Narrative theme: environmental issues / the natural world

Book SynopsisThe second book in this environmental epic fantasy series delves into the mysteries of a world where ships kept afloat by magical hearthfires sail an endless grass sea.After setting fire to the Forever Sea and leaving the surface world behind, Kindred Greyreach dives below to find a Seafloor populated by roving bands of scavengers. Among them, Kindred discovers a familiar face working to save the Sea from the continued spread of the Greys and the ravages of the world above. But when Kindred finds herself at odds with a faction below the Sea, she and her friends will have to use every power available to them—including their link to the surface world—to forestall disaster.Meanwhile, above, a boy named Flitch, son of the Baron of the Borders, finds himself caught in a dangerous political crisis as survivors from Arcadia and the Once-City arrive on the Mainland. As monsters from the depths of the Sea begin to surface near the Mainland’s shores, FlitTrade ReviewPraise for The Endless Song"This series finale showcases the wonder and strangeness of Johnson’s world, with descriptions both terrifying and hauntingly beautiful. Readers looking for inventive, thoughtful fantasy will find plenty to enjoy." —Publishers WeeklyPraise for The Forever Sea“I can rarely remember being this excited for a debut novel. This was everything I wanted it to be. Wind-swept prairie seas, pirates, magic, and found families.” —Mary Robinette Kowal, Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Award-winning author of the Lady Astronaut series“Richly imagined and beautifully written, with a highly original and very creepy magic system—The Forever Sea is wonderful.” —R. F. Kuang, Astounding Award-winning author of The Poppy War"What an amazing world—from the ecosystem, to the ships that ply the deep grass sea, to the magic and people within!" —Fran Wilde, two-time Nebula-winning author of Riverland and Updraft“Loved The Forever Sea. Loved it. Sheer joy.” —Joanne Harris, internationally bestselling author of Chocolat“A beautifully imagined dive into the unknown.” —G.V. Anderson, World Fantasy Award winning author of "Das Steingeschöpf"“Beautifully lyrical and imaginative, Johnson's debut sings a twisting tale of adventure full of diverse characters and a lush world ripe to fall in love with. With a heart that will haunt you, this ecopunk story is unlike any you've seen before.” —Linden A. Lewis, author of The First Sister"In this rich and well-realized world, magic has an ecological price as well as profit, and conflicts are between equally complicated communities rather than simplistic good vs. evil. This ending of this excellent debut promises more adventures in its fragile, Miyazaki-esque world." —Booklist (starred review)"Johnson’s beautiful coming-of-age saga touches on subjects of conservation, water rights, morality, and relationships.... The book’s setting and plot are so original as to be a breath of fresh air to the fantasy genre." —Library Journal (starred review)“Lush descriptions of plant life abound... When combined with the exceptional protagonist and themes of embracing the unknown, [The Forever Sea] calls to mind Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea series. With a good balance of grit and tenderness, this entertaining story makes a nice addition to the growing hopepunk subgenre.” —Publishers Weekly

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade ReviewPraise for The Endless Song"This series finale showcases the wonder and strangeness of Johnson’s world, with descriptions both terrifying and hauntingly beautiful. Readers looking for inventive, thoughtful fantasy will find plenty to enjoy." —Publishers WeeklyPraise for The Forever Sea“I can rarely remember being this excited for a debut novel. This was everything I wanted it to be. Wind-swept prairie seas, pirates, magic, and found families.” —Mary Robinette Kowal, Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Award-winning author of the Lady Astronaut series“Richly imagined and beautifully written, with a highly original and very creepy magic system—The Forever Sea is wonderful.” —R. F. Kuang, Astounding Award-winning author of The Poppy War"What an amazing world—from the ecosystem, to the ships that ply the deep grass sea, to the magic and people within!" —Fran Wilde, two-time Nebula-winning author of Riverland and Updraft“Loved The Forever Sea. Loved it. Sheer joy.” —Joanne Harris, internationally bestselling author of Chocolat“A beautifully imagined dive into the unknown.” —G.V. Anderson, World Fantasy Award winning author of "Das Steingeschöpf"“Beautifully lyrical and imaginative, Johnson's debut sings a twisting tale of adventure full of diverse characters and a lush world ripe to fall in love with. With a heart that will haunt you, this ecopunk story is unlike any you've seen before.” —Linden A. Lewis, author of The First Sister"In this rich and well-realized world, magic has an ecological price as well as profit, and conflicts are between equally complicated communities rather than simplistic good vs. evil. This ending of this excellent debut promises more adventures in its fragile, Miyazaki-esque world." —Booklist (starred review)"Johnson’s beautiful coming-of-age saga touches on subjects of conservation, water rights, morality, and relationships.... The book’s setting and plot are so original as to be a breath of fresh air to the fantasy genre." —Library Journal (starred review)“Lush descriptions of plant life abound... When combined with the exceptional protagonist and themes of embracing the unknown, [The Forever Sea] calls to mind Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea series. With a good balance of grit and tenderness, this entertaining story makes a nice addition to the growing hopepunk subgenre.” —Publishers Weekly

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe Guardian: Best Children's and YA Book of the Year  An environmental fairytale that speaks eloquently to the most pressing issues of our times, from the Booker Prize–winning author of The Famished Road.Mangoshi lives with her mom and dad in a village near the forest. When her mom becomes ill, Mangoshi knows only one thing can help her—a special flower that grows deep in the forest.   The little girl needs all her courage when she sets out alone to find and bring back the flower, and all her kindness to overpower the dangers she encounters on the quest.   Ben Okri brings the power of his mystic vision to a timely story that weaves together wonder, adventure, and environmentalism.

Read more less

Book SynopsisA Best Book of 2023 by The New YorkerIn this poignant, timely collection, the renowned Booker Prize–winning author evokes the magic of nature and the urgency of protecting our environment.Twenty thousand years after a catastrophe wiped out the human race, visitors uncover their final messages scattered across the planet, in flooded cities and disintegrating books. These writings reveal the tragedies of people who continued to live as they always did—fearfully, selfishly—even as the end of their world loomed.     These haunting stories within a story, together with a powerful selection of poems, fables, and essays, are a necessary reminder of the beauty of the earth and the importance of addressing the climate crisis with clarity, artistry, and passion.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis “genre-shredding” (Tor.com) feminist dystopian eco-horror, perfect for fans of The Last of Us, traces a girl’s coming-of-age on a post-apocalyptic trek through the Southwest.In a bleak, desiccated future, eleven-year-old Magdala and her father are forced to flee through the desolate landscape of the American Southwest, searching for shelter and peace. Pursued by horrors both unnatural and all-too-human, they join a pilgrimage to the holy city of Las Vegas, where it is said that vigilante saints reside, bright with neon power. Magdala, born with a clubfoot, is determined to be healed there. But one by one, the pilgrims and her father fall victim to an eerie, all-consuming sickness—leaving Magdala to fend for herself in the wilderness.After surviving for years on her own, Magdala grows tired of waiting for her miracle. She turns her gaze to Las Vegas once more, taking an exiled Vegas priest hostage to guide her as she navigates the unsettling expanse of the desert and the hungry, dark ambitions of men. Even as she nears the holy land, Magdala must choose: survival or salvation?In this moving debut novel, acclaimed short fiction writer Kay Chronister twines the strange, terrible beauty of the desert into a haunting exploration of faith and hope. Bold and disquieting, Desert Creatures is a surreal examination of humanity and the myths we tell ourselves to survive.Trade Review★ “Chronister’s futuristic, dog-eat-dog Sonoran and Mojave deserts are as devastating as they are inventive. . . . Chronister cleverly deploys and subverts horror, dystopian and western genres alike in this razor-sharp novel.” —Shelf Awareness, starred review“If The Canterbury Tales was set in future Sonoran and Mojave deserts, it might look a little like this . . . [A] strange and frightening vision.” —Publishers Weekly“Chronister pierces with her prose. You’ll find hope and acts of kindness in an unkind world. Desert Creatures is not a comfort read—it is rife with horror, betrayal, and a landscape that will burn itself on your consciousness. But in the end, this book will comfort you.” —BookRiot’s "Best Books of 2022"“[Desert Creatures] is a striking new take on the post-apocalypse novel, invigorating an old genre tradition with new vitality and life. And it is a haunting meditation on what it means to retain our humanity under the most adverse of conditions. It is a masterpiece, all the more impressive for being Chronister’s debut.” —The Fantasy Hive “Genre-shredding . . . Stunning . . . A story of both creation and apocalypse, where characters struggle with both belief and heresy.” —Tor.com“In [this] distorted version of Las Vegas wherein false saints peddle false promises, . . . a rejected girl takes a wretched journey whose inward dimensions hold the potential for healing. . . . Heartbreaking.” —Foreword Reviews“A vivid investigation of faith, perseverance, and human violence as they exist at the end of the world . . . Scintillating.” —Brian Evenson, author of Song for the Unraveling of the World“Incredible . . . pushing the wild weirdness of the Sonoran Desert toward the furthest extremes of possibility. I will never forget this uncanny world, nor brave Magdala’s quest across it.” —Matt Bell, author of Appleseed“[Desert Creatures] does for the Southwest desert what Jeff VanderMeer did for Florida’s swamps and Algernon Blackwood did for the Danube. . . . Unlike most post-apocalyptic works, the narrative never revels in the downfall of modernity, but scavenges in the remnants of what was and calls forth the twinned opulences of medieval Catholicism and Las Vegas as its guideposts. . . . This is the book of monsters our liminal year deserves.” —Ancillary Review of Books

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisFor readers of Rachel Cusk and Jenny Odell, a lyrical work of autofiction that explores the dissolution of boundaries between the self and our earth as we head towards ecological catastrophe.“Emergency is an incisive kaleidoscope of past and present, nature and industry, stillness and pace, collapsing all into a tapestry of consciousness.” —Ayşegül Savaş, author of Walking on the Ceiling Emergency is a novel about the interconnectedness of all life on Earth. Our narrator is at home during lockdown, where she ponders both past and present. She remembers her 1990s childhood in rural Yorkshire. She recalls a kestrel hunt, helping a farmer save a renegade bull, and days playing with her best friend, Clare. In her village, neighbors argue, keep secrets, care for one another, and try to hold down jobs. Fox cubs fight in the woods, plants compete for space, a quarry slowly falls apart, and we see a three-legged deer who likes cake. With painterly vision, Hildyard evokes the bygone, pre-internet world of her schooldays, whose irretrievability signals at something far greater than fleeting youth. With urgent intimacy, Emergency asks us to look at the essential; the people who help define us, animals, local and global ecologies, and to consider what the slow disappearance of Hildyard’s and our own native environment might mean for humanity at large. A requiem for the English countryside, a story of remote violence, and a work of praise for a persistently lively world, Daisy Hildyard’s Emergency reinvents the pastoral novel for the climate change era.Trade Review"In refusing to privilege human drama over natural processes, Hildyard captures the ecosystem’s delicate interconnectedness and suggests a new way of writing about our toll on the environment." —The New Yorker"[Emergency is] a gorgeous novel of a youth spent on the cusp of societal upheaval."—Publishers Weekly"The beauty of Emergency is in its attempt to glimpse an expanded paradigm of meaning, which encompasses but isn’t limited to our own." —Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal "Emergency is a crucial intervention. It drives a stake into the heart of the pastoral genre . . . This is what nature writing should be: absurd, overwhelming, and chaotically alive with the din of the world." —Lauren Collee, The Rumpus"There is something energetic in Emergency, something mystical about the human and non-human really meeting . . . Emergency reminds us, through its young protagonist, that we often miss so much of the world, so much of reality."—Alan Rossi, Literary Hub"In meditative and exquisitely constructed descriptions . . . the natural world comes to us, blazingly alive, and our place in it does too." —Hannah Hutchings-Georgiou, The White Review "A stunning book—a balm for our times—containing the incredible gift of the everyday."—Kirkus, Starred Review"A quiet, complicated hymn to nature . . . [Emergency] is a novel with an elastic strangeness, gliding seamlessly between the familiar and the surreal . . . In the wake of the biggest natural melodrama of recent times, Emergency is a thoughtful, poised reflection on how much change we humans, among the animals, can ever bring to bear." —Natalie Whittle, Financial Times “This quiet, well-written novel, which has a surprise ending, is worth a look.” —Barbara Love, Library Journal"Daisy Hildyard has confronted our new nature and, bravely, compellingly, makes our shared emergency visible." —Clare Pettitt, Times Literary Supplement "A keenly observed book of naturalism, [Emergency] is about a place, an era and the tenuous epoch of childhood which are all as fragile and fleeting as they are eternal in symbol and memory. I loved this book. When I finished it, I started over at the beginning." —Sarah Blackman, Heavy Feather Review "Emergency is a quiet novel that explores with remarkable subtlety the deep and fraying interconnectedness of life on earth. Hildyard writes with the precision and associative leaps of a poet . . . It’s something new that will linger long after you’ve finished reading."—Stephen Sparks, Bookseller at Point Reyes Books “A common fragility unites all species in this quietly magnificent novel.”—Damian Walsh, Literary Review “This book succeeds because of the chilly and beautifully sustained voice of its narrator, the precise embroidery of its sentences and paragraphs, its observations of the natural world and insistence that there is no distinction between humans and environments.” —Sarah Moss, The Guardian“Daisy Hildyard’s Emergency is a pastoral novel for the age of dissolving boundaries.The slowness and gentleness of the text, its pace and its language, make you consider its title.”—Abi Andrews, The Irish Times“Past and present, nature and humanity, life and death intermix, ebbing and flowing in a stream of prose that carries the reader on an exhilarating … and violent ride.”—Philippa Nutall, The New Statesman“Hildyard doesn’t offer the narratives of therapy, social criticism or self-development to be found in other English pastoralists …. Her style is more reminiscent of such contemporary poets as Kathleen Jamie and Alice Oswald, with their quiet and attentive watchfulness to a non-human reality they only half-understand. Her prose calls for, and frequently earns, the same respectful attentiveness from its readers.”—Dr. Nikhil Krishnan, The Telegraph

Read more less

Book SynopsisA New Yorker Best Book of 2023A new novel from National Book Award nominee Daniel Gumbiner about a California grape-grower, his family, and the climate disaster that upends their quiet lives.Since his release from prison after serving an eighteen-month sentence for growing cannabis, Ben Hecht’s life has settled into a familiar routine. On his farm in the foothills of California, he stays busy cultivating a dozen acres of grapes and tending to a flock of mistrustful sheep. Meanwhile, from her desk in their old redwood barn, his novelist wife, Ada, continues to work on what may be her most important book yet. When their only son, Yoel, comes home from Los Angeles for a rare visit, Ben is forced to confront their long troubled relationship, which has continued to degrade in recent years. But before the two of them can truly address their past, a wildfire sweeps through the region, forcing the Hecht family to flee to the coast, and setting into motion a chain of events that will transform them all. This is a story about grape growing and wine, financial and familial struggles, and the peculiar characters and unlikely heroes one will always find in small-town California. Through the experiences of the Hechts and the escalating challenges that face their community, Fire in the Canyon is an intimate look at the lives of those already living through the climate crisis.Trade ReviewA New Yorker Best Book of 2023: Set in the foothills of California’s gold country, this dread-laden novel follows a family who make their living cultivating grapes for winemaking as they attempt to resume their lives in the wake of a wildfire. After an evacuation, they return to the same land, but their environment—increasingly marred by drought, fire, and high temperatures—presents a cascade of fears: not just death and injury from fire but power outages, dangerous air quality, and smoke that might taint their grapes and thus take away their livelihood. The father’s detailed awareness of the region’s weather produces a sense of looming crisis; he notes how often once unusual events now occur—a set of circumstances that make it “hard not to wonder where the bottom was.”"The prose shines in its depictions of nature and setting, as when Gumbiner compares burnt trees to 'spires of obsidian.' Near the end of the novel . . . the reader must also locate the sacred in the natural and mourn all that humanity is losing as we hurtle toward a decimated planet."—Edan Lepucki, Alta Journal"Set in the foothills of California’s gold country, this dread-laden novel follows a family who make their living cultivating grapes for winemaking as they attempt to resume their lives in the wake of a wildfire. . . The father’s detailed awareness of the region’s weather produces a sense of looming crisis."—The New Yorker"“Fire in the Canyon” certainly has mythic overtones. It is a kind of Steinbeck saga with more modern catastrophes in mind; instead of the depredations of the Dust Bowl and the Depression, the Hechts face the twin crises of economic precarity and climate change."—Lorraine Berry, Los Angeles Times"Gumbiner writes with tremendous heart for his characters, as well as meticulous detail about their everyday lives tending their crops, making wine and finding community in a disorienting moment of environmental precarity."—Jessica Zack, San Francisco Chronicle"There is action and drama, but it's not a collage of IPCC report scenarios, it's a real and human story about what happens when a family's own unspectacular life becomes part of the global drama of global warming."—Alexis Madrigal, KQED Forum"Gumbiner crafts an important story, the fictional equivalent of outdoor warning sirens screaming above smoldering pine trees. An engaging, Steinbeckian look at climate change and its emotional costs."—Kirkus Reviews"A soulful masterpiece about the climate crisis in California."—Gabe Hudson, Kurt Vonnegut Radio"Suspenseful . . . Gumbiner skillfully builds tension as the Hecht family’s hard work in the vineyards plays out, pulling them together, even as they ignore the red-flag fire warnings and face the uncertainty of whether the wine produced will be potentially ruined by smoke taint. Readers will be riveted."—Publishers Weekly"Daniel Gumbiner is fast becoming a sort of 21st century Steinbeck, authoritatively illuminating life in California, with all its glories and calamity. Filled with vivid characters and deep knowledge of the land, this is a commanding second novel." —Dave Eggers, author of The Circle"There’s some golden hue or quality that tinges these pages. I have felt for a long time like we need more California novels, and since reading his first novel, more writers like Daniel Gumbiner."—Tommy Orange, author of There There "Stunning. Daniel Gumbiner is one of our greatest living writers on and of the American West, and this book is a thing of beauty." —Claire Vaye Watkins, author of I Love You but I've Chosen Darkness

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn Madeleine Kunin’s second poetry collection, Walk With Me, the well-versed poet and three-term Vermont governor invites the audience to step into her world, to slow down and find new serenity in older age and unexpected love. Kunin explores the nuances of everyday moments that cultivate a bittersweet appreciation for simple joys. Walk With Me is a beautifully crafted illustration of not only what it means to be a woman on the eve of ninety years of life, but a feminist, a politician, an immigrant, a mother, a lover, a companion, and a living thing in the midst of an ever-turbulent world. The relationship with the self is a lifelong evolution, a journey that Kunin refuses to tire. Instead, her poems illuminate the confidence and insecurities inherent to all humans, even in older age. The images woven throughout this collection are tender and warm, giving the reader an outlet to appreciate what it means to be alive through each stanza, over and over again.

Read more less