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  • Writer's pictureCrystal Bevers

Environmental Literature

Updated: Feb 1, 2020


A pair of hands cupping some soil with a small plant in the middle

Writing about the intersection of humans and land? Here, in no particular order, are a few recommended reading lists.


NATURE WRITING

  • Abbey, Edward. Desert Solitaire.

  • Anzaldua, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza

  • Bryson, Bill. A Walk in the Woods.

  • Carson, Rachel. Under the Sea Wind.

  • Dillard, Annie. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

  • Erlich, Gretel. The Solace of Open Spaces.

  • Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac.

  • Muir, John. My First Summer in the Sierra.

  • Norris, Kathleen. Dakota: A Spiritual Geography.

  • Oliver, Mary. Owls and Other Fantasies.

  • Thoreau, Henry David. Walden.

  • Williams, Terry Tempest. Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place.

  • Williams, Terry Tempest. When Women Were Birds.


ENVIRONMENTAL FICTION & CREATIVE NONFICTION

  • Abbey, Edward. The Monkey Wrench Gang.

  • Atwood, Margaret. Oryx and Crake.

  • Bacigalupi, Paolo. The Windup Girl.

  • Bacigalupi, Paolo. Ship Breaker.

  • Boyd, Daniel. Carbon.

  • Butler, Octavia. Parable of the Sower.

  • Castillo, Ana. So Far From God.

  • Conners, Philip. Fire Season: Field Notes From a Wilderness Lookout.

  • Crossan, Sarah. Breathe.

  • Dean, Claire. Girlwood.

  • DeFelice, Cynthia. Lostman's River.

  • DeFreitas, Susan. Hot Season.

  • DeLillo, Don. White Noise.

  • Falkner, Brian. The Tomorrow Code.

  • Gauthier, Gail. Saving the Planet & Stuff.

  • George, Jean Craighead. My Side of the Mountain.

  • Goldsmith, Suzanne. Washashore.

  • Gonzalez, Jovita. Caballero.

  • Hautman, Pete. Rash.

  • Hayes, Nick. Rime of the Modern Mariner.

  • Haynes, Diane. Flight or Fight.

  • Hiaasen, Carl. Hoot.

  • Hiaasen, Carl. Flush.

  • Hogan, Linda. Solar Storms.

  • Hughes, Ted. The Iron Woman.

  • Kingsolver, Barbara. Flight Behavior.

  • Kingsolver, Barbara. Prodigal Summer.

  • Krakauer, Jon. Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster.

  • LeGuin, Ursula. The Word for World is Forest.

  • London, Jack. The Call of the Wild.

  • Lynch, Jim. The Highest Tide.

  • MacDonald, Helen. H is for Hawk.

  • McDonald, Ian. River of Gods.

  • Mulligan, Andy. Trash.

  • Norbury, Katharine. The Fish Ladder: A Journey Upstream.

  • Park, Linda Sue. A Long Walk to Water.

  • Paulsen, Gary. Hatchet.

  • Powers, Richard. The Overstory.

  • Proulx, Annie. Barkskins.

  • Ralston, Aron. Between a Rock and a Hard Place.

  • Ray, Janisse. Ecology of a Cracker Childhood.

  • Rivers, Karen. Before We Go Extinct.

  • Robinson, Kim Stanley. Red Mars.

  • Schwartz, Dan. No Cure for Nature.

  • Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein.

  • Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony.

  • Smith, Roland. Peak.

  • Smith, Sherri. Orleans.

  • Squarzoni, Phillippe. Climate Changed: A Personal Journey Through the Science.

  • Stracher, Cameron. The Water Wars.

  • Strayed, Cheryl. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail.

  • Theroux, Marcel. Far North.

  • Tuomainen, Antti. The Healer.

  • VanderMeer, Jeff. Annihilation.

  • VanderMeer, Jeff. Authority.

  • VanderMeer, Jeff. Acceptance.

  • Viramontes, Helena Maria. Under the Feet of Jesus.

  • Weyn, Suzanne. Empty.


ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISM

  • Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring.

  • Harr, Jonathon. A Civil Action.

  • Kingsolver, Barbara. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life.

  • McKibben, Bill. The End of Nature.

  • Moore, Kathleen Dean. Great Tide Rising: Towards Clarity and Moral Courage in a Time of Planetary Change.

  • Pollan, Michael. Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals.

  • Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation.

  • Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle.

  • Weisman, Alan. The World Without Us.


ENVIRONMENTAL ANTHOLOGIES

  • Brorby, Taylor. Fracture: Essays, Poems, and Stories on Fracking in America.

  • Dungy, Camille. Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry.

  • Martin, Mark. I'm With the Bears.

  • McKibben, Bill. American Earth.

  • Stegner, Lynn. West of 98: Living and Writing the New American West.

  • Woodbury, M. Winds of Change: Short Stories About Climate Change.


ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

  • Diamond, Jared. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.

  • Diamond, Jared: Guns, Germs, & Steel.

  • Finney, Carolyn. Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans and the Outdoors.

  • Jensen, Derrick. A Language Older Than Words.

  • Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants.

  • Kolbert, Elizabeth. The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History.

  • Kostigen, Thomas M. You Are Here: Exposing the Link Between What We Do and What That Does to Our Planet.

  • Lavers, Chris. Why Elephants Have Big Ears: Understanding Patterns of Life on Earth.

  • Louv, Richard. Last Child in the Woods.

  • Wilson, E. O. Biophilia.

  • Wohlleban, Peter. The Hidden Life of Trees.


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