Climate Just Collective’s 6 Books of 2021
I created the Climate Just Collective Book Club last year as a place for like minded people to read and discuss fictional and non-fictional books so we can learn more about climate change and how it effects people in different ways. My favourite part of our book club is the number of fascinating people I have been able to meet from all types of backgrounds. I would encourage everyone reading this post to sign up! No prior knowledge on climate change or climate justice is needed to join our group, it is a safe and fun place to meet people, have a chat and learn from each other.
- Katie Fawcett, Founder of the Climate Just Collective Book Club
This year, the Climate Just Collective has read six engaging and thought-provoking books on the climate crisis. The books explored issues such as race, identity, eco-anxiety, and adaptation among others.
Book 1) Noone Is Too Small To Make A Difference by Greta Thunberg
Date: January 2021
Synopsis: No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference is a book by climate activist Greta Thunberg. It was published on 30 May 2019. It consists of a collection of eleven speeches which she has written and presented about global warming and the climate crisis.
CJC Rating: 7/10 (Read the CJC Summary Here)
Book 2) Climate Justice by Mary Robinson
Date: January 2021
Synopsis: Mary Robinson has been their champion for many years, and Climate Justice gives them a voice that we all should hear. Robinson makes a powerful and compelling case that the climate crisis is a crisis of humanity, requiring far more than mitigation and adaptation, but a renewed sense of shared destiny.
CJC Rating: 8/10 (Read the CJC Summary Here)
Book 3) Salvage The Bones By Jesmyn Ward
Date: February 2021
Synopsis: A hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch's father is growing concerned. He's a hard drinker, largely absent, and it isn't often he worries about the family. Esch and her three brothers are stockpiling food, but there isn't much to save. Lately, Esch can't keep down what food she gets; at fifteen, she has just realized that she's pregnant. As the twelve days that make up the novel's framework yield to a dramatic conclusion, this unforgettable family - motherless children sacrificing for one another as they can, protecting and nurturing where love is scarce - pulls itself up to face another day.
CJC Rating: 8/10 (Read the CJC Summary Here)
Book 4) When The Lights Go Out by Carys Bray
Date: March 2021
Synopsis: Emma's husband Chris is fretting about starvation and societal collapse. He's turned off the heating and is stockpiling off-label medicines and tins of baked beans. Chris, certain that society will soon spiral to its doom, finds Emma's optimism exasperating. Emma finds Chris's obsession with disaster relentless. She's beginning to wonder whether relationships, like mortgages, should be conducted in five-year increments. But when Chris's mother turns up for a visit, the cracks begin to show. Will Emma and Chris be able to find their way back to each other?
CJC Rating: 9/10 (Read the CJC Summary Here)
Book 5) The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard
Date: June 2021
Synopsis: The Drowned World is a 1962 science fiction novel. The novel depicts a post-apocalyptic future in which global warming has caused the majority of the Earth to become uninhabitable. The story follows a team of scientists researching ongoing environmental developments in a flooded, abandoned London.
CJC Rating: 7/10 (Summary Not Available)
Book 6) Clade by James Bradley
Date: August 2021
Synopsis: On a beach in Antarctica, scientist Adam Leith marks the passage of the summer solstice. Back in Sydney his partner Ellie waits for the results of her latest round of IVF treatment. Clade is the story of one family in a radically changing world, a place of loss and wonder where the extraordinary mingles with the everyday. Haunting, lyrical and unexpectedly hopeful, it is the work of a writer in command of the major themes of our time.
CJC Rating: 9/10 (Read the CJC Summary Here)
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