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Books inspired and continue to fuel the environmental movement, from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and to today’s frontline writers, including David Gessner, Bill McKibben, Frances Moore Lappé, Carl Safina, Terry Tempest Williams, and many more. Consequently, The Orion Book Award honors environmental writing. The finalists have been announced on the eve [...]

It’s been a year–a very, very rough year in many, many ways, since the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 men, injured 17 others, and resulted in millions of gallons of oil geysering into the sea over the course of a 3-month tragicomedy of corporate error and outrages. We’ve [...]

Ted Danson spoke about his ocean activism at ALA’s Midwinter conference in San Diego, and now he’s making the media rounds to talk about his smart and beautifully produced book about the state of the oceans, Oceana, reviewed in Booklist‘s Spotlight on the Environment in the March 1 issue. This is no passing moment of [...]

It was a thrill to speak with Richard Louv about his new book, The Nature Principle, which builds on the findings he reported in the seminal Last Child in the Woods. Our conversation led to a Story behind the Story. I asked Richard about the role libraries can play in encouraging children and adults to spend [...]

William Stanley Merwin’s poems are fully meshed in nature, and he lives his passion for the verdant world in Hawaii, where he cultivates endangered plants. The profound connection between green entities and the poet is indicated in the title of the first collection of Merwin’s I reviewed, Flower & Hand. This launched my apprenticeship to this exemplary observer of [...]

It’s now by turns a grim and darkly ludicrous part of our daily routine: monitoring the oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, or the Gulf of Oil, as various fundits and pundits have it. Amid all the desperate and, if it wasn’t so horrific, absurd attempts to stop the undersea gusher, I’ve been thinking about [...]

April brings Earth Day and The Orion Book Award .  Established in 2007, the award celebrates books “that deepen our connection to the natural world, present new ideas about our relationship with nature, and achieve excellence in writing.” I served as chair of the selection committee last year, and had I served this year, I would have nominated several of [...]

News reports claim that most Americans are not worried about or even interested in hearing about climate change. It ranks last on the list of  things that keep us up at night, long after job fears and money woes. But the truth is, everything is connected. Answers to financial crises are found in new green industries and [...]

Reading Edward Humes’ Eco Barons delivered many revelations, and many more discoveries ensued when I had the pleasure of speaking with Humes for our Story behind the Story. Humes continues his green inquiry on his Eco Barons blog, and I’m still mulling it all over.  One bit of information that didn’t make it into either the review or [...]

Early this week, we posted the short list for the Orion Book Award. It is now my true pleasure to announce the winner: Trespass: Living at the Edge of the Promised Land by Amy Irvine. As you can see from the starred Booklist review, Irvine’s passionate book does what the best of green books must do, weave [...]