We’re big fans of The Revelator and their book pics are always work checking out. This collection features a little something for everyone from environmental hope to deep dives into fascinating animals and a posthumous essay series from an outdoor writing giant. This piece is published here with permission. – Ed.
In a world where news is often reduced to soundbites, 3-minute videos or 280-character tweets, the art of book writing has somehow endured. We couldn’t be happier — except that it’s made narrowing down our favorite nonfiction environmental books this year a bit tough.
We interviewed numerous authors this year and reviewed dozens of books. Below are some that stood out for us, but it’s in no way exhaustive. If you’re looking for more recommendations, we also rounded up great reads for kids, and books about our winged friends, feminism and the environment, and more.
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A History Lesson
Let’s start with hope. Environmental historian Laura Martin’s Wild by Design focuses on ecological restoration. There’s much we can do to minimize and alleviate some of the harm we’ve caused to this planet. But to do a good job of that, we should know how we got here. Martin traces the history of ecological restoration in the United States and how the scientific field of ecology got its start. It’s not all a pretty picture.
“I wanted to put the history of ecological restoration in dialogue with the future of ecological restoration,” she told The Revelator in an interview. “There are so many times I’ve heard people say, ‘It’s been done this way for decades.’ But when I dug into the archives I found that wasn’t always the case.”
A Legacy
Celebrated nature writer Barry Lopez died in 2020, but his posthumously published collection of essays, Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World, adds to his literary legacy and includes some previously unpublished works.
“Thrilling encounters with wolves and killer walruses notwithstanding, Lopez wasn’t after Animal Planet-worthy adventures,” writes Ben Ehrenreich in a review for The New York Times. “He wanted us to seek out the human histories that reside in the landscape, too: the legacies of atrocity and exploitation that bounce around the rocks and valleys of this country as much as elks and coyotes do.”
People and Planet
To better understand why we need social justice and environmental action in tandem, Leah Thomas’ book The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet is the perfect primer.
“The book serves as an introduction to the intersection between environmentalism, racism, and privilege, and as an acknowledgment of the fundamental truth that we cannot save the planet without protecting all of its people,” her website explains.
Slow Water
The concept of slow water may not yet be as common as slow food, but journalist Erica Gies has done much to help it gain needed recognition with her book Water Always Wins: Thriving in an Age of Drought and Deluge.
“In all of the cases I looked at,” she explained to The Revelator, “The water detectives were trying to give water access to its slow phases again, whether that meant restoring or protecting wetlands, or reclaiming floodplains, or protecting wet meadows, or in a city, creating something like bioswales.”
Standing Up for Sharks
Sharks are much maligned in the media and scientist David Shiffman helps set the record straight in Why Sharks Matter: A Deep Dive With the World’s Most Misunderstood Predator.
He explains sharks’ importance, why many are threatened and what we can do to help them. (Bonus: He also offered us his tips for a successful book tour.)
Graphic Images
Cartoonist Kate Beaton provides an intimate and heartbreaking look at life in Alberta, Canada’s dirtiest industry in her graphic memoir, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands. In a year packed with environmentally themed graphic novels, this one packed the biggest punch.
The book “is an untold story of Canada: a country that prides itself on its egalitarian ethos and natural beauty while simultaneously exploiting both the riches of its land and the humanity of its people,” explains the publisher.
Big Bears
It’s been 11,000 years since giant short-faced bears — which stood 10-feet-tall on their hind legs and weighed nearly a ton — disappeared from the planet. Author and Center for Biological Diversity creative director Mike Stark brings them back to life in Chasing the Ghost Bear: On the Trail of America’s Lost Super Beast.
This meditation on a long-lost species also offers us a chance to examine the cost of today’s extinction crisis.
North Woods
“The trees are on the move. They shouldn’t be. And this sinister fact has enormous consequences for all life on Earth,” writes journalist Ben Rawlence in The Treeline: The Last Forest and the Future of Life on Earth.
The book tells the complex ecological story of how climate change is already affecting the northernmost forests by focusing on seven tree species in seven different boreal ecotones. His reporting is both fascinating and terrifying. And he provides a much-needed examination not of what climate warming might mean for future ecosystems, but what change it has already wrought.
Boreal forests, he told The Revelator, are “going to be key players in what comes next.”
As a person living with celiac disease the picture this man enjoying a Coors is very alienating and makes me feel unsafe. Is there any way we could change it for something else?
Who’s to say it even has beer in it though?
Who cares? It’s a brand owned by a rightwing family that long abetted the exploitation and destruction of the environment that fuels your business: clean outdoor recreation.
Every dollar we spend is a vote.
well, I admit I don’t know a whole lot about the Coors family.
The can has been removed!
And I’m allergic to lots to stuff too but I try not to whinge about it. But featuring a mediocre beer made with water downstream from multiple Superfund sites makes me feel unsafe – as it should everyone else. Is there any way we could change it for something else? And keep it on topic? Like a Bell’s Expedition Stout.
Look, that’s me in the picture, and I used to be a professional beer snob—literally. Ran a huge beer bar, was a consultant for new restaurants setting up beer menus, etc. And I love Coors! Bell’s Expedition Stout is great too. But we xc skied 6 miles or something with loaded packs to get to that hut and that trip demands a light, easy drinker.
Oh dear, everyone is offended now.
Thanks for the great book reviews 🙂
WTF a coors can? That seriously is triggering someone? Unfreakin believable!
I am a committed liberal, but must acknowledge the title of Leah Thomas’ book is the very thing that makes conservatives want to “own the libs”. Language such as this does not help the liberal cause. It is not necessary to pander to conservatives but don’t make yourself an object of ridicule either. Outside of progressive academic enclaves no one uses language like that used in the title.
I spent years in a progressive academic enclave in grad school and I agree about overly academic language. In this case, however, it’s a good primer for those who are curious about how civil rights and environmentalism are related. Unfortunately it often seems the people most interested in these kinds of topics write for fellow academics, not the people who need to read it most.
Great list. Will definitely be checking these out!
There’s no excuse for drinking Coors. Coors has a four decade history of being anti-union, anti-lgbt, and anti-wilderness. Nothing but Rocky Mountain Rat Piss.
Didn’t know that about Coors – it doesn’t make a big splash out here in California. But, points taken, I took the can out the photo.
Get over the Coors thing, already! Great writing in every issue, Justin. Keep the work coming – I look for your byline in each journal. AJ offers one of the the best of collections of thoughtful, well-researched, contemporary writing. Worth every penny, and I’ve offered these titles to my book club for consideration.
For those interested in learning about the Coors family and how wretched they are/have been, and how pervasive they are now that they’re Molson Coors and own a shitload of brands (https://www.molsoncoors.com/brands/our-brands), here’s a link to a comedic history podcast:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APHmp4UdH88
The history lesson here goes down easy while also making you want to puke… just like Coors!
For the record, I’m normally a craft beer dork. But I thank the commenters for reminding me about the Coors family. You never know where these comment threads will go!