Contemporary

High Clear Bell of Morning, Ann Eriksson

Elegantly told and affecting, High Clear Bell of Morning illustrates the strain on families facing mental illnesses, and draws attention to the inadequate system that is meant to help. At the same time, it celebrates the natural world and sends a cautionary warning of what we all have to lose. […]

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Falling from Grace, Ann Eriksson

Faye Pearson is a three-and-a-half-foot tall female scientist doing entomological research in the tallest trees on Vancouver Island, who is pit with a ragtag group of protesters against the might of a multinational logging corporation. Goodreads Reviews Back to GoodReads

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Gray Mountain, John Grisham

Her new job takes Samantha into the murky and dangerous world of coal mining, where laws are often broken, rules are ignored, regulations are flouted, communities are divided, and the land itself is under attack from Big Coal. Violence is always just around the corner, and within weeks Samantha finds […]

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Agam, Various Authors

Thanks very much to Red Constantino, from the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities–publisher of the new book Agam: Filipino Narratives on Uncertainty and Climate Change–for permissions to excerpt the cover and other information about the book, and for providing assistance in finding out more about this amazing title. Blockquotes […]

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The Wallcreeper, Nell Zink

This is strange, and interesting, but in between is some writing about marriage, love, fidelity, Europe, and saving the earth that is as funny and as grown-up as anything I’ve read in years. -Keith Gessen See FlavorWire for more. Goodreads Reviews Back to GoodReads

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Polly and the One and Only World, Don Bredes

Thanks to author Don Bredes for joining our community discussion group and letting us know about his upcoming YA climate novel. Don Bredes’s new young adult (YA) fantasy is called “Polly and the One and Only World.” Don’s first novel, “Hard Feelings,” was an American Library Association Best Book for […]

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Michael Rothenberg’s Punk Rockwell, Review by Mary Woodbury

Punk Rockwell, by Michael Rothenberg. Review by Mary Woodbury. According to Punk Rockwell‘s narrator Jeffrey Dagovich, poetry takes more than a lifetime to write. Dagovich is a poet (he announces at the beginning of the book), not a novelist. So why is he writing a novel? Slowly, it’s revealed that […]

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Prodigal Summer, Barbara Kingsolver

Prodigal Summer weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives inhabiting the forested mountains and struggling small farms of southern Appalachia. Over the course of one humid summer, these characters find their connections to one another and to the flora and fauna with whom they […]

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Winter Damage, Natasha Carthew

On a frozen Cornish moor, a fourteen-year-old girl lives in a trailer with her dad and little brother. Ennor’s mother left years ago, when things started to go wrong – and gradually their world has fallen apart. Now her father’s gravely ill, school has closed, and Ennor knows they’re going […]

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Flight Behavior, Barbara Kingsolver

On the Appalachian Mountains above her home, a young mother discovers a beautiful and terrible marvel of nature. As the world around her is suddenly transformed by a seeming miracle, can the old certainties they have lived by for centuries remain unchallenged? Flight Behaviour is a captivating, topical and deeply […]

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Freaking Green, Laura F. Sanchez

Jasmine Hayward’s dreams for her junior year focus on guys, friends and landing the lead roles in her high school’s plays. Then Jasmine’s cashed-strapped family is forced to cut their carbon footprint by 80 percent to win $5 million. Suddenly everything Jasmine does, from getting to school to making a […]

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