In the near future, the ravages of a warming planet have worsened, driving a new era of climate refugees. Rohini Haakonsen, a young Indian-American woman, attends a UN conference on the problem when humanoid aliens materialize. Known as the Elders, the aliens present themselves as benign, even offering to help […]
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The Books of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the timeless and beloved A Wizard of Earthsea —“…reads like the retelling of a tale first told centuries ago,” (David Mitchell)—comes this complete omnibus edition of the entire Earthsea chronicles, including over fifty illustrations illuminating Le Guin’s vision of her classic saga. Goodreads Reviews Back […]
Read MoreNo Place for Wolverines, Dave Butler
When Park Warden Jenny Willson initiates a covert inquiry into a proposed ski hill in Yoho National Park, she’s quickly drawn into a web of political, environmental, and criminal intrigue that threatens to tear apart a small B.C. town. Suddenly, neighbour is pitted against neighbour, friend against friend, and family […]
Read MoreWhere the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens
Perfect for fans of Barbara Kingsolver and Karen Russell, Where the Crawdads Sing is at once an exquisite ode to the natural world, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a surprising tale of possible murder. Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that […]
Read MoreDjinn City, Saad Hossain
Indelbed is a lonely kid living in a crumbling mansion in the super dense, super chaotic third world capital of Bangladesh. When he learns that his dead mother was a djinn — more commonly known as a genie — and that his drunken loutish father is a sitting emissary to […]
Read MoreThe Baron in the Trees, Italo Calvino
Now here’s a classic that truly belongs in the collection at this site (originally published in 1957). Cosimo, a young eighteenth-century Italian nobleman, rebels by climbing into the trees to remain there for the rest of his life. He adapts efficiently to an arboreal existence and even has love affairs. […]
Read MoreThe Summer Book, Tove Jansson
An elderly artist and her six-year-old granddaughter while away a summer together on a tiny island in the gulf of Finland. Gradually, the two learn to adjust to each other’s fears, whims and yearnings for independence, and a fierce yet understated love emerges – one that encompasses not only the […]
Read MoreShadow Country Trilogy, Peter Matthiessen
Inspired by a near-mythic event of the wild Florida frontier at the turn of the twentieth century, Shadow Country reimagines the legend of the inspired Everglades sugar planter and notorious outlaw E. J. Watson, who drives himself relentlessly toward his own violent end at the hands of neighbors who mostly […]
Read MoreThe Shell Collector, Anthony Doerr
See more at Flavorwire. The exquisitely crafted stories in Anthony Doerr’s acclaimed debut collection take readers from the African coast to the pine forests of Montana to the damp moors of Lapland, charting a vast physical and emotional landscape. -Goodreads Goodreads Review Back to GoodReads
Read MoreWhen the English Fall, David Williams
Staying with the apocalyptic, David Williams’ When The English Fall is a quirky addition to the growing volume of novels that imagine the repercussions of climate change. A freak solar storm knocks out the power grid — the only community prepared to handle life without phones, petrol and electricity are […]
Read MoreThe Woolsack Family Series, Kent Wascom
Click here for information on the series. The New Inheritors is the most recent (#3) book. Kent Wascom is one of the most exciting and ambitious emerging voices in American fiction. Envisaging a quartet of books telling the story of America through a single family and region, the Gulf Coast […]
Read MoreA Scientific Romance, Ronald Wright
Ronald Wright’s A Scientific Romance haunts me. A terrifying vision of the future that our current environmental negligence is galloping us toward, wrapped up in a Wellsian time travel story told with humour and pathos. Shades of Steinbeck, reminiscent of Kay, with the odd one-eyed troll. So well done. –The […]
Read MoreThe Last Gasp, Trevor Hoyle
A large, dense, frightening novel from the UK author of This Sentient Earth. In 1990 the ocean’s oxygen-producing plankton are dying from pollution. Maverick oceanographer Theo Detrick predicts a disastrous drop in the air’s oxygen content within 20 years. Nobody believes him. Polluter-industrialist J.E. Gelstrom is furiously empire-building. The US/USSR […]
Read MoreDry Souls Series, Denise Getson
Kira has never listened to the rain on the roof, swum in a lake or seen a cloud. All of those things need water, and in Kira’s world nearly all of the water has disappeared due to the ecological disasters created generations earlier. What remains is strictly rationed by the […]
Read MoreFlames, Robbie Arnott
Perspective is handled deftly by the author. As Arnott moves from fisherman Karl and his dome-headed seal, to the gin-swilling private detective, to the police sergeant being ruthlessly divorced by his wife, we are confronted by characters that are in equal measure, tough and beautiful. And importantly, Jack McAllister becomes […]
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