Celebrate Earth Day by checking out some books from the Homewood Public Library! Whether you want to learn about sustainability or find fiction that focuses on our planet, we have you covered! The books below discuss topics from fast fashion to climate change to the life of a tree. Today is great day to read outside and admire our world!
Non-fiction
Wear, Repair, Repurpose: A Maker’s Guide to Mending and Upcylcing Clothes, Lily Fulop – Repair your favorite socks with style, add flair with personalized patches, and turn ripped jeans into an embroidered masterpiece. For beginner and experienced makers, Lily Fulop’s guide to mending and upcycling is your colorful companion to ditching fast fashion and extending the lifecycle of all your favorite clothes.
Fulop’s vibrant step-by-step illustrations make mending easier than every, demystifying techniques and displaying unique ways to show off your personality. And when your mending possibilities run out, she has simple yet striking solutions to repurpose fabric, including braided rugs, crocheted pillows, and more. Say hello to sustainable inspiration.
The Nation of Plants, Stefano Mancuso – In this playful yet informative manifesto, a leading plant neurobiologist presents the eight fundamental pillars on which the life of plants—and by extension, humans—rests.
Even if they behave as though they were, humans are not the masters of the Earth, but only one of its most irksome residents. From the moment of their arrival, about three hundred thousand years ago—nothing when compared to the history of life on our planet—humans have succeeded in changing the conditions of the planet so drastically as to make it a dangerous place for their own survival. The causes of this reckless behavior are in part inherent in their predatory nature, but they also depend on our total incomprehension of the rules that govern a community of living beings. We behave like children who wreak havoc, unaware of the significance of the things they are playing with.
Can I Recycle This?: A Guide to Better Recycling and How to Reduce Single-Use Plastics, Jennie Romer – Since the dawn of the recycling system, men and women the world over have stood by their bins, holding an everyday object, wondering, can I recycle this? This simple question reaches into our concern for the environment, the care we take to keep our homes and our communities clean, and how we interact with our local government. Recycling rules seem to differ in every municipality, with exceptions and caveats at every turn, leaving the average American scratching her head at the simple act of throwing something away. Taking readers on a quick but informative tour of how recycling actually works (setting aside the propaganda we were all taught as kids), Can I Recycle This gives straightforward answers to whether dozens of common household objects can or cannot be recycled, as well as the information you need to make that decision for anything else you encounter.
Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World, Katharine Hayhoe – Called “one of the nation’s most effective communicators on climate change” by The New York Times, Katharine Hayhoe knows how to navigate all sides of the conversation on our changing planet. In Saving Us, Hayhoe argues that when it comes to changing hearts and minds, facts are only one part of the equation. We need to find shared values in order to connect our unique identities to collective action. This is not another doomsday narrative about a planet on fire. It is a multilayered look at science, faith, and human psychology, from an icon in her field-recently named chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy. Drawing on interdisciplinary research and personal stories, Hayhoe shows that small conversations can have astonishing results. Saving Us leaves us with the tools to open a dialogue with your loved ones about how we all can play a role in pushing forward for change.”
Fodor’s the Complete Guide to the National Parks of the USA – Whether you want to hike through the jaw-dropping scenery of Acadia, see rare wildlife and natural wonders in Yellowstone, or go river-rafting in the Grand Canyon, the local Fodor’s travel experts in all the National Parks are here to help! Fodor’s Complete Guide to the National Parks of the USA is packed with maps, carefully curated recommendations, and everything else you need to simplify your trip-planning process and make the most of your time.
Fiction
Queen Sugar, Natalie Baszile – A mother-daughter story of reinvention—about an African American woman who unexpectedly inherits a sugarcane farm in Louisiana
They arrive just in time for growing season but no amount of planning can prepare Charley for a Louisiana that’s mired in the past: as her judgmental but big-hearted grandmother tells her, cane farming is always going to be a white man’s business. As the sweltering summer unfolds, Charley must balance the overwhelming challenges of her farm with the demands of a homesick daughter, a bitter and troubled brother, and the startling desires of her own heart.
The Overstory, Richard Powers – The Overstory is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of – and paean to – the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers’s twelfth novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours—vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.
The Wildlands, Abby Geni – When a Category 5 tornado ravaged Mercy, Oklahoma, no family in the small town lost more than the McClouds. Their home and farm were instantly demolished, and orphaned siblings Darlene, Jane, and Cora made media headlines. This relentless national attention and the tornado’s aftermath caused great tension with their brother, Tucker, who soon abandoned his sisters and disappeared.
Cora becomes her brother’s unwitting accomplice, taking on a new identity while engaging in acts of escalating violence. Darlene works with Mercy police to find her siblings, leading to an unexpected showdown at a zoo in Southern California. The Wildlands examines what happens when one family becomes trapped in the tenuous space between the human and animal worlds.