Cave Walker, Donelle Dreese

My hope is that Cave Walker fits into contemporary eco-fiction in the sense that nature occupies a central space in the novel almost at all times. The Maine woods through which Gillian hikes to reach the holy cave is a character. Each cave is a distinct character. Even when Gillian […]

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Where the Forest Meets the Stars, Glendy Vanderah

After the loss of her mother and her own battle with breast cancer, Joanna Teale returns to her graduate research on nesting birds in rural Illinois, determined to prove that her recent hardships have not broken her. She throws herself into her work from dusk to dawn, until her solitary […]

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Great American Desert: Stories, Terese Svoboda

Preorder at The Ohio State University Press Svoboda (Anything That Burns You: A Portrait of Lola Ridge, Radical Poet, 2016, etc.) returns to her art’s quintessential landscape to relate the overlapping epochs of the great American desert…A challenging author’s take on the most challenging of subjects—the survival of our species […]

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Tentacle, Rita Indiana

Rita Indiana’s Tentacle (originally published in Spanish as La mucama de Omicunlé) is a speculative text that has as much to say about the future as it does about the present. While the novel is set in the Dominican Republic in the year 2037, it is as much a commentary on the […]

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Compass Rose, Anna Burke

Click here to return to the series This month I spotlight Anna Burke and her novel Compass Rose (Bywater Books, 2018), a dystopian high-seas adventure that examines climate refugees, hanging ocean ecosystems, and ways  humanity might adapt to rising, warmer oceans while also following the protagonist as she comes of […]

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A Jenny Willson Mystery Series, Dave Butler

The first in Butler’s series of novels – Full Curl – was short-listed for the Kobo Emerging Writers Award in the mystery category, and won the coveted Arthur Ellis Award (Crime Writers of Canada) for Best First Crime Novel in Canada in 2018. No Place for Wolverines, which was named […]

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The Dreamers, Karen Thompson Walker

Walker’s first novel tapped neatly into our fears about the melting of the permafrost. Global warming has a role to play in “The Dreamers,” too. There is drought in California, and the book’s fictional college sits by a lake that’s evaporating. Sunken boats and other ancient items emerge from the […]

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All Among the Barley, Melissa Harrison

All Among the Barley works best in its intensely-researched descriptions of farming: although prone to words like “Cerulean”, “soughing” and “susurrate”, they bring to poetic life the hard-won knowledge needed to determine when a crop is ripe. The drama of harvest is gripping: temperamental barley can be ruined by a […]

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The Wall, John Lanchester

The novel expertly touches on the most pressing issues of our time – migration, political unrest and climate change – and acts as a warning for what could come. –The Standard UK Goodreads Reviews Back to GoodReads

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Climate Change Author Spotlight – James Bradley

Back to the series I continue my spotlight focus this year on authors whose novels are aimed toward a young adult and/or teen audience. These books might be interesting to teachers looking for titles that their students can read and discuss together; the storytelling about climate change is not entirely […]

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Beneath the Mother Tree

Author: © D. M. Cameron Publisher: MidnightSun Publishing Ordering: Amazon Publication Date: August 1, 2018 Social Media: Author blog, Facebook, Goodreads Back to the Dragonfly Library Even though the island of Moondarrawah is fictitious, this story takes place within the landscape of Quandamooka country. Moondarrawah is a Ngugi word granted […]

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Code Zero

The following are excerpts of Tom Hibbard’s Schizpo Code Zero: The Economics of Ambiguity and Creation of Value Back to the Dragonfly Library Forborne Photo (One) abstract open-axiom inquiry accelerates wages’ ritual descent amidst the scattered wastes of exclusion already formed as obsolescence in misused praxis cynicism appears as practicality […]

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Red Wolf, Paint, and Hawk – Jennifer Dance

Click here to return to the series Today we travel to North America to look at historical and modern Canada, and the environmental, social, and economic cruelty and injustice befallen to its people and land. I talk with Jennifer Dance, author of Red Wolf, Paint, Hawk, and the play Dandelions […]

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Beneath the Mother Tree, D.M. Cameron

A spine-chilling mystery and contemporary love story, Beneath the Mother Tree plays out in a unique and wild Australian setting, interweaving Indigenous history and Irish mythology…On a small island, something sinister is at play. Resident alcoholic Grappa believes it’s the Far Dorocha, dark servant of the Faery queen, whose seductive […]

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Crudo: A Novel, Olivia Laing

Paste Magazine calls Laing’s Crudo one of the best novels in 2018 and states: Crudo centers on Kathy, who has just turned 40 and is soon getting married, as she navigates her own changing life against the backdrop of Brexit, the Trump residency, the migrant crisis, climate change and the […]

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