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 …
Nonfiction
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 …
Novel Ecologies, Nature Remade and the Illusions of Tech
by Allison Carruth The University of Chicago Press, 2025 Reviewed by JoeAnn Hart Think of clouds. Light, airy, floating around in our atmosphere. Therefore, the words “cloud computing” make it …
Make Love, Not War: Rethinking Our Relationship with ‘Invasive’ Species
I was once told that a weed is simply a plant out of place. Indeed, one person’s weed may be another person’s precious resource. In Love Them to Death: Turning …
Book Review: My Dog Always Eats First by Leslie Irvine
Even before beginning the research for her book My Dog Always Eats First: Homeless People & Their Animals, Leslie Irvine had been thinking about what it means for a human to …