bookshelf

A collection of 24 posts

bookshelf

English Pastoral: An Inheritance by James Rebanks

Having just seen Six Inches of Soil, a documentary film about regenerative farming1 (which I highly recommend), this book seemed an appropriate one to add to our Bookshelf this month. It is a wonderful book, beautifully written and telling a story that carries a great deal of power coming from

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Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth by James Lovelock

This book was first published in 1979. Even my second-hand 1991 reprint is over 30 years old! The ideas it set out were revolutionary at the time and are still fresh and enlightening today, at least to this reader. The hypothesis at the core of the book is that the

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Britain's Housing Crisis

Broken Homes: Britain's Housing Crisis: Faults, Factoids and Fixes by Peter Bill and Jackie Sadek Today’s housing crisis featured in an earlier Bookshelf. I make no apology for another housing-related reading recommendation, this time 200 or so pages of useful historic context, anecdotes and picture-painting stories. Many

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Our Housing Disaster: and what we can do about it

This little book, smaller than A5 and just 180 pages, by Julian Richer, entrepreneur and philanthropist, examines how our housing got to such a disastrous situation and suggests what we can do about. This is an essential and quick read for anyone wishing to understand the causes of today’s

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Possible, Ways to Net Zero by Chris Goodall

Chris Goodall runs the Carbon Commentary newsletter, and is the author of The Switch and What We Need to Do Now. A number of his books feature in CA-WN's Lending Library list. Possible is another example of his clear explanations of what sustainability requires, this time taking a

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The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

I am daily more convinced that the solution to the climate crisis is changing people’s minds. And the answer to this lies not in facts and figures but in storytelling – it’s very difficult for human beings to change our behaviour and we won’t do it of our

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How Bad Are Bananas

Our book recommendation this month comes from Joely Slinn, West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) Sustainability Officer For those of us seeking to improve our daily impact on the planet, this book is a useful tool for just that. The How Bad Are Bananas? book by Mike Berners-Lee breaks down the science

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The Joyful Environmentalist by Isabel Losada

This book recommendation comes from Judy Sumner of the Wellingborough Eco Group. Isabel is on a quest to find everything she can possibly do to help save the planet. She has decided to change her life to embrace every action both large and small from campaigning to changing her diet

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Reflections by Mark Avery

I’ve been a subscriber to Mark Avery’s interesting and enjoyable monthly Newsblast since he was the (free of charge) keynote speaker at a conference CA-WN co-organised with Northamptonshire ACRE. So I was keen to read this, his new book about wildlife and wildlife conservation. Reflections is a concise

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Last Chance to Find Duke

This is something different to lighten the mood, an utterly charming cartoon story by a Chinese author and illustrator – which explains why its English language speech bubbles have to be read from right to left. An insect researcher called 063 sets off to find a rare species of cricket whose

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Our Place by Mark Cocker

This book is a good one to read alongside the 2023 State of Nature Report (or at least the summary, it’s a long report…). Mark Cocker readably and concisely gives us a history of the British conservation movement, whilst also sharing his own efforts to restore a piece of

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Taming the Four Horsemen: Radical Solutions from Robin Hanbury-Tenison

Published in 2020, the lessons of Taming The Four Horsemen are clear: if we humans are to survive we need to make transformative changes now. The Author, Robin Hanbury-Tenison, may be known to readers as one of the founders of the charity Survival International, along with an involvement in the

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Breathe: Tackling the Climate Emergency by Sadiq Khan

Sadiq Khan's interest in air pollution started on being diagnosed with asthma in his forties, when he was told by doctors that the cause was inhaling polluted air as he ran around London training for the London marathon. This is a fairly short and readable book which I

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Less is More - How degrowth will save the world by Jason Hickel

After reading this book, I have become obsessed with the idea of 'less is more' and whether it's possible for society (in developed, industrialised nations) to thrive in a post-growth economy. I have no doubt that the environment will benefit. Ever since studying Economics at A

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Clearing the Air: The Beginning and the End of Air Pollution by Tim Smedley

Air pollution results in millions of premature deaths worldwide each year. This book explains how historical and ongoing human activities have resulted in air that damages our health, the different pollutants involved, and that we are still working to understand all the ways in which they affect our bodies. Tim

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Ravenous by Henry Dimbleby with Jemima Lewis

In 2021, Henry Dimbleby published the much acclaimed ‘National Food Strategy’. This was one of the most carefully thought through and readable government documents that I have read and yet most people, including members of the government, have not read or acted upon it. In reply, in 2022 the Government

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The Garden Jungle by Dave Goulson

The Garden Jungle or Gardening to Save The Planet: Professor Goulson is a mine of information about the natural world and a great communicator. There’s a lot of science in this book, but it’s clearly conveyed and easy to absorb. The science sits alongside a lot of practical

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Silent Spring

by Rachel Carson If ever there was a seminal book in the history of environmental catastrophes then it has to be Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. Even well over fifty years on, the book still delivers a strong message, perhaps even stronger today, that you cannot play around with chemicals

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Movement: how to take back our streets and transform our lives

by Thalia Verkade and Marco te Broemmelstroet. Translated from the Dutch by Fiona Graham Once upon a time our streets were sociable spaces where people met to chat, and children safely played. But not now. Drivers, not pedestrians, rule our roads. How did we let that happen and what can

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The Children of the Anthropocene by Bella Lack

The title of this book alone was a learning experience for me – anthropocene means relating to or denoting the current geological age; viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment. Bella Lack’s stories of a changing climate are told

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Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid by Thor Hanson

While humans wrestle with net zero targets and greenwashing, other species have had to adapt to the impacts of climate change, as Thor Hanson, an American biologist, reveals in his carefully researched book. His accounts of how squid have responded to warmer waters, and lizards to fierce storms, are poignant

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Supercharge Me by Eric Lonergan and Corinne Sawers

The October addition to the CA-WN Bookshelf is a refreshingly readable book by fund manager Eric Lonergan and sustainability adviser Corinne Sawers who advocate augmenting traditional solutions, such as carbon pricing, with EPICs: Extreme, Positive Incentives for Change to ‘supercharge’ behavioural change. Follow the link below to the book’s

bookshelf

Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty

This addition to the CA-WN Book Shelf is a multi-award winner! Written as a diary, this is a wonderful portrayal of the beauty of the natural world. As an autistic teenager suffering from anxiety, McAnulty shows us a child’s eye view of our delicate and changing biosphere. Through the

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Green Living Made Easy by Nancy Birtwhistle

The latest addition to the CA-WN Book Shelf is another gem from Nancy Birtwhistle to follow on from ‘Clean & Green – 101 hints and tips for a more eco-friendly home,’ which was recommended by Harlene Griffiths in March. ‘Green Living Made Easy’ is a practical book from the Sunday Times