxins intertwined with beautifully-written anecdotes from Sandra Steingraber’s own experiences as a biologist, mother, writer, and cancer survivor.
• Love Canal: and the Birth of the Environmental Health Movement by Lois Marie Gibbs (2010)
  • The story of Love Canal and the activist movement that it spurred.
• So Far from God: A Novel by Ana Castillo (2005)
  • The life of a contemporary family in a small New Mexican town encounters social, economic, and political issues; health problems and healing; industrial pollution; death; and the meaning of life. 
• Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation by Dan Fagin (2013)
  • An investigation into the truth and sixty-year legacy of industrial pollution into Toms River in southern New Jersey.
• Tropic of Orange by Karen Tei Yamashita (1997)
  • Asian-American television news executive, Emi, and Latino newspaper reporter, Gabriel, are so focused on following stories that they almost don’t see that the world is deteriorating around them.
• Visit Sunny Chernobyl: And Other Adventures in the World’s Most Polluted Places by Andrew Blackwell (2013)
  • Andres Blackwell visits the most ecologically-ravaged places on earth—from Canada’s oil sands strip mines to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Recommended Books on Waste Management & Recycling:

• I’m Not a Plastic Bag by Rachel Hope Allison (2012)
  • On the Pacific Garbage Patch, the world’s waste problem, and the human condition.
• Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash by Elizabeth Royte (2006)
  • An exploration of the relationship between America and its trash.
• Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash by Edward Humes (2013)
  • The facts behind America’s trash—its implications for society, the economy, politics, and the planet.
• Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade by Adam Minter (2013)
  • An investigation of the economics of trash and recycling.
• Plastic: A Toxic Love Story by Susan Freinkel (2011)
  • An investigation of society’s production and use of plastics, plastics’ effects on the planet, and possible solutions to the world’s plastic problem.

Recommended Books on Water Issues:

• Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, Revised Edition by Marc Reisner (1993)
  • Marc Reisner’s updated study of the economics, politics, and ecology of water over more than a century of public and private desert reclamation in the American West.
• The Atlas of Water, Second Edition: Mapping the World’s Most Critical Resource by Maggie Black, Janet King, and Candida Lacey (2009)
  • A visual guide and atlas that explores the complex human interaction with water globally and over time.
• Water, Peace, and War: Confronting the Global Water Crisis by Brahma Chellaney (2013)
  • A rigorous study of the impact of worldwide water stress on international peace and security and solutions that may help alleviate the crisis.
• Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization by Steven Solomon (2011)
  • A description of the global importance, economics, and politics of water.
• Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit by Vandana Shiva (2002)
  • Vandana Shiva reveals the emergence of corporate water culture and describes the historical erosion of communal water rights, especially of the world’s poorest people.
• When the Rivers Run Dry: Water—the Defining Crisis of the Twenty-first Century by Fred Pearce (2007)
  • An examination of the current state of critical water resources in 30 countries around the world.

Recommended Poetry Books:

• A Breeze Swept Through: Poetry by Luci Tapahonso (1987)
  • An expression of Navajo life in prose.
• America the Beautiful: Last Poems by Paula Gunn Allen (2010)
  • A lyrical narrative written on what makes America “beautiful”—written in a time of political and personal devastation—by Native American poet Paula Gunn Allen
• American Primitive by Mary Oliver (1983)
  • Fifty poems on the renewals of nature, love, and life.
• A Radiant Curve: Poems and Stories (Sun Tracks) by Luci Tapahonso (2008)
  • Musings on the sacredness of everyday life.
• A Thousand Mornings: Poems by Mary Oliver (2013)
  • Poetry on realizations made during some of life’s smallest moments.
• Blue Horses Rush In: Poems and Stories (Sun Tracks) by Luci Tapahonso (1997)
  • A collection of poetry that follows the cycles of a woman’s life and highlights what it means to be Navajo during the late 20th century.
• Dog Songs by Mary Oliver (2013)
  • Mary Oliver’s collection of poems on the dogs in her life.
• Dream Work by Mary Oliver (1986)
  • Forty-five poems on accepting truth in one’s life, in both the triumphs and the failures.
• Life is a Fatal Disease: Selected Poems, 1962-1995 by Paula Gunn Allen (1997)
  • Eighty-seven poems by Native American writer and poet Paula Gunn Allen, on “myth and history, pain and laughter,” “nightmare and remembrance.”
• New Collected Poems by Wendell Berry (2013)
  • A collection of both the classic and more contemporary works of Wendell Berry; his musings on life, nature, love, and more.
• Rounding the Human Corners by Linda Hogan (2008)
  • Poetry that seeks to reveal the connections between all living things.
• Saanii Dahataat: The Women Are Singing: Poems and Stories (Sun Tracks, Vol 23) by Luci Tapahonso (1993)
  • Navajo poet Luci Tapahonso writes on celebrations of birth, partings, and reunions in a blend of memoir and fiction in the storytelling style of many Native American traditions.
• The Book of Medicines by Linda Hogan (1993)
  • A collection of poems that reflect Linda Hogan’s Chickasaw heritage, feminist sensibilities, and concern for the Earth.
• Thirst: Poems by Mary Oliver (2007)
  • Forty-three poems on life, death, faith, and the Earth.
• Walk Gently Upon the Earth by Linda Hogan (2010)    
  • A collection of poems, stories, and meditations on Hogan’s personal—and every individual’s own—connection to the Earth.
• Why I Wake Early: New Poems by Mary Oliver (2005)
  • Forty-seven poems on the wonders of the natural world and the many reasons why one should wake early to fully experience life.