The best environmental books we’ve read in 2025
We published 28 book reviews this year and promoted many more. Out of all the books we’ve read, here are some of our favorites. We hope you enjoy them — and we thank …
Nonfiction
New and forthcoming environmental books (December 2025)
As we approach the end of the year I’m pleased to share another impressive selection of newly published (or soon-to-be-published) environmental books. Enjoy! Cowbells on the Kill Floor: Veganism, Legacy …
Wild Fictions; Essays on Literature, Empire, and the Environment by Amitav Ghosh
The University of Chicago Press, 2025 Among writers of climate and environmental fiction, Amitav Ghosh is known for his 2016 non-fiction book The Great Derangement, where he argues that fiction …
Lost Animals: Voices of Extinction
What would the last living passenger pigeon (seen in silhouette above) have to say if he or she were alive today? Or the Tasmanian tiger? Or the Carolina parakeet? In …
Book Review: Animal History: History as If Animals Mattered
In the introduction to Animal History: History as If Animals Mattered, Andrew Linzey and Clair Linzey write, “An animal does not just have a biology, but also a biography.” Sadly, …
Book Review: Defending Animals by Kendra Coulter
During the writing of Defending Animals: Finding Hope on the Front Lines of Animal Protection, Kendra Coulter’s dog, Sunny, spent many hours wrapped around her feet. Sunny, who had been abused …
Black Gold: Clearing the smoke on American coal
If I were to mention the words “black gold” you might picture oil (Thank you, Beverly Hillbillies). But the original black gold was coal and it is the title of …
The Omnivore’s Deception: Conscience makes cowards of us all
If the title of this book reminds you of the bestseller The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, that is intentional. For as author John Sanbonmatsu writes, Michael Pollan did a …
New and forthcoming environmental books (August 2025)
There is a maxim that “nothing happens in publishing in the summer.” Apparently, that maxim doesn’t apply to environmental literature — as we’ve seen a wide range of impressive books …
Satellite: Essays of Fatherhood and Home, Near and Far by Simmons Buntin
Terra Firma Books, Trinity University Press, 2025 This fine collection of essays by Simmons Buntin, Satellite: Essays of Fatherhood and Home, Near and Far, leads with lizards. “They are tidy, …
Book Review Flashback: Nature’s Best Hope by Douglas W. Tallamy
In 2021, JoeAnn Hart reviewed a powerful book in which every landowner has a role to play in leaving this planet a bit better than they found it. As a …