‘Tis the season for reading and reflection and lists of things!
Not all of the books I share here are ecologically-oriented, because cultivating hope is a whole-self endeavor, not just an intellectual one.
Enjoy, and please let me know in the comments if you’ve read anything that inspired hope this year! As you’ll see at the bottom, I’m already growing my reading list for 2024 and would love to hear your suggestions.
1. Reason for Hope, by Jane Goodall
There is timeless wisdom in Reason for Hope, wherein Goodall interweaves her personal story with meaningful insights from her chimpanzee research.
Upon this re-read, I found one of the most powerful moments in the book to be when she describes her first night in Gombe, where she would carry out her research for the next several decades:
I remember sitting on a rock, looking out over the valley and up into the blue sky, and hoping that this is what it might be like in heaven. I met some baboons, who barked at me. I heard a variety of birds. I breathed in the smell of sun-dried grass, and wet earth, and the heady scent of some kind of ripe fruit. The smell of Gombe... By the time I lay down to sleep on my camp bed under the twinkling stars, with the wind rustling softly through the fronds of the oil nut palm above, I already felt that I belonged to this new forest world, that this was where I was meant to be.
Her palpable clarity of purpose in this paragraph took my breath away. She shows what we can accomplish when we follow what we are most driven to do.
2. Lab Girl, by Hope Jahren
Re-reading Lab Girl, I was moved and comforted by Jahren’s honesty about what it’s really like to be a woman scientist and see the world through a lens focused primarily on nature.
The book offers a stolid companion in the rigors of the scientific method, even if life is unraveling everywhere outside the field and lab. She writes:
Science has taught me that everything is more complicated than we first assume, and that being able to derive happiness from discovery is a recipe for a beautiful life.
Jahren finds beauty in tragedy and darkness, fully embodying her own name in the process.
3. Hope Beneath Our Feet
This collection of essays addresses the question: If our world is facing an imminent environmental catastrophe, how do I live my life right now? Diane Ackerman, Barbara Kingsolver, Manju Ravindra and others weigh in.
Not all essays will resonate, and that is what makes this a satisfyingly diverse collection: it illustrates that the answer is different for everyone, and provides inspiration for finding your own.
4. 101 Essays that will Change the Way You Think, by Brianna Wiest
Reading this book is like having your best friend shower you with earnest encouragement every time you open it. For example, Wiest writes:
Nobody cries at a funeral because the world will be missing out on another pretty face. They cry because the world is missing another heart, another soul, another person. Don’t wait until it’s too late to focus on what will actually matter: creating something that lasts far beyond your body.
Is it just me, or did you also feel a little nudge to do that thing you’ve been considering?
5. Song of Increase, by Jacqueline Freeman
Pushing my comfort zone with the esoteric while also remaining scientifically solid is a respectable feat, and Song of Increase accomplishes just that.
Freeman’s relationship with bees is an inspiring story about what we can learn from these fascinating insects and how they commune with the earth. It will change the way you see bees certainly, and possibly the entire planet, as well as our relationship to both.
6. If Women Rose Rooted, by Sharon Blackie
weaves the natural history of the British Isles and Ireland with powerful figures from myth and legend, taking readers on a journey between worlds using the wisdom carried forward in the oral traditions of these lands.If Women Rose Rooted also shares stories of contemporary women who are healing humans’ relationship to the earth. It offers a compass for exploring the extraordinary depth to the connections between us and the nature we are a part of.
7. Wilding, by Isabella Tree
Wilding tells of an ecological triumph through the rewilding of a 3,500 acre estate in the south of England. Tree and her husband figured out—through trial and error—how to bring biodiversity back to their farm by phasing out industrial agriculture, while also making the endeavor economically viable.
This is an inspiring story about a win-win for wildlife and human communities, and a hopeful example of how rewilding and ecotourism can have a bright, symbiotic future together.
8. How the Irish Saved Civilization, by Thomas Cahill
Ireland was an island of prosperity, learning, and knowledge at a time that the rest of Western Europe was battling itself, creating and preserving cultural treasures like the Book of Kells.
Saint Patrick wasn’t Irish, but was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Ireland as a boy. He eventually contributed to the spread of a unique form of Catholicism blended with Ireland’s existing beliefs, and symbols of this nature-based Celtic Christianity remain today.
The hopeful part: this book is a reminder of how brutally people treated each other throughout much of history, and how commonplace it was to be cruel. Humanity has come a long way, despite ongoing cruelty. Taking a longer view of history, it’s easier to see how far we’ve come, even though we have yet so far to go.
9. This is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
This is the only fiction book on this list—an enthralling futuristic sci-fi novella that weaves a tale of forbidden love between elements of nature and technology. Every line is bursting with brilliance, the narrative moving like fiber optic lightning. Despite its dystopian nature, I found a thread of hope in the irreducibility of love, which endures no matter what the future brings.
10. Slouching Towards Bethlehem, by Joan Didion
I’m fascinated with Joan Didion, both because of the window she provides into mid-twentieth century California society, and because her writing completely transformed narrative journalistic style.
Didion’s dry observation is piercing; she’s unbiased and offers details no one else would. In Slouching Towards Bethlehem, these details may seem unimportant (e.g. a blond boy with a purple marble on Joan Baez’s floor), but by the end of the story, the boy and the marble have meaning.
1960s California still offers distinct echoes of the present day. Knowledge and perspectives of history are important as frames of reference for the hope we build to face our future. Reading older (note I did not say “old”!) books counts.
The book that didn’t give me hope but is still worth the read
The 48 Laws of Power
There is nothing wrong with power. Power does great things; just look at what the power of the sun does for life on Earth. The “Laws of Power” in this book, however, are about how to amass and assert power for oneself, usually at the expense of others.
This is the instruction manual that future leaders are reading at Harvard Business School. It’s an important read because the rest of us need to know the guidelines those in, and earnestly seeking, power are operating under. Your neighbor’s lawyer has read it; so have your dentist and your realtor.
These laws of power have almost certainly been used on you at some point. Being able to see them coming is useful. So give it a go—just don’t let it corrupt the better angels of your nature.
What I’ll be kicking off 2024 reading: the short list
Thin Places, by
Memoir, history, and nature writing set during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
On Our Best Behavior, by Elise Loehnen
asks, Why do women equate self-denial with being good? Good question.Blessed by Mysterious Grace, by Ravi Ravindra
The long-awaited memoir by my friend, the physicist-philosopher Ravi Ravindra.
The Waters, by Bonnie Jo Campbell
A novel based in rural Michigan.
has been recently crowned the “Queen of Grit Lit”.Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver
The award-winning novel about the opioid crisis in Appalachia.
Wild Girls, by Tiya Miles
Prominent women in history who were empowered to challenge a nation by the outdoor spaces they lived and worked in.
H is for Hope, by Elizabeth Kolbert
From the author of The Sixth Extinction and Under a White Sky, a collection of essays about climate change; one for each letter of the alphabet. Coming in March 2024.
Your turn
What did you read this year that brought you hope? What will you be reading in 2024? Let me know in the comments!
Wonderful selection!