Amazing books keep coming our way and we’re pleased to share a few of them this month. Enjoy!
Any Human Power
by Manda Scott
Sometimes it takes a revolution to change the world, sometimes it takes a relationship. The visionary new novel from Manda Scott, author of the Boudica series.
As Lan lies dying, she makes a promise that binds her long into the beyond. Fifteen years later, her teenage granddaughter Kaitlyn triggers an international storm of outrage that unleashes the rage of a whole betrayed generation. For one shining fragment of time, the world is with her. But then the backlash begins and soon she and those closest to her find themselves facing the wrath of the old establishment, who will use every dirty trick in the book to fight them off.
Watching over the growing chaos is Lan, who taught them all to think independently, approach power sceptically and dream with clear intent. She knows more than one generation’s hopes are on the line. Nothing less than the future of humanity stands in the balance.
A Sea Full of Turtles
by Bill Streever
An inspired and impassioned story of adventure that explores the richness of marine life and charts a path of resilience and hope.
We are, it seems, on an unalterable path that will continue to decimate biodiversity. A feeling of hopelessness, while not unwarranted, is part of the problem. Without hope, without some belief in the possibility of positive outcomes, the fight for nature is over. Why even try if the battle is already lost? While staring the problems squarely in the face, A Sea Full of Turtles offers hope for those who care about our living world. Delivered as a travel narrative set in Mexico’s Gulf of California (Sea of Cortez), at one level the book focuses on dramatically underfunded but highly successful efforts to protect sea turtles. But the book goes beyond Mexico and beyond sea turtles to look at how some humans have changed their relationship with nature–and how that change can one day end the extinction crisis. Enchanting, galvanizing, and brimming with joy and wonder, A Sea Full of Turtles will inspire immediate action to face the great challenges that lie ahead. Pessimism is the lazy way out. Optimism, it turns out, is both a reasonable and an essential attitude for us all as we fight for the beautiful diversity of life on our Earth.
See the author Q&A
The Scent of Distant Family
by Sid Sibo
Set against the backdrop of a remote location in the throes of rapid development, Nik Delaney leaves a respected career in wildlife biology to return home to Wyoming. In the Rocky Mountain winter, every relationship Nik has wears even thinner as she cares for her aging father, faces a crumbling marriage, and parents Finn, the son of her antagonistic brother. Then Zolo, her foster dog, runs away.
Nik’s search for Zolo in the vast and unforgiving landscape introduces her to the eccentric residents of the high sagebrush, including a rancher trying to run an ecolodge in oil country and a displaced herd of wild mustangs led by a mare called Tess. This story of loyalty and deception in western Wyoming expands our sense of who we choose to consider family.
A Little Queer Natural History
by Josh L. Davis
Beautifully illustrated and scientifically informed, a celebration of the astonishing diversity of sexual behavior and biology found in nature.From a pair of male swans raising young to splitgill mushrooms with over 23,000 mating types, sex in the natural world is wonderfully diverse. Josh L. Davis considers how, for many different organisms–animals, plants, and fungi included–sexual reproduction and sex determination rely on a surprisingly complex interaction among genes, hormones, environment, and chance. As Davis introduces us to fascinating biological concepts like parthenogenesis (virgin birth), monoecious plants (individuals with separate male and female flowers), and sex-reversed genitals, we see turtle hatchlings whose sex is determined by egg temperature; butterflies that embody male and female biological tissue in the same organism; and a tomato that can reproduce three different ways at the same time.
Presence Activism: A Profound Antidote to Climate Anxiety
by Lynne Sedgmore
In this book, author Lynne Sedgmore integrates presence, climate activism, and the alleviation of climate anxiety in an innovative and unique synthesis and new term – Presence Activism.
By offering a profound solution with new perspectives, Presence Activism: A Profound Antidote to Climate Anxiety is steeped in a presence that moves activism beyond metaphors of war, enemies, and destruction, as well as the illusion of separation, into the visceral knowing of presence and interconnection, thereby making presence an important part of the way forward for current and future activism.
Inland
by Kate Risse
Welcome to the gripping narrative of Inland, Kate Risse’s first novel. Set in the year 2026, Inland transports readers into the near future, where the forces of climate change irrevocably alter the Earth’s landscape. It is not just a journey across the flooded ruins of America but a deep dive into the resilience of the human spirit in the face of overwhelming odds.
John is co-author, with Midge Raymond, of the eco-mystery Devils Island, forthcoming in 2024. He is also author of the novels The Tourist Trail and Where Oceans Hide Their Dead. Co-founder of Ashland Creek Press and editor of Writing for Animals (also now a writing program).
