More than 35,000 people from more than 100 countries visited EcoLit Books this year. And this post shows where they spent most of their time. Here are the top 25 most-visited book reviews and web pages from January until now. The first page is no surprise but the second did surprise me given that it …
EcoLit contributor Bill Streever has a new book out, A Sea Full of Turtles, and it provides a hopeful antidote to the more dystopian environmental literature in bookstores today. Bill’s book left me feeling optimistic. I hope it does for you as well. I recently asked Bill about the book and here’s what he had …
Too often, environmental writers fail to capture the complexities that make their genre so interesting. Instead, they tell tales of good versus evil, of right against wrong. While parts of many stories boil down to something at least resembling black and white, few complete stories—at least the ones worth telling—are so simple. Most require convoluted narratives describing more …
There is a conversation, repeated several times, during the powerful novella Of Cattle and Men by Paula Maia, translated by Zoë Perry: “Like they say in these parts: as long as there’s a cow in this world, there will be a man keen to kill it.”“And another keen to eat it,” concludes Edgar Wilson. Edgar …
Willard Scott (for the young ones out there: America’s weather person) once said: “Everyone complains about the weather, but nobody ever seems to do anything about it.” You could say the same thing about climate change. There is no shortage of books about climate grief these days, and I empathize, but I also think we …
Let me begin this review by saying that university presses and small presses have published some of the most creative and thought-provoking environmental literature I’ve read over the past few years. In this case, I want to praise the University of California Press for publishing the impressive work of author Christina Gerhardt and her collaborators, …
New this year from Milkweed Editions is a must-read essay collection of powerful Black nature writing. Originated and edited by Erin Sharkey, A Darker Wilderness: Black Nature Writing from Soil to Stars is a stunning and needed anthology. These essays by eleven contemporary writers address the presence of Black people and their contributions not only …
It’s fire season here in southern Oregon. Which is another way of way of saying it’s just another season here in southern Oregon. Over the past decade fires have become a year-round occurrence — if not wildfires then prescribed burns. Smoke is an ever-present reminder of the dangers of wildfire. As are the empty lots …
So many new and exciting novels and books of nonfiction and poetry have come across our desks and inboxes as of late. Here are just a handful that caught our eyes… B/RDS Beatrice Szymkowiak B/RDS endeavors to dismantle discourses that create an artificial distinction between nature and humanity through a subversive erasure of an iconic work …
While reading The Devil’s Element: Phosphorous and a World Out of Balance by Dan Egan I happened to come across this article in The New York Times about a growing crisis along the Cape driven by antiquated septic systems. According to the article: More waste also means more phosphorus entering the Cape’s freshwater ponds, where …
Cierra Horton McElroy’s debut novel, Atomic Family, is not an environmental novel of the twenty-first-century, yet its themes of impending nuclear devastation and eco-anxiety nevertheless feel all too real. Atomic Family is the story of Nellie, Dean, and their son, Wilson, with the novel’s main narrative playing out over a couple of days through these …
