Recent Reads on Climate Change
Over the past several weeks I’ve written about what I read last year. I ask for patience as I figure out how I want to write thoughtfully about my more current reads. I’m going to try to continue grouping reads together. Overall I read fifteen books in January, so we’ll see how this new method holds up. Here are a few recent reads that address climate change in one way or another.
Non-fiction
The Fragile Earth: Writing from The New Yorker on Climate Change by David Remnick and Henry Finder (Editors) (finished in January 2021)
This made me realize how much I miss reading The New Yorker. It’s a good collection of important reads around climate change. A few of the pieces I’d read when they were published, others I’d read as part of other works (Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History). This isn’t an easy collection to read cover to cover — I’d read a chapter or two and then wait again for it to be my turn in the library hold queue.
No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference by Greta Thunberg (finished January 2020)
This is a collection of Greta’s speeches. While the message is repetitive, I think that is what makes this a useful read beyond the headlines. How often do the children need to repeat themselves until the adults act?
Fiction
Sea Change by Nancy Kress (finished in January 2021)
This pharma-bio techno thriller doesn’t focus on climate change, but it helps drive the story. What Renata experiences and discovers is all to plausible today, at least to my imagination. I would have enjoyed this more as a novel or a short story instead of the in-between novella; there are elements that beg to be expanded or tightened. It’s enjoyable and I plan to reread it!
Heavy Weather by Bruce Sterling (finished in December 2020)
I had to keep checking to confirm that this was published in 1995. Setting aside that I’m frustrated it didn’t get in front of me until very recently, this is an eco-tech thriller at its finest. Yes, the middle lags, it reminded me of the eye of a storm (as I mix meteorological metaphors).
Later tonight I hope to finish the Ravenwood Mysteries, I’ve enjoyed this series. I am not sure what I’ll read next, there are many books gathering dust because it’s easier (and warmer) to read eink when Shadow wants to snuggle.