Articles by: Mary Woodbury

Aurora, Kim Stanley Robinson

A major new novel from one of science fiction’s most powerful voices, AURORA tells the incredible story of our first voyage beyond the solar system. Brilliantly imagined and beautifully told, it is the work of a writer at the height of his powers. Our voyage from Earth began generations ago. […]

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City of the Beasts, Isabel Allende

Fifteen-year-old Alexander Cold is about to join his fearless grandmother on the trip of a lifetime. An International Geographic expedition is headed to the dangerous, remote wilds of South America, on a mission to document the legendary Yeti of the Amazon known as the Beast. But there are many secrets […]

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Anthropocene Fictions: The Novel in a Time of Climate Change, Adam Trexler

Though this book is non-fiction, it might be one of the first to seriously study climate change novels. Publication date: April 20, 2015. Since the Industrial Revolution, humans have transformed the Earth’s atmosphere, committing our planet to more extreme weather, rising sea levels, melting polar ice caps, and mass extinction. […]

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Home to Woefield, Susan Juby

Prudence Burns, a failed writer living in Brooklyn (her young adult novel was poorly received because it was filled with earnest young people talking about global warming) inherits a ramshackle farm in Canada from an uncle she’s never met. -Goodreads review This wonderful book brings us to a farm on […]

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Interview with Jessica Groenendijk, “Words from the Wild”

Part VII. Women Working in Nature and the Arts Mary: Hi Jessica. Thanks so much for letting me interview you. I have been looking at your website, “Words from the Wild“, and see that you are not just a writer and photographer but a biologist turned conservationist. I’m intrigued by […]

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The Road, Cormac McCarthy

The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,” are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on […]

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The Kepler Code, Paul McKay

After global bee and butterfly populations crash, famines and pandemics divide the world into three rival political and military blocs. Each seek to create deadly viral missiles. Confronted by the malevolent Bounty Inc., a Nobel Prize scientist and a beautiful Brazilian biologist join a radical green underground headed by the […]

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Travels with Gannon and Wyatt, Patti Wheeler and Keith Hemstreet

From The New Orleans Advocate, author Patti Wheeler said: “I sort of decided at that moment 10 years ago that I wanted to create a book series. That was the pivotal moment: wildlife, community, cultural diversity, environment. It all came together.” In the tradition of the historic journals kept by […]

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The Jaguar’s Children, John Vaillant

While Valliant’s writing could fall in the “man vs. nature” category, he has said that he sees the need for a shift in our relationship with nature, “from a vertical one of dominance and submission to a horizontal one of co-collaborators.” And it’s this idea that connects his non-fiction to his novel. The Jaguar’s […]

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Interview with Don Bredes, Polly and the One and Only World

Meet author Don Bredes, whose debut novel Hard Feelings was named Best Book of the Year for Young Adults by the American Library Association. Bredes is back with another YA novel, Polly and the One and Only World, a fantasy apocalyptic novel ushering in a vision of a future world […]

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The River Between, Ngugi wa thiong’o

Christian missionaries attempt to outlaw the female circumcision ritual and in the process create a terrible rift between the two Kikuyu communities on either side of the river. Goodreads Reviews Back to Goodreads

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Adventures of the Sizzling Six: Monarch Mysteries, Claire Datnow

Thanks to Claire Datnow for writing to tell us about her YA series, The Adventures of the Sizzling Six: Monarch Mysteries. There are now eight volumes out in this series. Media Mint Publishing describes the series: In Monarch Mysteries, the cast of plucky teenage girls pit themselves against foolish neighbors […]

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Interview with Kris and Ashley, Hikers and Photographers

Part VI. Women Working in Nature and the Arts This week we have a discussion with Kris Anderegg and one of her best friends, Ashley O’Hara Skalsky. These two girls go back to age 11 when they met in southern California. I still remember that day! I decided to interview both […]

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Our Fair Eden, Harry Manners

Our Fair Eden is a near-future dystopian mystery, marrying technothriller with hard sci-fi against a background of climate change and spellbinding narrative. Goodreads Reviews Back to GoodReads

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Deep River Burning, Donelle Dreese

Denver Oakley’s home town of Adena, Pennsylvania has become a world on fire. The abandoned coal mines underneath the town are a blazing inferno, the escaping smoke and gases killing vegetation and making residents sick. Denver, who recently lost her parents, feels adrift and alone. She sells the family home, […]

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