10 Must Read Books About Climate Change

Climate Change is daunting, I know, and in many ways it’s wider reaching and longer lasting than we can comprehend, like thinking about the distance between stars. And while reading is sometimes about escape, it’s also about confronting reality. Here’s a selection of books — both fiction and non-fiction — to help you tackle the climate crisis.

Top Recommendation

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster by Bill Gates

If you only read one of these books, make it How to Avoid a Climate Disaster by Bill Gates. Yes Bill Gates, the Microsoft guy, and I too entered the book scoffing, thinking about how rich it was to have one of the most powerful men in the world telling me what to do, but I was quickly won over. The book is simply written, engaging, and offers measured solutions to climate change. If you're the kind of person that rolls their eyes at the ‘capitalism must fall to save the environment,’ this book will be for you.

Bonus recommendation: If you just can’t stomach reading something by Bill Gates, read Kerry Emanuel’s What We Know About Climate Change it’s a thin, excellent introduction to climate change, written by a climate scientist.

The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert

On the complete other end of the tonal spectrum is The Sixth Extinction. If you thought Bill Gates spoke about the Climate Disaster with not enough urgency, this one might just keep you up at night.

The World Without Us Alan Weisman

This is another scary one, I warn you. What would the world look like without humans? Spoiler: a lot better.

Fiction Recommendations

My top Fiction Recommendation is Richard Power’s The Overstory. Even without the save the trees and climate change stuff, it’s just a good book. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Give it a read.

• James Bradley's Clade

• Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Water Knife

• Margaret Atwood's The Madadam Trilogy

• Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behaviour

I'm cheating for number ten, sorry. It's a short story recommendation: Diary of a Bad Year by Helen Simpson (Warning: this is a depressing one)