The Association for the Study of Literature and Environment has announced the finalists for their bi-annual book awards: Creative Award Finalists: Bitten: My Unexpected Love Affair with Florida by Andrew Furman (memoir/essays) The Small Heart of Things: Being at Home in a Beckoning World by Julian Hoffman (creative nonfiction) Dark. Sweet. by Linda Hogan (poetry) …
In A Buzz in the Meadow: The Natural History of a French Farm by Dave Goulson, insects are given the respect they are due. For it is insects, in all their weird and wild ways, that keep this planet, and us, alive. The book tells the story about the author’s adventures after having purchased a French farm …
Okay, so this isn’t a book review — but it’s such an important documentary that I wanted to review it here on EcoLit Books. (The book connection: As you watch the film, you’ll learn about a few books to add to your reading list, including Comfortably Unaware and The World Peace Diet.) Cowspiracy (which is currently still available for …
Terrain’s 6th annual contest for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry is now accepting submissions. The winner of each genre receives $500. Judges are as follows: Luis Alberto Urrea – Fiction Scott Russell Sanders – Nonfiction Pattiann Rogers – Poetry Entry fee is $15. Learn more here.
Happy Earth Day, readers! Today, we’re celebrating the launch of Cassie Premo Steele’s book Earth Joy Writing, a wonderful guide for reconnecting with our planet through writing prompts, meditations, and other exercises in creativity. Click here to read an excerpt of Earth Joy Writing, and visit the Earth Joy Writing website to learn about Cassie’s …
Vint Virga’s The Soul of All Living Creatures: What Animals Can Teach Us About Being Human opens with a quote from Hippocrates: “The soul is the same in all living creatures, although the body of each is different.” Following next is an author’s note in which Virga explains why he uses the pronouns “he” and …
Once a year, courtesy of Houghton Mifflin, we get to be wowed, disgusted, depressed, amazed, revolted, terrified, and sometimes even amused with the publication of The Best American Science and Nature Writing. This is not a book geared for science nerds, this is reading for anyone interested in life. I wish there was a different …
Imagine a world that is just like our own—same countries, same technologies, same history—but with one major difference: dragons. The dragons in The Story of Owen don’t limit themselves to feeding on damsels in distress. They’ll eat anybody. And livestock, too. But if there’s one thing these low-intelligence beasts truly can’t resist, it’s carbon emissions. …
A humpback whale is tangled in hundreds of yards of crab-trap lines. She can’t get free. She can barely keep her blowhole above water to breathe. The whale has been spotted by a fisherman, but will the rescue team be able to free her? Will they even arrive in time? Based on an actual event …
“Mikis stroked the donkey’s ears. It was six feet from the bottom of the ears to their very tip…and then six feet all the way back down again. Well, that’s what it felt like. The donkey’s ears were so long that there seemed to be no end to them!” There’s a surprise in Grandpa’s stable. It’s …
Sharona Muir’s Invisible Beasts is an absolute delight, and not only for animal lovers. This smart, whimsical novel takes readers not only into a world of “invisible beasts” but into the mind of a charmingly quirky character. The novel is written in a nonfiction style, as a personal bestiary by a woman with a genetic …
I have to make a confession. In writing circles, there are certain types of books one is supposed to hold dearer than all others. Important books. Literary books. Books that bravely ponder the desperate squalor of the human condition. I hate these books. The truth is I’m a complete plot junkie. I want to read …
The Chain: Farm, Factory, and the Fate of Our Food, by Ted Genoways, is an important work of reporting. Based on years of interviews and tireless research, the book spans the length of our food system, focused largely on Hormel Foods, the makers of Spam. It covers the tragically interconnected plight of the workers and of the animals. …
“Memory is an unfolding force tucked away in the leaves of summer trees. With the slightest breeze of provocation, memories stir and reveal themselves, become more wide open and exposed. The world, tight and locked from the grip of winter relaxes fully in the heat, sits still with its memory, almost stagnates, and when life …
The planet has survived five mass extinctions, but it’s the sixth that we should be worried about. Elizabeth Kolbert’s wonderful book The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History outlines the human impact on the globe by following researchers who are studying not only the past but today’s resources and species currently at risk, from the oceans …
