In the days immediately prior to the UN Climate Change Conference (Cop26), which kicks off this Sunday, Inger Andersen, executive director of the UN Environment Programme said: “Climate change is no longer a future problem. It is a now problem.”
Increasingly, warnings such as Andersen’s are making their way into the books – fiction and non-fiction; countless award-winning, bestselling titles released this year have the climate crisis at their heart, from those on the Booker Prize shortlist to Pulitzer Prize winners.
In light of this, we’ve compiled a Cop26-inspired reading list – a selection of books from 2021 that are not intended to scare or depress, but to energise and entertain; a selection of books that find hope in the intelligence of humanity and the resilience of our natural world.
‘The Nutmeg’s Curse’ and ‘Jungle Nama’ by Amitav Ghosh
Booker-shortlisted writer Amitav Ghosh is widely credited for kick-starting the literary response to the climate crisis with his groundbreaking 2016 book The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. So it feels apt that he has two books out to coincide with Cop26. The Nutmeg’s Curse is subtitled Parables for a Planet in Crisis, and Ghosh travels back to the 17th century to explain why the climate emergency has its roots in rapacious colonialism – and the misguided belief that nature only exists as a resource for humans to use.
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Jungle Nama, meanwhile, is a lovely, illustrated retelling of a famous Bengali poem set in the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest. Like The Nutmeg’s Curse, it asks us to consider balancing the needs of humans and nature. The Cop26 delegates should all be given a copy.
‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’ by Antony Doerr
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In September, we highlighted Richard Powers’ brilliant Bewilderment as one of our books…