Recommended Books
The Glorians: Visitations from the Holy Ordinary
Author:
Terry Tempest Williams
ISBN 13:
978-0802165848
NATIONAL BESTSELLER “I go to Terry Tempest Williams for the reasons I go to Whitman and Thoreau: to recover a capacious spirit and to rejoin the urgent living world. She gives me something bigger than hope.”―Richard Powers, author of The Overstory From the visionary New York Times bestselling author, a revelatory work of narrative nonfiction exploring beauty in the desert, climate change, and, transformative moments of power in a world beset by uncertainty Whether we believe it or not, rapid change is upon us. I am searching for grace. In this time of political fragility, climate chaos, and seeking beauty wherever we can find its glimmer, Terry Tempest Williams introduces us to the Glorians. They are not distant deities, but the ordinary, often overlooked presences—animal, plant, memory, moment—that reveal our shared vulnerability and interconnectedness with the natural world. The Glorians can be as small as an ant ferrying a coyote willow blossom to its queen or as commonplace as the night sky. But what they can collectively show us—about the radical act of attending to beauty and carrying forward against all odds—is immense. Journeying through encounters with the Glorians in the red rock desert of Utah during the pandemic to Harvard University where she teaches in the Divinity School, Williams weaves a story of astonishing personal and societal insight. As she grapples with the unsettled state of the world, she turns not to despair but to deep reflection. She sees how the Glorians are calling us to attention, not as an army, but as fellow inhabitants of our sacred, threatened home. They remind us of the power of contact between species and the profound courage—and awareness—it will take to dream a more cohesive future into being. Wise and lyrical, The Glorians is a testament to the power of witness, a field guide to finding grace in the unexpected, and a moving invitation to engage with one another and our surroundings with renewed intention. In a modern world filled with increasing noise and anxiety, Terry Tempest Williams offers honest sustenance for the mind and spirit and distinguishes herself again as a trusted voice to whom we can turn to more fully understand our times.
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The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change
Author:
Rebecca Solnit
ISBN 13:
979-8888904510
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER INDEPENDENT PRESS TOP 40 BESTSELLER Rebecca Solnit offers a thrilling account of the sheer breadth and scale of social, political, scientific, and cultural change over the past three quarters of a century. In this sequel to her enduring bestseller Hope in the Dark , Solnit surveys a world that has changed dramatically since the year 1960. Despite the forces seeking to turn back the clock on history, change is not a possibility; it is an inevitability. The changes amount to nothing less than dismantling an old civilization and building a new one, whose newness is often the return of the old ways and wisdoms. In this rising worldview, interconnection is a core idea and value. But because the transformation is obscured within a longer arc of history, its scale is seldom recognized. While the white nationalist and authoritarian backlash drives individualism and isolation, this new world embraces antiracism, feminism, a more expansive understanding of gender, environmental thinking, scientific breakthroughs, and Indigenous and non-Western ideas, pointing toward a more interconnected, relational world.
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The Carbon Wave: A Story of Democracy, Parenthood, and the Race to Protect Our Planet
Author:
Leah C. Stokes
ISBN 13:
978-0262054775
The true, inspiring story of the new parents who spearheaded an unlikely climate victory. From the rising climate advocate named to the Time100 Next list, for political junkies and anyone who cares about the environment. They were perhaps an unlikely trio: the professor Leah Stokes, the policy wonk Sonia Aggarwal in the White House, and the DC insider Adrian Deveny in the Senate, but together, they crafted the boldest climate legislation of our time. In The Carbon Wave , Stokes chronicles the turbulent path of their climate bill as it veered between breakthrough and collapse—from the hopeful beginnings of the Green New Deal in 2018, to the bill’s near-certain defeat by Senator Joe Manchin in the winter of 2021, to the surprise passage of the landmark legislation in August 2022. During this critical time, the author was pregnant or in the NICU with her premature twins, and Aggarwal and Deveny were new parents too. Interlacing personal narratives with stories from Congress, the White House, and outside activists, Stokes shows how dogged perseverance and collective action can still bend the course of history. The book concludes with an update from the second Trump administration, explaining the parts of the bill that were—and were not—rolled back, and why we should remain hopeful that progress is still being made. Everyone has been told to shrink their carbon footprint and lighten their load on our planet by changing their behavior. But what if instead of making ourselves smaller, we joined with others to maximize our impact? That’s the carbon wave. And this book shows us how to make it.
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Brought to You By: How Corporations Warped the Truth, Conned the Public, and Broke Democracy
Author:
Amy Westervelt
ISBN 13:
978-1639736324
Recommended by BILL McKIBBEN on the EZRA KLEIN SHOW "A book that every citizen needs to read." -JILL ABRAMSON, author of Merchants of Truth A gripping account of the corporate propaganda that has invaded our media, our democracy, and now the very nature of truth itself-from investigative reporter and Drilled podcast host Amy Westervelt. Whether it's the tobacco industry lying about the health dangers of cigarettes, Big Pharma burying studies that make its products less marketable, or Big Oil misleading the public on the dangers of the climate crisis, we all know corporations use doubt and science denial to avoid responsibility. So why do we continue to let them get away with it? In Brought to You By , Amy Westervelt exposes the plot hidden within the familiar story of science denial. Over the last century, Big Industry has built a vast apparatus of think tanks, lobbyists, sponsored university labs, and obliging news networks to con the public and fool decision-makers, poisoning the informational ecosystem and warping the nature of truth along the way. With her signature wit and incisiveness, Westervelt shows how the masterminds of corporate misinformation-people like Herb Schmertz, the public relations pioneer who made Mobil “the thinking man's oil company,” Richard Edelman, the PR guy who helped the dairy industry vilify oat milk, and David Petraeus, the disgraced spy chief using counter- insurgency tactics to discredit climate science, have ushered in an era of unprecedented corporate control. Only by exposing this well-oiled machine can we begin to repair the social contract; reclaim truth and democracy; and redraw the lines between corporate speech and individual speech, a lie and an opinion, a dollar and a word.
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End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World
Authors:
Naomi Klein
,
Astra Taylor
ISBN 13:
978-0374621384
A scathing investigation into the apocalyptic thinking of the Christian nationalists, tech-bro reactionaries, and populist survivalists who increasingly define the contemporary right―and a recipe for how to fight them. As the planet burns and shared reality melts, a new iteration of the far right is on the march. How can we understand this dangerous new development, and what resources can we draw on to resist it? In their scathing assessment of the contemporary scene, the celebrated activists and authors Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor explore how the religious fundamentalists, Silicon Valley technologists, and ethno-nationalists who make up this apocalyptic alliance share more than one might think: they are united in their belief that some kind of cleansing cataclysm is coming, whether through the manifestation of messianic prophecy, the rampages of a resource- and job-consuming artificial intelligence, or the purported existential threat of immigration and cultural replacement. Rather than avoiding this conflagration, they welcome it, convinced they will be among the saved on the other side. “End Times Fascism” is the ideology of the actors who strive to make the world unlivable and then seek to protect themselves from the fallout―whether by repairing to luxurious private islands, rocketing off to Mars, or bunkering the nation to keep their enemies at bay. The new survivalists have accumulated power, but they are far from impregnable. As Klein and Taylor show via original reporting and analysis, their many internal conflicts and contradictions and their nihilistic inability to envision a shared future, even for their ostensible allies, leave them vulnerable to a new kind of “pro-life” politics―rooted in reverence for our shared existence and regard for the earth we inhabit and must protect.
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Amazon