Essays

If you have a keen interest in nature and science with a taste for adventure, David Quammen's "Wild Thoughts from Wild Places" will take you on an exhilarating journey. Quammen's expertise in weaving rich narratives from his explorations makes each essay resonate with those who seek to understand the complexity and wonders of the natural world. This collection is perfect for armchair adventurers and science enthusiasts alike.

Are we deranged? The acclaimed Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh argues that future generations may well think so. How else to explain our imaginative failure in the face of global warming? In his first major book of nonfiction since In an Antique Land, Ghosh examines our inability—at the level of literature, history, and politics—to grasp the scale and violence of climate change.The extreme nature of today’s climate events, Ghosh asserts, make them peculiarly resistant to contemporary modes of thinking and imagining. This is particularly true of serious literary fiction: hundred-year storms and freakish tornadoes simply feel too improbable for the novel; they are automatically consigned to other genres. In the writing of history, too, the climate crisis has sometimes led to gross simplifications; Ghosh shows that the history of the carbon economy is a tangled global story with many contradictory and counterintuitive elements.Ghosh ends by suggesting that politics, much like literature, has become a matter of personal moral reckoning rather than an arena of collective action. But to limit fiction and politics to individual moral adventure comes at a great cost. The climate crisis asks us to imagine other forms of human existence—a task to which fiction, Ghosh argues, is the best suited of all cultural forms. His book serves as a great writer’s summons to confront the most urgent task of our time.

This book is a must-read for anyone seeking to gain a deeper understanding of the ecological challenges we face and the need for transformative action. In "The Dragonfly Will Be the Messiah," the author, a pioneer of the 'do-nothing' farming method, presents a thought-provoking reflection on global ecological trauma. Through profound insights, they argue that we must radically transform our understanding of nature and our place in it in order to restore and heal the planet. This book will inspire readers to reconsider their relationship with the environment and embrace a more sustainable future.

"Staying with the Trouble is a must-read for anyone interested in redefining our relationship with the environment. Donna Haraway's concept of the Chthulucene forces us to consider our impact on non-human entities and the consequences of our actions. Her use of science fiction and speculative fabulation provides a unique lens to approach these complex issues. The book challenges the reader to rethink our traditional beliefs and to embrace a more inclusive and collaborative future."

Most of us watch with mild concern the fast-disappearing wild spaces or the recurrence of pollution-related crises such as oil spills, toxic blooms in fertilizer-enriched forests, and violence both home and abroad. Joy Williams does more than watch. In this collection of condemnations and love letters, revelations and cries for help, she brings to light the price of complacency with scathing wit and unexpected humor. Sounding the alarm over the disconnection from the natural world that our consumer culture has created, she takes on subjects as varied as the culling of elephants, electron-probed chimpanzees, vanishing wetlands, and the determination of American women to reproduce at any cost. Controversial, opinionated, at times exceptionally moving, Ill Nature is a clarion call for us to step out of our cars and cubicles, and do something to save our natural legacy.

After years of reflecting on the absurdities of life on other planets, Douglas Adams teams up with zoologist Mark Carwardine on an expedition to find out what's happening to life on this one.