Libro.fm Picks: For the Environmentalist

The High Sierra

A Love Story

By: Kim Stanley Robinson
Narrated by: Kim Stanley Robinson
Length: 16 hours 30 minutes

A “sublime” and “radically original” exploration of the Sierra Nevadas, the best mountains on Earth for hiking and camping, from New York Times bestselling novelist Kim Stanley Robinson (—Bill McKibben, Gary Snyder).
 
Kim Stanley Robinson first ventured into the Sierra Nevada mountains during the summer of 1973. He returned from that encounter a... Read more

Consumed

The Need for Collective Change: Colonialism, Climate Change, and Consumerism

By: Aja Barber
Narrated by: Aja Barber
Length: 8 hours 17 minutes

“Consumed is an accessible, exceedingly readable introduction to the problem of consumerism and the fashion industry's contribution to the climate crisis, racial injustice, and poverty in the global south. If you have done any reading on intersectional environmentalism, many of the issues discussed here won't be new to you, but we could all stand... Read more

How Far the Light Reaches

A Life in Ten Sea Creatures

By: Sabrina Imbler
Narrated by: Sabrina Imbler
Length: 5 hours 40 minutes

“Imbler’s full-length debut is as much about their personal evolution as a queer, mixed race writer as it is an exploration of the deep sea creatures whose eccentricities inspire them. Imbler's tender approach and tactile prose toggles between expansive aquatic research and personal experiences, expanding the portrait of our world as we know it... Read more

Unearthed

On race and roots, and how the soil taught me I belong

By: Claire Ratinon
Narrated by: Claire Ratinon
Length: 7 hours 32 minutes

Brought to you by Penguin.

"When we speak of our origins, that which made us, we speak of our roots. We acknowledge how our identities are intertwined with land, whether it's the one we are standing on or another we lay claim to."

Unearthed is the story of how Claire Ratinon found belonging through falling in love with growing plants. For years... Read more

The Intersectional Environmentalist

How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet

By: Leah Thomas
Narrated by: Leah Thomas, Hayden Bishop & Erin Walker
Length: 4 hours 1 minute

From the activist who coined the term comes a primer on intersectional environmentalism for the next generation of activists looking to create meaningful, inclusive, and sustainable change. The Intersectional Environmentalist examines the inextricable link between environmentalism, racism, and privilege, and promotes awareness of the fundamental... Read more

Entangled Life

How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures

By: Merlin Sheldrake
Narrated by: Merlin Sheldrake
Length: 9 hours 32 minutes

“An ecological, fungi-based restructuring of your world view given to us as only a brilliant biologist could offer. Sheldrake says, 'Without this fungal web my tree would not exist. Without [...] fungal webs no plant would exist anywhere. All life on land, including my own, depends on these networks.' Read more

Better Living Through Birding

Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World

By: Christian Cooper
Narrated by: Christian Cooper
Length: 10 hours 25 minutes

Central Park birder Christian Cooper takes us beyond the viral video that shocked a nation and into a world of avian adventures, global excursions, and the unexpected lessons you can learn from a life spent looking up.

"Wondrous . . . captivating.”—Ed Yong, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of An Immense World

Christian Cooper is a self-described... Read more

Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet

By: Thich Nhat Hanh
Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini & True Dedication
Length: 9 hours 19 minutes

“When you wake up and you see that the Earth is not just the environment, the Earth is us, you touch the nature of interbeing. And at that moment you can have real communication with the Earth… We have to wake up together. And if we wake up together, then we have a chance. Our way of living our life and planning our future has led us into this... Read more

Of Time and Turtles

Mending the World, Shell by Shattered Shell

By: Sy Montgomery
Narrated by: Sy Montgomery
Length: 10 hours 33 minutes

“Some indigenous people believe the earth is a turtle. It's also a totem for unity. Sy Montgomery tenderly invites us to learn more and "slip into turtle time" in one of the best new nature books of the year. Beautifully written and well researched! Read more

This Is Your Mind on Plants

By: Michael Pollan
Narrated by: Michael Pollan
Length: 7 hours 36 minutes

“A fascinating dive into society's relationship with three distinct and ubiquitous substances that are harvested from plants and form parts of our everyday life: opioids, caffeine, and mescaline. Michael Pollan's work is part journalism, part memoir, and wholly engaging. Read more

An Immense World

How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us

By: Ed Yong
Narrated by: Ed Yong
Length: 14 hours 17 minutes

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “thrilling” (The New York Times), “dazzling” (The Wall Street Journal) tour of the radically different ways that animals perceive the world that will fill you with wonder and forever alter your perspective, by Pulitzer Prize–winning science journalist Ed Yong
 
“One of this year’s finest works of narrative... Read more

The Climate Book

The Facts and the Solutions

By: Greta Thunberg
Narrated by: Amelia Stubberfield, Greta Thunberg, Nicholas Khan & Olivia Forrest
Length: 17 hours 11 minutes

We still have time to change the world. From Greta Thunberg, the world's leading climate activist, comes the essential handbook for making it happen.

You might think it's an impossible task: secure a safe future for life on Earth, at a scale and speed never seen, against all the odds. There is hope - but only if we listen to the science before... Read more

As Long as Grass Grows

The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock

By: Dina Gilio-Whitaker
Narrated by: Kyla Garcia
Length: 7 hours 8 minutes

The story of Native peoples’ resistance to environmental injustice and land incursions, and a call for environmentalists to learn from the Indigenous community’s rich history of activism

Through the unique lens of “Indigenized environmental justice,” Indigenous researcher and activist Dina Gilio-Whitaker explores the fraught history of treaty... Read more

The Stranger in the Woods

The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit

By: Michael Finkel
Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
Length: 6 hours 18 minutes

“This is the fascinating true story of Christopher Knight, who lived in the Maine woods for 27 years and survived by stealing supplies from vacation cabins while living in extreme conditions to avoid detection. After more than 1,000 burglaries, he was finally caught and partially reintegrated into society. His story is told together with the... Read more

In the Shadow of the Mountain

A Memoir of Courage

By: Silvia Vasquez-Lavado
Narrated by: Silvia Vasquez-Lavado
Length: 15 hours 32 minutes

“In the Shadow of the Mountain intertwines the lives of sexual assault survivors with Vasquez-Lavado’s experience leading these survivors to summit Mount Everest. A collective story of perseverance, community, and healing. Read more

Birdgirl

Looking to the Skies in Search of a Better Future

By: Mya-Rose Craig
Narrated by: Mya-Rose Craig
Length: 9 hours 30 minutes

"Craig narrates, imbuing her book with genuine pathos."- The New York Times

"Mya-Rose Craig's narration of her debut memoir is full of youthful exuberance, wisdom, and wit."- AudioFile

“Craig narrates her own work, transmitting her enthusiasm and knowledge in her engaging British-Bangladeshi accent.”- Library Journal

Birder, environmentalist and... Read more

A Terrible Thing to Waste

Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind

By: Harriet A. Washington
Narrated by: Ron Butler
Length: 10 hours 13 minutes

“A terrifying book when it comes down to it, but an important one. Washington is careful and methodical in her statements, emphasizing lives, generations, and ability lost, not merely the wrongs that were committed. If the first step is awareness, then Washington has hopefully pushed us a couple of steps up the stairs. Read more

Braiding Sweetgrass

Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

By: Robin Wall Kimmerer
Narrated by: Robin Wall Kimmerer
Length: 16 hours 44 minutes

“A beautifully written book, full of profound and lyrical insights. Perfect for illuminating the scientific skeptic mind to the complementary truths of native spiritual wisdom. Everyone interested in world changing ideas and perspectives, and hope for the long term viability of human life on earth should read this. Read more

The Mushroom at the End of the World

On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins

By: Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing
Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
Length: 11 hours 6 minutes

Matsutake is the most valuable mushroom in the world—and a weed that grows in human-disturbed forests across the northern hemisphere. Through its ability to nurture trees, matsutake helps forests to grow in daunting places. It is also an edible delicacy in Japan, where it sometimes commands astronomical prices. In all its contradictions,... Read more

Underland

A Deep Time Journey

By: Robert Macfarlane
Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
Length: 12 hours 3 minutes

“I don’t think there is a square mile of ground on this planet where Robert Macfarlane couldn’t dig up a new, wondrous story. Underland continues the tradition of profound storytelling, reflection, and, quite simply, gorgeous writing we have come to expect from him. Macfarlane’s ventures into the underworlds of our planet, both mythical and... Read more