Contemporary

The Crows of Beara, Julie Christine Johnson

Beautifully crafted with environmental themes, a lyrical Irish setting, and a touch of magical realism, The Crows of Beara is a breathtaking novel of how the nature of place encompasses everything that we are. Goodreads Reviews Back to Goodreads

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Salvage the Bones, Jesmyn Ward

“Salvage the Bones” expands our understanding of Katrina’s devastation, beyond the pictures of choked rooftops in New Orleans and toward the washed-out, feral landscapes elsewhere along the coast. Ward’s regionalism, grounded in rurality and in poverty, gives us the images—often beautiful, always barely hiding danger—that recur throughout her books: shushing […]

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My Absolute Darling, Gabriel Tallent

Booksellers have chosen Gabriel Tallent’s harrowing debut novel, My Absolute Darling (Riverhead Books), as the number-one September Indie Next List pick…This is a Great American Novel. Exquisitely lush language of the natural world; startlingly vivid characters; a global understanding of social context, in a particular place; and, in this case, […]

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Whipbird, Robert Drewe

In Whipbird, Robert Drewe pulls no punches. Nothing is sacred as he takes on the mining boom and conservationists; everyone from investment bankers and real-estate agents to sea-changers and tree-changers, vegans and paleo practitioners, First World smugness, global warming, retirement, divorce, death, sudoko and artisan brewers. And the nonchalant disrespect […]

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The Erenwine Agenda, Maia Kumari Bree Chowdhury

Amalia Erenwine—an environmental activist working in New York City as an architectural intern—takes on the natural gas industry in this visionary eco-fiction book by Maia Kumari Gilman. Amalia rails against the underwriting of her employer’s work by a natural gas company involved with fracking. She clashes with the gas company’s […]

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South Pole Station, Ashley Shelby

Ashley Shelby’s debut novel, South Pole Station, takes readers to the bottom of the earth for a wry, multi-layered story that tightly packs art, science, polar history, climate change, politics, humor, and human relationships into a vivid tale of courage and redemption. -Jacki Skole, EcoLit Books A winning comedy of […]

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Beast, Paul Kingsnorth

Come to a place like this . . . and you will understand soon enough that this world is a great animal, alive and breathing. Goodreads Reviews Back to GoodReads

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pH: a Novel, Nancy Lord

Coming September 2017: Nancy Lord is an entrancing naturalist writer and a captivating storyteller whose factual knowledge of her beloved Alaska is impeccable. So fascinating to see how she weaves a fictional tale to remind us of the ecological and cultural issues we face on this planet. –Jean-Michel Cousteau, Founder […]

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The Coyote Hunter of Aquidneck Island, James Conroy

James Conroy, a popular novelist, moved to Newport in the summer of 2010. The coyote issue was getting notice, sporadically, in the local press. This month, with the publication of “The Coyote Hunter of Aquidneck Island,” Conroy’s fictionalized account of Middletown’s solution to the dilemma may get some press attention […]

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Fragment, Craig Russell

When avalanching glaciers thrust a massive Antarctic ice sheet into the open ocean, the captain of an atomic submarine must risk his vessel to rescue the survivors of a smashed polar research station; in Washington the President’s top advisor scrambles to spin the disaster to suit his master’s political aims; […]

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The Sunken Cathedral, Kate Walbert

From the National Book Award nominee and author of the acclaimed, New York Times bestselling A Short History of Women, a deeply moving, “lyrical, ominous, and unexpectedly funny” (Tom Perrotta, author of The Leftovers) novel that follows a cast of characters as they negotiate one of Manhattan’s swiftly changing neighborhoods, […]

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Oink. A Food for Thought Mystery, JL Newton

Thanks to the author, who told me that her new novel “engages with many environmental themes and tries to enlarge the meaning of ‘deep ecology.’” More from JL Newton My novel, Oink. A Food for Thought Mystery, is a sly send up of universities in general for their ever increasing […]

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The Beach House, Mary Alice Monroe

Though this eco-fiction novel was published in 2006, according to Home Town Station, Mary Alice Monroe’s novel The Beach House will be adapted into a Hallmark Channel Original Movie, starring three-time Golden Globe nominee Andie MacDowell and premiering exclusively on the network in 2017. Monroe’s novel The Butterfly’s Daughter also won […]

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Orkney, Amy Sackville

Orkney, the second novel from young British writer Amy Sackville, is certainly evocative: poetic, lyrical, lush in texture. But while this is its strength, the line between beautifully written and over-written is a fine one. –The Independent This is lovely: a beautifully painted story of love, obsession and loss, set […]

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Clay, Melissa Harrison

An interesting novel about loneliness and our disconnection from nature. It centres on a run down city park and four main characters whose lives intersect through their use of the park. -Goodreads (Catherine, reviewer) Goodreads Reviews Back to Goodreads

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