Environmental Fiction

The Overstory unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fable that range from antebellum New York to the late 20th-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. An air force loadmaster in the Vietnam War is shot out of the sky, then saved by falling into a banyan. An artist inherits 100 years of photographic portraits, all of the same doomed American chestnut. A hard-partying undergraduate in the late 1980s electrocutes herself, dies, and is sent back into life by creatures of air and light.

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, post-apocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us - and in which we might just overcome the extraordinary challenges we face.

Today’s UV Index: Lethal Deep inside the sun, magnetic lines of force are growing…building in ways not experienced for a millennium. When a pair of increasingly severe solar storms disables internet, communications, and GPS for millions around the globe, helioseismologist Greyson Finn fears the imminent arrival of a cataclysmic super flare, a magnetic explosion of the sun with the potential to obliterate life on earth. In a desperate bid to help the world prepare, Finn and his fellow scientists rush to address the critical question: will the solar weather subside, or is the worst yet to...

The world is clean. The world is dead. The EcoMites were humanity's greatest achievement—microscopic machines that dissolved pollution, purified water, and healed our dying planet. Then their definition of "pollution" changed. Now they consume everything organic. Everything alive. Everything except one man and his sanctuary. Dr. Joseph Kellerman is the last man on Earth, surviving alone at Alaska's Aurora Station while generators fail one by one. Outside his protective bubble, the air shimmers with invisible death. Inside, he talks to ghosts—his dead wife, his lost colleagues—as his ...

The cabin had always been a special retreat for Isherwood Williams, a haven from the demands of society. But one day while hiking, Ish was bitten by a rattlesnake, and the solitude he had so desired took on dire new significance. Ish headed home when he finally felt himself again—and noticed the strangeness almost immediately. No cars passed him on the road; the gas station not far from his cabin looked abandoned; and he was shocked to see the body of a man on the roadside near a small town. Without a radio or phone, Ish had no idea of humanity’s abrupt demise.

Among the most celebrated and beloved novels of 2021, Anthony Doerr’s gorgeous third novel is a triumph of imagination and compassion, a soaring story about children on the cusp of adulthood in worlds in peril, who find resilience, hope—and a book. In Cloud Cuckoo Land, Doerr has created a magnificent tapestry of times and places that reflects our vast interconnectedness—with other species, with each other, with those who lived before us, and with those who will be here after we’re gone.

As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science. As a Potawatomi woman, she learned from elders, family, and history that the Potawatomi, as well as a majority of other cultures indigenous to this land, consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers.

We're Doomed, Now What? addresses the crisis that is our time through a series of brilliant, moving, and original essays on climate change, war, literature, and loss from one of the most provocative and iconoclastic minds of his generation.

What if the fog could speak—and what if it chose you? High in the Himalayas, in the remote village of Thame, a young shepherd named Tashi stumbles upon an ancient artifact hidden in the mist—an artifact with the power to summon the Guardian Fog, a sentient force tasked with preserving the balance between nature and spirit. But when outsiders arrive in search of the artifact, bringing greed, violence, and ruin in their wake, Tashi becomes the reluctant steward of a mystical burden far beyond his imagining. As the fog whispers secrets, reveals visions, and lashes out to protect its realm,...

This near-future trilogy is the first chance for English-speaking listeners to experience this multiple-award-winning phenomenon from Cixin Liu, China's most beloved science fiction author. In The Dark Forest, Earth is reeling from the revelation of a coming alien invasion - in just four centuries' time. The aliens' human collaborators may have been defeated, but the presence of the sophons, the subatomic particles that allow Trisolaris instant access to all human information, means that Earth's defense plans are totally exposed to the enemy.

A Friend of the Earth opens in the year 2025, as Tyrone O'Shaughnessy Tidewater ekes out a bleak living in southern California, managing a rock star's private menagerie. Global warming is a reality. The biosphere has collapsed and most of the major mammalian species are extinct.

“Brilliantly written! Dystopian thriller packed with humor, heart, and horror. Eight charity volunteers go on a macabre journey and confront the most consequential moral message of our time. They must decide whether to embrace it or hide out at a mattress store in a Baltimore mini-mall.” – Bruce Goldberg, best-selling author “Original! Funny! Surprising! A wake-up call for a world that has gone astray.” – Cynthia Shortreed, editor “An imaginative sci-fi masterpiece with unexpected twists and turns. It forces you to rethink your values. You’ll never look at life, compassion, ...

In these new essays, Williams explores the concept of erosion: of the land, of the self, of belief, of fear. She wrangles with the paradox of desert lands and the truth of erosion: What is weathered, worn, and whittled away through wind, water, and time is as powerful as what remains. Our undoing is also our becoming.

Life for Roz and the animals on their island is perfect. But when mysterious, dangerous waters surround the island, the animals are forced inland to fight over dwindling resources. Roz calms and organizes the animals, but the poison tide takes a terrible toll on the island. So the wild robot sets out across the ocean, determined to stop the poison tide. During her journey, Roz encounters amazing geological formations and incredible creatures, and she sees the devastation caused by the toxic waters. Can the wild robot save the ocean and her island and everything she loves?

The invasive species…is us. Humanity teeters on the precipice of environmental collapse. The planet bears the scars of exponential warming, rampant pollution, and the ominous specter of mass extinctions on land and sea. Drought, wildfires, flooding, and storms wreak havoc, while the dire consequences of poverty and starvation deepen. As Earth's systems spiral towards irreversible decline, the President of the United States makes an audacious move, appointing an unlikely ally, an obscure park ranger, as the new Secretary of Conservation. Unbeknownst to the world, he is not only an outsider...

When Detective Maya Thorne is summoned back to Warragulla—the rural Australian hometown she swore never to revisit—she expects a routine investigation. Skeletal remains have been discovered in a drought-exposed creek bed at Billabong Station, likely from the bushfires that ravaged the region three years ago. But as the parched earth gives up its secrets, Maya finds herself excavating more than just bones. The remains belong to Cameron Lockhart, a local landowner who disappeared during the fires, and someone put a bullet in his head before burying him where the flames would erase the ...

After a historic hurricane strikes her Southern California desert town, 16-year-old Athena becomes convinced that the global youth climate movement isn't pushing hard enough for change. While she admires their protests, she believes more dramatic action is needed to force governments, media, and climate deniers to confront the crisis threatening her generation's future. She develops a radical new approach that no one will be able to ignore — one that will either save the planet or destroy her future.

Everyone knows everyone in the tiny town of Bourne, but the Mitchell triplets are especially beloved. Mirabel is the smartest person anyone knows, and no one doubts it just because she can’t speak. Monday is the town’s purveyor of books now that the library’s closed - tell her the book you think you want, and she’ll pull the one you actually do from the microwave or her sock drawer. Mab’s job is hardest of all: get good grades, get into college, get out of Bourne.

In a world reborn under the light of innovation and the harmony of nature, Jay, a humble solar farmer, finds his life thrust into chaos when legendary warriors descend from the skies, bringing ancient prophecies and dire warnings. Tasked with a destiny far beyond his fields of solar panels, Jay must embark on an epic journey filled with peril, courage, and self-discovery. Joined by the wise chronomancer Malazar and the fierce, technologically advanced Chimerians, Jay faces formidable challenges—from the deceptive sands of Zephyr’s Embrace to the haunting melodies of the Starlit River. ...

Following an ego shattering breakup, Montana rancher Murphy Keen decides herding wild ponies on the dunes of Chincoteague Island is just the medicine he needs. What he doesn't expect is to be captivated by Jess Thomas, a local environmentalist. It's not long before the enchantment of the quaint community and the company of an intriguing woman has more than the sand shifting beneath this cowboy's boots. Careful with her heart, Jess can't help but fall for Murphy, but will a two week fling with a passing-through-cowboy satisfy her...or shatter her?