Earth Day Reading Compass: A Guide
Whether you’re looking to deepen your scientific understanding, find solace in nature’s beauty, or feel empowered to take action, the right book can be your map. This April, we’ve curated a guide to help you find your next great ‘green’ read, categorized by how you choose to see the world.
1. The Forest Bather
For the reader who wants to focus on solutions and cozy, sustainable futures.
2. The Gothic Thicket
For the reader who knows that nature isn't always nurturing—sometimes, it bites back.
3. The Cli-Fi Visionary
For the reader who wants to explore the what-ifs through a story.
Glass Bottom
by Sonali Prasad
‘Glass Bottom is a beautiful thing; subtle but powerful; prescient; written with great care and elegance and such sensitivity to the richness and strangeness of life’ Sara Baume, author of Seven Steeples and one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists 2023
‘Wondrous, mesmerizing and unique. Sonali Prasad has written a book that is both sensitive and vast—reaching far and wide and bringing it all back together’ Elvia Wilk, author of Death by Landscape
A luminous novel exploring the intricate web of human and natural transformations across time
The People in the Trees
by Hanya Yanagihara
‘The world Yanagihara conjures up, full of dark pockets of mystery, is magical.’ – The Times
‘Impossible to resist’ – Daily Mail
A strikingly original first novel, from the author of A Little Life.
4. The Deep Time Scientist
For the reader who wants the facts, the history, and the big picture.
Marginlands
by Arati Kumar-Rao
'Some of the best environmental writing I have read' – Amitav Ghosh
'Brilliant and evocative' – Pradip Krishen
'Luminously written' – Paul Salopek
'A book for the ages' – Ed Kashi
An environmentalist's journey through India's precious yet vulnerable landscapes.
A Billion Butterflies
by Jagadish Shukla
‘Shukla is a captivating storyteller, modest, funny, and warm. Readers will be thrilled to discover a new hero, a globally impactful scientist, educator, and humanitarian’ Booklist
‘An admirable and inspiring account from a pioneering figure in climate research’ Kirkus Reviews
‘A scintillating look at the rewards and pitfalls of dedicating one’s life to science’ Publishers Weekly
The true story of the Indian man who modernized monsoon prediction.
Empires of the Sea
by Radhika Seshan
An enthralling journey through 2,000 years of India’s steadfast relations with the seas.
The Indian Ocean world’s significance in human history is impossible to dismiss. The 1,000-odd kilometres of the subcontinent’s coastline – which underpinned some of the world’s greatest empires and shaped countless human lives – therefore make for the perfect dock from which to embark on a journey through the centuries for a vital reappraisal of India’s history.
The Garden Against Time
This isn’t a historical survey of gardening, much less a practical guide, so much as an inquiry into the idea of the garden — its history and poetics, its relationship to sex, imagination and power. Laing belongs in an as-yet-undefined and perhaps undefinable class of prose artists who blend feeling and analysis, speculation and research, wit and instruction as they track down the elusive patterns and inescapable contradictions of modern experience
New York Times
