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All the Beauty in the World
Patrick Bringley spent ten years working as a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. All the Beauty in the World is a wonderful memoir of that time. It’s about art, of course, and about grief and joy and how art reflects them back to us.
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The War Below
The clean energy transition is forcing countries and communities to make very difficult choices. Weaning ourselves off fossil fuels means we need huge quantities of raw materials: lithium, cobalt, copper, nickel, aluminum and other critical minerals. The War Below explores the conflicts around mining for the materials we need to…
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A Sand County Almanac
Aldo Leopold was one of the founders of the modern environmental movement. His book A Sand County Almanac, written 75 years ago, is a key source of many pivotal concepts about ecology and the environment, especially his idea of the “land ethic.” It’s still worth reading today.
Continue readingThe Strongman Fantasy
Lots of people like the idea of “strong” leaders, leaders who are decisive, who aren’t afraid to “blow things up” including even democracy itself. But as historian Timothy Snyder writes in a recent article, the idea of the strongman leader is a dangerous fantasy.
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The Worlds I See
Dr. Fei-Fei Li may not be a household name, but for over twenty years she’s been a driving force behind the advancement of artificial intelligence, particularly computer vision and deep learning. Her book, The Worlds I See, is both a personal memoir and a history of AI.
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What an Owl Knows
Humans have always been fascinated by owls. Some people see them as symbols of knowledge and wisdom, others as omens of death. In What an Owl Knows, Jennifer Ackerman surveys the latest research about these enigmatic birds, the scientists who study them, and the ways we humans relate to them.
Continue readingA century of reforestation is cooling the eastern US
New research shows that reforestation in the eastern United States has contributed to significant cooling of the region, countering the warming trends of climate change.
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Democracy in a Hotter Time
Democracy in a Hotter Time is a collection of essays about the relationship between climate change and democracy. The contributors do a good job diagnosing democracy’s problems dealing with the “long emergency” of climate change, but few propose practical solutions. I was disappointed by this book.
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Not the End of the World
Not the End of the World is a powerful antidote to climate doom-ism. Hannah Ritchie shows how our situation today, awful as it is, is still far better than the past. And she points to solutions that could make the future even better.
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The Rights of Nature
In 2017, New Zealand’s Parliament passed a law granting legal personhood to the Whanganui River. Granting legal rights and personhood to nature might seem crazy at first. But David Boyd explains in this book that extending rights to non-humans isn’t so strange after all, and could help save the planet.
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The Creative Act: A Way of Being
The Creative Act is an unconventional book, a collection of short reflections gleaned from Rick Rubin’s career as a nine-time GRAMMY award-winning music producer.
It offers insight into being an artist/creator and inspiration to do artistic, creative work. The key is being open to the creative energy of the Universe.…
Continue readingA Peek at Peaking
It’s official: 2023 was the hottest year on record. Yet the IEA predicts the world will reach peak carbon emissions before the end of this decade. Can both be true at the same time?
Here’s an infographic exploring the relationship between annual CO2 emissions, atmospheric CO2 concentration and global temperatures.…
Continue reading2023 Reading Wrap-Up
Here’s a quick recap of the books I read in 2023. I read 27 books last year. That’s consistent with my pace for the past couple of years. I’m impressed by the truly prodigious tallies racked up by other readers I know! All but one of these were nonfiction, with…
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Unwinding Anxiety
Judson Brewer says anxiety is a habit, a learned behavior. In Unwinding Anxiety he presents a helpful framework for dealing with anxiety centered on hacking your brain’s reward system to reduce or eliminate it.
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Five Times Faster
We’re not on track to meet the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels by 2050. While there has been some progress, it hasn’t been nearly fast enough. In the last two decades, the amount of greenhouse gas emissions for each dollar of gross domestic…
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COP28 Wrap-up: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
They went into overtime at COP28, but delegates to the UN climate conference in Dubai emerged on the morning of December 13, 2023 with a unanimous agreement signed by nearly 200 countries. Here’s my summary. (For background on COP28, please see this COP28 Explainer.) The Good Transitioning away from fossil…
Continue readingWhat’s happening at COP28?
Halfway through COP28, here’s a roundup of some of the key developments and announcements coming out of the conference. COP28 is the annual UN climate conference happening this year in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. For background on the conference, please see this COP28 Explainer. Attendance A record 84,000 people are…
Continue readingNonfiction November 2023 Week 5: New To My TBR
It’s time to wrap up Nonfiction November for another year. Lisa @ Hopewell’s Public Library of Life is hosting. “It’s been a month full of amazing nonfiction books! Which ones have made it onto your TBR? Be sure to link back to the original blogger who posted about that book!” Last…
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Water Always Wins
Climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of both flooding and drought all over the world. Erica Gies thinks our modern obsession with controlling water has made things worse. In her book Water Always Wins: Thriving in an Age of Drought and Deluge, she says water could actually help…
Continue readingNonfiction November 2023 Week 4: Worldview Shapers
It’s Week 4 of Nonfiction November and Rebekah @ She Seeks Nonfiction is hosting. The topic is worldview shapers: “One of the greatest things about reading nonfiction is learning all kinds of things about our world which you never would have known without it. There’s the intriguing, the beautiful, the appalling,…
Continue readingCOP28 Explainer
After a year of record-shattering heat waves, floods and forest fires, world leaders will gather in Dubai, United Arab Emirates from November 30 to December 12, 2023, for COP28, the most important annual international conference on climate change. Climate change has been called the “long emergency” and we all have…
Continue readingNonfiction November 2023 Week 3: Book Pairings
Liz @ Adventures in reading, running and working from home is hosting Week 3 of Nonfiction November. The topic is book pairings: “This week, pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title. Maybe it’s a historical novel and the real history in a nonfiction version, or a memoir and…
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The Nutmeg’s Curse
Trading rare and exotic spices has been a powerful force in history and economics for many centuries. Nutmeg is no exception. In the early 1600’s, the Dutch East India Company, known by its Dutch initials VOC, formed as the world’s first joint-stock company and was granted a monopoly by the…
Continue readingNonfiction November 2023 Week 2: Choosing Nonfiction
Week 2 of Nonfiction November 2023 is hosted by Frances @ Volatile Rune. The topic is: What are you looking for when you pick up a nonfiction book? Do you have a particular topic you’re attracted to? Do you have a particular writing style that works best? When you look…
Continue readingNonfiction November 2023 Week 1: Your Year in Nonfiction
I’m delighted to be taking part in this year’s Nonfiction November, an annual celebration by and for nonfiction book bloggers. Week 1 is hosted by Heather @ Based on a True Story. The writing prompt is: Celebrate your year of nonfiction. What books have you read? What were your favorites? Have…
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