5 Books about Climate Change

Plus, voting: Round 1 for our May Read With Me series

Our February book, Land of Milk and Honey was met with mixed reviews. Which is GREAT! This is what a book club should be: people coming together to share their varied opinions and I loved hearing all of them! People and their experiences are so different and unique, I expect reactions to books to be equally varied.

Land of Milk and Honey was a dystopic, literary work of fiction that dealt with climate change.

This week, I have five additional books to recommend that also explore climate change – some in overt ways and others, more subtly. These are by no means “read-alikes” to Land of Milk and Honey; they are each very different, but they do all take on our current climate crisis in varying ways. I’ve read them all, so if you want more info, just reach out and ask!

PAYING SUBSCRIBERS: please scroll all the way down to the bottom of this post where we will have our first of two voting rounds for our MAY READ WITH ME book! Voice your opinion!

1.  The Bee Sting by Paul Murray

It’s no secret that this book was my favorite read of 2023. Clocking in at 656 pages, this was the quickest “long” book I’ve ever read. It’s about four members of the Barnes family: mom, dad, teenage daughter, and son, all dealing with their own personal trials and tribulations, told from four different points of view. As in Hernan Diaz’s Trust, as the book progresses it dismantles / destabilizes what the reader believes to be certainties about each character, making it a gripping read. Climate change is in the background of this Irish novel.

Also written by Paul Murray, Skippy Dies, which I must read!

2.   Death Valley by Melissa Broder

This belongs in one of my “weird books” posts (stay tuned, another one is coming!) You may know Broder as the author of The Pisces, where a woman falls in love with a merman, soon to be a film. In Death Valley, the main character holes up in a motel in the desert to escape the fact that her father is in the ICU. On a hike, she enters a cactus (yes, you read that right) that offers solace, epiphanies and perhaps the closure she seeks. This is for readers who can suspend their disbelief. Need I remind you she enters a cactus? I LOVED it! And it’s a quick read. 240 pages

3.        The New Naturals by Gabriel Bump

This was a really interesting read about an underground “utopia” for African Americans seeking to escape society’s injustices. We get to know a variety of characters who join this sanctuary. The novel asks what happens when you put everything on the line for an idea that may or may not work out?  304 pages

4.        Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton

Written by a New Zealand author, Birnam Wood ultimately felt like The Bee Sting light. I don’t mean this as a dig. It’s about the convergence of a radical gardening collective and an Elon Musk type doomsday prepper fighting over a piece of land and the journalist threatening to uncover secrets. Lots of Shakespeare references (including the title – did you catch that one?) 432 pages.

5.        The Last Animal by Ramona Ausubel

I loved this book about a scientist and her two teenage daughters who trek to Siberia and uncover a four-thousand-year-old baby mammoth, which leads to a lot of ethical questions about science, as well as a beautiful meditation on family. This book is full of so much heart. 288 pages.

Bookies: It’s time for our first round of voting!! I’ve culled together a long list of books that I think would make great book club books – books that are multifaceted, that have a lot of meat on their bones (vegetarians, sorry for the metaphor.) I have not read these books, so I am going in blind and we can discover together. I wish there was a way on Substack for everyone to rank their votes, but I think you are only allowed to vote once. Feel free to comment if there’s a close second and I will take that into account when choosing two finalists to vote on next week! I’ve tried to tell you a little bit about each, but feel free to do your own research!