The Imagine Climate project from CORE, or the Community Office for Resource Efficiency, brings together art and science to inspire climate action. This year, the month-long event includes literature, too: ten books called "The Reading List for a Warming World" that look at different aspects of climate change, from rising oceans to disappearing species.
Aspen Words selected the titles. Senior program associate Elizabeth Nix said stories have an important role in personalizing climate change.
"Writers help sound the alarm," she said, "and certainly they bring complex issues to life through characters and dialogue."
Nix said it was important to include both fiction and nonfiction.
"We wanted a variety of books that would offer something for everyone," she said.
The list includes two Pulitzer prize winners: “The Overstory,” Richard Powers’ novel about trees, as well as Elizabeth Kolbert's nonfiction book “The Sixth Extinction” about species that are disappearing around the world due to climate change.
The Reading List for a Warming World:
Fiction titles
- The Overstory by Richard Powers
- Clade by James Bradley
- Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver
- The End We Start From by Megan Hunter
- New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson.
Nonfiction titles
- The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert
- Rising by Elizabeth Rush
- Climate Justice by Mary Robinson
- The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben
- Adventures in the Anthropocene by Gaia Vince