12 Books for Lovers of the Planet
Cold lemonade, sunshine in the park, beach or balcony – and a good book. Sounds like an ideal summer afternoon, doesn’t it?! Summer is just the ideal time to read books! If you are a bookworm like me or simply want to broaden your mind about some important topics related to sustainability, this is the perfect book list for you. Here are 12 eco-themed books I love. Books that have inspired and challenged me, shaped my thoughts. And of course, provided me with enjoyable hours to drift far, far away…
1. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
Silent Spring was a ground-breaking book published in 1962 whose legacy, a global environmental movement, is still visible today. Rachel Carson, a biologist and conservationist, boldly pointed out the severe damage that pesticides were having on humans and the environment. At that time, the insecticide DDT was first introduced to agriculture, with no regards to its threats to humans (causing cancer) and birds (causing eggshell thinning and massive declines in bird populations). Silent Spring inspired a resistance to chemical companies and led to a global ban of DDT for agricultural use 10 years later. But beyond that, it inspired a whole new view on our impact on the environment that has shaped numerous generations ever since.
Naturalist David Attenborough has stated that Silent Spring was probably the book that had changed the scientific world the most, after the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. It is a classic of eco books that everyone with an interest in sustainability should read. Rachel Carson’s brilliant writing skills make it a truly enjoyable, sometimes shocking, but above all inspiring and timeless read. Because, while DDT and several other extremely hazardous pesticides have been banned in the past decades, alarming threats to our environment persist to this day. And it takes bold people like Rachel Carson to stand for a better, healthier and more sustainable world.
2. The world-ending fire by Wendell Berry
The world-ending fire is a collection of the most famous essays by Wendell Berry. A farmer, essayist and novelist, Wendell Berry has shaped the worldview of numerous people around world. In his essays, he explores how our modern way of life impacts he environment, especially through our often very unsustainable agriculture. But his are not mere words: as a farmer, he lives what he talks about. And this real-world experience can truly be felt in his writing. Always thought-provoking and grounding, he questions the lifestyle, economy and worldview that has led to a serious degradation of our planet. And he invites his readers to consider a “new kind of life… poorer in luxuries…., but also richer in meaning and more abundant in real pleasure.”
A definite must-read both for realists and dreamers wanting to build a sustainable future on the planet, as well as in their small, local environments. Because, as Wendell Berry famously remarked: “Eating is an agricultural act”. Since all of us have to eat, we can thereby change farming, change the environment and change the world – for the better. And in the process, we can rediscover for ourselves the true “pleasures of eating”.
3. Planetwise by Dave Bookless
Environmental issues from yet another perspective: ecology looked at through the lens of faith and the Bible! In Planetwise, theologian and conservationist Dave Bookless walks us through the story of the Bible and the way it relates to the environment.
‘I was in the act of throwing away my family’s rubbish while holidaying on a beautiful island when I heard God speak: “How do you think I feel about what you are doing to my world?”’
Since that day, Dave Bookless has been on a mission: to share with others the compelling biblical case for caring for the planet God made for his glory and his people’s enjoyment.
This is not another book on green issues to make you feel guilty. There is hope. God can take your small and insignificant efforts and multiply them in his great plan. Besides honouring him, living simply can be an exciting adventure.
4. God doesn’t do waste by Dave Bookless
In his second book, God doesn’t do waste, Dave Bookless tells his personal story, as well as the story of how A Rocha, the international Christian conservation organization, first came to the UK. When God challenged Dave Bookless over his attitude to the environment, he did a total rethink. This led to major changes, not only in his family’s lifestyle but also in his career: Dave and his wife Anne were the founders of A Rocha UK and Dave is now a Director in the UK team.
God doesn’t do waste is a story about the messiness that each human being wades through in every area of their lives, and about a God who can take all that seems most wasteful and useless, and recycle it into something of infinite worth.
5. Under the Bright Wings by Peter Harris
In 1983 British pastor Peter Harris along with his family went to Portugal to start a Christian field study centre. Back then, he had no idea what a huge impact this step would have later on.
In his book Under the Bright Wings, Peter Harris describes how out of a deep passion for the environment, and the wish to serve God in a place with little hope for people and ecosystems, the international organisation A Rocha developed. On this journey, he rediscovered some age-old biblical truths. The Bible frequently challenges Christians to take on responsibility for the creation entrusted to us. Out of the initial contradiction between the need to take care of people versus the environment, the puzzle-pieces suddenly fell into place for Harris.
With his distinctive British humour, but also with thoughtfulness, he narrates about the turbulent beginning years of his work in the Portuguese Algarve. There, he not only fell in love with the breathtakingly beautiful bird populations living there, but also with the village and its residents near their field study centre “Cruzinha”.
Along with his family and many others who came to join the team over the years, he lived what it means to act locally, to love one’s neighbours and fellow creatures and to discover God’s wonderful ways with us. On this journey, the Harris family experienced God’s guidance in surprising ways… read on here.
6. Kingfisher’s fire: A story of hope for God’s Earth by Peter Harris
The sequence to Under the Bright Wings, Kingfisher’s fire tells more stories of hope and encouragement. It recounts how A Rocha has spread from a small Portuguese organization into a global movement, getting people of faith from all across the world involved into action for a sustainable, hopeful planet. The story of A Rocha shows that seemingly tiny beginnings can grow into a global impact when people start to realize the intricate connection between faith, the environment, God’s story and our human stories.
Hope is often the missing element in the environmental story. Over the last quarter century A Rocha has been protecting and restoring threatened sites. Their engagement with local communities, bringing new life to urban and rural areas, has made a profound impact in many lives and places. Peter Harris delightfully blends his personal story with that of A Rocha, describing a passionately-held vision and how it has worked out in the life of his own family. Reading this book will definitely leave you inspired and hopeful!
7. Replenishing the Earth by Wangari Maathai
An impassioned call to heal the wounds of our planet and ourselves through the tenets of our spiritual traditions, from a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
It is so easy, in our modern world, to feel disconnected from the physical earth. Despite dire warnings and escalating concern over the state of our planet, many people feel out of touch with the natural world. Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai has spent decades working with the Green Belt Movement to help women in rural Kenya plant—and sustain—millions of trees. With their hands in the dirt, these women often find themselves empowered and “at home” in a way they never did before. Maathai wants to impart that feeling to everyone, and believes that the key lies in traditional spiritual values: love for the environment, self-betterment, gratitude and respect, and a commitment to service. While educated in the Christian tradition, Maathai draws inspiration from many faiths, celebrating the Jewish mandate tikkun olam (“repair the world”) and renewing the Japanese term mottainai (“don’t waste”). Through rededication to these values, she believes, we might finally bring about healing for ourselves and the earth.
8. Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The slow loss of foods we love by Simran Sethi
Food is one of the greatest pleasures of human life. Our response to sweet, salty, bitter, or sour is deeply personal, combining our individual biological characteristics, personal preferences, and emotional connections. Bread, Wine, Chocolate illuminates not only what it means to recognize the importance of the foods we love, but also what it means to lose them. Award-winning journalist Simran Sethi reveals how the foods we enjoy are endangered by genetic erosion—a slow and steady loss of diversity in what we grow and eat. Shockingly, 95% of the world’s calories now come from only thirty species. Though supermarkets seem to be stocked with endless options, the differences between products are superficial, primarily in flavor and brand.
Simran Sethi draws on interviews with scientists, farmers, chefs, vintners, beer brewers, coffee roasters and others with firsthand knowledge of our food to reveal the multiple and interconnected reasons for this loss, and its consequences for our health, traditions, and culture. She travels to Ethiopian coffee forests, British yeast culture labs, and Ecuadoran cocoa plantations collecting fascinating stories that will inspire readers to eat more consciously and purposefully, better understand familiar and new foods, and learn what it takes to save the tastes that connect us with the world around us.
9. L is for Lifestyle by Ruth Valerio
How can we live more responsibly? In this A-Z, Ruth Valerio highlights the main threats to people and our planet, God’s beloved creation. She shows us how, by making small but significant changes to our lifestyle, we can learn the secret of a life that is both fair and simple.
Scenario: you wake up and jump in the shower. The water is hot and the house warm. You eat breakfast: coffee made with water boiled in the kettle, and cereal with milk kept cool in the fridge. You throw out the foil trays from last night’s takeaway before jumping in the car and setting off for work.
You’ve done nothing unusual, but already your lifestyle choices – yes, choices – have had an impact on people and the environment across the world.
With warmth and honesty, Dr Ruth Valerio shares her personal journey as well as disturbing findings and deep concerns. It is her passion that we would all play our part in caring for the amazing earth that our God has so wisely and generously created.
10. Dirt to Soil by Gabe Brown
Gabe Brown didn’t set out to change the world when he first started working alongside his father-in-law on the family farm in North Dakota. But as a series of weather-related crop disasters put Brown and his wife, Shelly, in desperate financial straits, they started making bold changes to their farm. Brown―in an effort to simply survive―began experimenting with new practices he’d learned about from reading and talking with innovative researchers and ranchers. As he and his family struggled to keep the farm viable, they found themselves on an amazing journey into a new type of farming: regenerative agriculture.
Brown dropped the use of most of the herbicides, insecticides, and synthetic fertilizers that are a standard part of conventional agriculture. He switched to no-till planting, started planting diverse cover crops mixes, and changed his grazing practices. In so doing Brown transformed a degraded farm ecosystem into one full of life―starting with the soil and working his way up, one plant and one animal at a time.
In Dirt to Soil Gabe Brown tells the story of that amazing journey and offers a wealth of innovative solutions to our most pressing and complex contemporary agricultural challenge―restoring the soil.
For those who prefer listening over reading, here’s an interview with Gabe Brown on the Greendreamer Podcast.
11. Postcards from the Middle East by Chris Naylor
Newly married, Chris and Susanna Naylor set off for a new life in the Arab world – living first in Kuwait, then Jordan and finally Lebanon. In a region never far from the news (as we are just witnessing once again these days), they discovered their expectations – of war, terrorism, desert sand dunes, men in white robes and veiled women, camels and Kalashnikovs, indeed their own reasons for being there – were to be constantly challenged. As they found out, the reality bore little resemblance to their pre-conceptions. Postcards from the Middle East is a tale of love from one family’s experiences: a story of work, schooling, friendships, worship and shared family life, lived out in precious communities against a back drop of world-changing events and spectacular scenery. The Naylors had never experienced such hospitality, danger, wildlife spectacles or snow before they moved to the Middle East. Their story provides a multi-coloured window on an extraordinary and rapidly changing Arab world.
But even more than that, it tells the story of how Chris and Susanna Naylor founded the Christian environmental organization A Rocha in Lebanon. In an indeed challenging setting, involved young and old in an effort to conserve the wild beauty of their beloved country. A profoundly inspiring story, in which Chris Naylor’s love and care both for people and places can be felt at every page.
12. The Garden Jungle or Gardening to Save the Planet by Dave Goulson
The Garden Jungle is about the wildlife that lives right under our noses, in our gardens and parks, between the gaps in the pavement, and in the soil beneath our feet. Wherever you are right now, the chances are that there are worms, woodlice, centipedes, flies, silverfish, wasps, beetles, mice, shrews and much, much more, quietly living within just a few paces of you.
Biologist Dave Goulson gives us an insight into the fascinating and sometimes weird lives of these creatures. He takes us burrowing into the compost heap, digging under the lawn and diving into the garden pond. And he explains how our lives and ultimately the fate of humankind are inextricably intertwined with that of earwigs, bees, lacewings and hoverflies, unappreciated heroes of the natural world.
The Garden Jungle is at times an immensely serious book, exploring the environmental harm inadvertently done by gardeners who buy intensively reared plants in disposable plastic pots, sprayed with pesticides and grown in peat cut from the ground. Dave Goulson argues that gardens could become places where we can reconnect with nature and rediscover where food comes from. With just a few small changes, our gardens could become a vast network of tiny nature reserves. Places where humans and wildlife can thrive together in harmony rather than conflict.
I hope you find some new, interesting titles in this list. If you decide to read any of these books, I’d love to know what you think about them! Let us know in the comments. Wishing you lots of good books, ideas and conversations. And of course, some good coffee and cake. Enjoy your summer!
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