Here are 100 books that Vigil Harbor fans have personally recommended if you like
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I’m a science fiction writer who loves my chosen genre for the promises it makes for the worlds that we can have—and the warnings that it offers for the worlds that might be ours if we don’t take care. I’ve picked books for people who like their thinking to be challenged, and who also long for the world to be a much better place. These are the kinds of books I love to read—and the kinds of books I try to write.
Earth has suffered devastating environmental collapse and is now a world of jungles and monsters. The last remnants of humanity are split between those clinging to the surface, and those who have removed themselves to the upper atmosphere. We follow Pearl, living in an isolated forest region, suddenly taken to the stars. A vivid and luscious reimagining of Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea.
"A richly imagined eco-gothic tale." - The Guardian
"Exquisitely realised." - The Times
After the ravages of the Green Winter, Earth is a place of deep jungles and monstrous animals. The last of the human race is divided into surface dwellers and the people who live in the Upper Settlement, a ring perched at the edge of the Earth s atmosphere.
Bearing witness to this divided planet is Pearl, a young techie with a thread of shuvani blood, who lives in the isolated forests of Gobari, navigating her mad mother and the strange blue light in the sky. But Pearl…
The Victorian mansion, Evenmere, is the mechanism that runs the universe.
The lamps must be lit, or the stars die. The clocks must be wound, or Time ceases. The Balance between Order and Chaos must be preserved, or Existence crumbles.
Appointed the Steward of Evenmere, Carter Anderson must learn the…
I'm an apocalyptic optimist—but I didn’t start that way. For over 25 years, I’ve studied climate action efforts and documented why governments and businesses are falling short. It’s become clear that the systemic changes we need will only come through civil society mobilizing for climate action. I’ve explored this in books, articles, and as a contributor to the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment. I hope my writing inspires you to embrace your own apocalyptic optimism—not as despair, but as a hopeful, urgent call to action. It’s a powerful first step toward what I believe is still possible: Saving Ourselves.
I am simultaneously inspired and repulsed by this book because it presents a terrible and wonderful fictionalized case study in apocalyptic optimism. In the novel, Robinson weaves a story of hope embedded in despair.
Having studied efforts to solve the climate crisis for over 25 years while witnessing its growing effects, the novel is pitch-perfect on the tensions we must overcome to save ourselves.
“The best science-fiction nonfiction novel I’ve ever read.” —Jonathan Lethem
"If I could get policymakers, and citizens, everywhere to read just one book this year, it would be Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future." —Ezra Klein (Vox)
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, postapocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us. Chosen by Barack Obama as one of his favorite…
As a teacher, counselor, and author, I aspire to support people’s personal and spiritual unfolding for the benefit of all life. I studied psychosynthesis with its founder, Roberto Assagioli, and explored peace psychology and eco-psychology. During my Masters of Divinity studies in the 1990’s, I began working with Joanna Macy, which led to our co-authoring Coming Back to Life and focused my professional life on the Work That Reconnects. The challenges of climate disruption, systemic racism, and economic inequity and instability require us all to act from our most mature, creative, and loving dimensions, which I believe these books can help engender.
This very readable book gave me insights into the psychological causes of climate denial (which we all suffer from to some extent) and helpful suggestions and practices for breaking through denial with courage, integrity, and resiliency. Although the book is written especially for therapists and counselors, I believe everyone will find it enlightening because we all face the catastrophic effects of climate collapse together.
Although the environmental and physical effects of climate change have long been recognised, little attention has been given to the profound negative impact on mental health. Leslie Davenport presents comprehensive theory, strategies and resources for addressing key clinical themes specific to the psychological impact of climate change.
She explores the psychological underpinnings that have contributed to the current global crisis, and offers robust therapeutic interventions for dealing with anxiety, stress, depression, trauma and other clinical mental health conditions resulting from environmental damage and disaster. She emphasizes the importance of developing resilience and shows how to utilise the many benefits of…
The Guardian of the Palace is the first novel in a modern fantasy series set in a New York City where magic is real—but hidden, suppressed, and dangerous when exposed.
When an ancient magic begins to leak into the world, a small group of unlikely allies is forced to act…
This is a unique tale of exciting personal encounters with wild tigers as well my hard science that revealed their mysterious world. Readers will experience the conflicts, violence, and corruption, inherent to struggle to recover the charismatic, dangerous predator. Among Tigers is not the usual doomsday prophecy, but a clear roadmap for how we can grow tiger populations to new levels of abundance. While it does not gloss over the very real challenges, overall, it delivers a message of reasonable hope to nature lovers worldwide. I have scientifically researched tigers and, fought passionately to save them, making me uniquely qualified to tell this story like no one else can.
I love tigers and nature. But through a half-century of experience and science in my own struggle to save tigers in an ancient, crowded nation aspiring for modernity and prosperity for its citizens, I have realized that we cannot hope to rewind the clock of material progress back to save wild nature by rejecting technology. Brand, the original counter-culture Guru, boldly shook off such baggage at an advanced age, and became a passionate, early advocate of ecomodernism, which tries to decouple human needs from nature in an effort to save nature through tools of modern science. I arrived independently at similar conclusions after years of hard scientific study of tigers, as well as my lived experiences of Indian society in transition. I believe Brand’s clearheaded manual provides a succinct introduction to ideas I have outlined in my own book as a framework to get to a world harboring ten times…
An icon of the environmental movement outlines a provocative approach for reclaiming our planet
According to Stewart Brand, a lifelong environmentalist who sees everything in terms of solvable design problems, three profound transformations are under way on Earth right now. Climate change is real and is pushing us toward managing the planet as a whole. Urbanization?half the world?s population now lives in cities, and eighty percent will by midcentury?is altering humanity?s land impact and wealth. And biotechnology is becoming the world?s dominant engineering tool. In light of these changes, Brand suggests that environmentalists are going to have to reverse some…
When I was a kid, I often felt powerless. I felt like adults made the decisions and children were often told to be “seen and not heard.” Then, when I was in high school, I went to a United Nations-sponsored summer camp where I met teens from around the world. My friends were refugees who had escaped from wars. They came from cities like Belfast, where they lived under the threat of political violence. Their experiences were so different from my own that their stories made a lasting impression on me. Ever since, I have loved reading and writing stories–real and fictional–about kids who are working to repair our world.
This middle-grade satire was one of my favorite reads of 2021! In the not-too-distant future, seventh-grader Ahab and his friends discover what just might be the last living bullfrog in the United States. Hoping to save the species, they decide not to give Alph the frog to authorities. Instead, the crew takes off on a not-quite legal bike trip to find a mate for Alph. In the process, author Madelyn Rosenberg shows us the world as it might be, if we don’t make an effort to save the climate. A bumbling environmental police force and indoor theme park/recreation center had me giggling, even as I got the message of this brilliant climate fiction novel.
Perfect for fans of Carl Hiaasen's classic Hoot, this humorous adventure story set in a not-so-distant future celebrates the important differences we can make with small, brave acts.
When Ahab and his friends find a bullfrog in their town -- a real, live bullfrog, possibly the last bullfrog in North America -- they have several options:A. Report it to the Environmental Police Force. Too bad everyone knows the agency is a joke.B. Leave it be. They're just a bunch of kids -- what if they hurt it by moving it?C. Find another real, live bullfrog on the black market. Convince…
I have been fascinated by the weather since as a schoolboy I avidly followed the cricket scores and the fate of tomorrow’s match. This co-dependence of my passion for cricket with the state of the weather turned into a professional career as, first, a research scientist and then later a professor of geography, I studied the idea of climate and the many ways in which it intersects with our social, ecological and imaginative worlds. As human-caused climate change became a defining public and political issue for the new century, my interests increasingly focused on understanding why people think so differently about the climate, its changes, its future trajectory—and what to do about it.
For too long, too many earnest people have believed that the key to untying the Gordian knot of climate change lay in science—more science, better science, more precise science, more consensual science. In this beautifully written book, Smith and Howe decisively expose this belief as false. Culture, not science, shapes public perceptions of climate change. The key to acting in the world is to be found in understanding the different ways in which the social drama that is climate change is made meaningful to people. This book is an important read for climate scientists, policy advisors, and activists alike.
Climate change is not just a scientific fact, nor merely a social and political problem. It is also a set of stories and characters that amount to a social drama. This drama, as much as hard scientific or political realities, shapes perception of the problem. Drs Smith and Howe use the perspective of cultural sociology and Aristotle's timeless theories about narrative and rhetoric to explore this meaningful and visible surface of climate change in the public sphere. Whereas most research wants to explain barriers to awareness, here we switch the agenda to look at the moments when global warming actually…
Aury and Scott travel to the Finger Lakes in New York’s wine country to get to the bottom of the mysterious happenings at the Songscape Winery. Disturbed furniture and curious noises are one thing, but when a customer winds up dead, it’s time to dig into the details and see…
I’ve researched and taught on contemporary social problems for over a decade. Much of this work focused on violence and, especially, torture. Not surprisingly, it often left me overwhelmed about the human condition and about the possibility of creating a better world. The students I taught often felt similarly. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when hope seemed in short supply, I began rethinking how I talk about, teach about, and study politics, problems, and the possibilities of change. As an antidote to despair, helplessness, and denial, hope became a defining feature of my work on violence and now, as I’ve pivoted toward studying the environment, climate change.
Is it possible to feel hopeful in the face of global climate change? I’ve found this especially difficult. Bad news about the environment seems unending; emotions like eco-anxiety and climate grief seem too hard to shake. But Eric Holthaus’ The Future Earth showed me that hope is still possible.
By describing the type of lives we might live and the sort of world we might build to mitigate climate change, Holthaus offered me a vision to work toward. By offering a model for having difficult conversations about global problems, his book also inspired me to try new ways of teaching and talking with others about issues like violence or climate change.
The first hopeful book about climate change, The Future Earth shows readers how to reverse the short- and long-term effects of climate change over the next three decades.
The basics of climate science are easy. We know it is entirely human-caused. Which means its solutions will be similarly human-led. In The Future Earth, leading climate change advocate and weather-related journalist Eric Holthaus ("the Rebel Nerd of Meteorology"-Rolling Stone) offers a radical vision of our future, specifically how to reverse the short- and long-term effects of climate change over the next three decades. Anchored by world-class reporting, interviews with futurists, climatologists,…
I have been interested in the environment my entire life. I studied international environmental politics in college at the University of Michigan and in graduate school at MIT. I research and taught international environmental politics at the University of Massachusetts for 33 years. I have published extensively on global environmental governance, focusing on the role played by science, international organizations, transnational actors, and governments. I have consulted for the United Nations, and the governments of the USA, France, and Portugal.
Kate O’Neill’s The Environment and International Relations provides a thorough overview of the actors and processes involved in global environmental governance.
She deftly captures the political nature of global environmental threats, and looks at the roles of states and transnational actors in the governance of a variety of global environmental issues.
The new edition of this exciting textbook introduces students to the ways in which the theories and tools of international relations and other social science disciplines can be used to analyse and address global environmental problems. Kate O'Neill develops an innovative historical and analytical framework for understanding global environmental issues, integrating insights from different disciplines, and she identifies the main actors and their roles, thereby encouraging readers to engage with the issues and equip themselves with the knowledge they need to apply their own critical insights. Revised and updated, the new edition features new figures, examples, textboxes, and a new…
I have always loved reading about individuals and the ways they behave in extraordinary or unusual circumstances. Stories that are about a person growing up and coming to an understanding that the world around them is deeply flawed, and that they themselves are patched-up, imperfect creatures, fascinate me. I find myself observing people and the words they say. Those are the kinds of stories I write, about regular people stumbling along and discovering some truths about themselves.
Bunny is an American teenager in Azerbaijan. Her father is a diplomat. She grows up in a world where oil is everything, listening to the language of the adults around her as some want their share of the profits reaped by this energy source while (a few) others point out the inequities in this industry and its potential long-term effects on the world.
What is fascinating as well is how she herself becomes part of this same world when she is an adult, almost as if she cannot help but be subsumed by the vast structure of the oil industry.
“A masterpiece of misdirection.” ―Geraldine Brooks
“Mobility is a truly gripping coming-of-age story about navigating a world of corporate greed that’s both laugh-out-loud funny and politically incisive.” ―Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor
Bunny Glenn believes in climate change. But she also likes to get paid.
The year is 1998. The Soviet Union is dissolved, the Cold War is over, and Bunny Glenn is a lonely American teenager in Azerbaijan with her Foreign Service family. Through Bunny’s bemused eyes, we watch global interests flock to her temporary backyard for Caspian oil and pipeline access, hearing rumbles of the expansion…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
I grew up in a small agricultural town in California’s Sacramento Valley, and my parents didn’t even consider worrying if I was bored or lonely when I wasn’t at school. Consequently, I spent hours in a nearby vacant lot riddled with anthills watching the ants hustle back and forth and, occasionally, inserting myself in their lives with handfuls of sugar or sticks to block their paths. Pretty sure this is where my interest in science and nature began—and maybe even my interest in cooperation.
I worry that people don’t hear enough about solutions to the climate crisis, but, thankfully, Paul Hawken and his collaborators lay many of them out in this book.
They focus not on the flashy technologies that often grab headlines—and not just on the reduction of fossil fuels—but on the power of a healthy, living Earth to heal itself. Of course, we need to be partners in this healing, and Hawken illuminates the people, organizations, and approaches that are doing just that.
A radically new understanding of and practical approach to climate change by noted environmentalist Paul Hawken, creator of the New York Times bestseller Drawdown
Regeneration offers a visionary new approach to climate change, one that weaves justice, climate, biodiversity, equity, and human dignity into a seamless tapestry of action, policy, and transformation that can end the climate crisis in one generation. It is the first book to describe and define the burgeoning regeneration movement spreading rapidly throughout the world.
Regeneration describes how an inclusive movement can engage the majority of humanity to save the world from the threat of global…
