BookShelf

The Great Barrier Reef is one of nature’s marvels, home to a startling array of life. It’s also the victim of forces rapidly bringing about its demise, from runoff to climate change. With “In Hot Water,” scientist Paul Hardisty recounts the struggle to save this remarkable ecosystem, amid forces of capital, politics and conflicting science. The latest BookShelf review from contributor Melody Kemp.

In his fascinating volume about John James Audubon, world-renowned naturalist-writer-illustrator Kenn Kaufman pays homage to the artist but meticulously dissects the man, writes BookShelf Editor Tom Henry. A review of “The Birds That Audubon Missed: Discovery and Desire in the American Wilderness” depicts how Audubon, driven by the rivalries of his time, marred his own legacy with factual errors and outright fraud.

It’s a much-understudied area of animal behavior. But play, as it turns out, may serve many developmental functions. A new book, “Kingdom of Play,” explores what play looks like in many types of creatures and in the process provides a deft synthesis of evolutionary biology, neurology and the history of science to examine its elusive nature. A BookShelf review from Jenny Weeks.

“Pitfall: The Race to Mine the World’s Most Vulnerable Places,” a new work by investigative journalist Christopher Pollon, offers a sweeping global view of how the mining industry profits, despite causing vast environmental losses and failing to acknowledge Indigenous ownership or rights to the land it mines. BookShelf’s Melody Kemp lauds Pollon’s searing observations and investigations. Read her review.

With her new memoir, “The Exvangelicals,” NPR correspondent Sarah McCammon, a one-time, award-winning environmental reporter, may not have written a book directly about environmental issues. Instead, writes BookShelf editor Tom Henry, her highly personal story about religion, science and betrayal offers an important, if indirect, message to those on the environment beat seeking to understand the faith community. Read his review.

As human roadways sprawl across a global network, the planet’s other living things have not only found the vehicles that travel them among the world’s deadliest weapons but also that road noise, the impassable divisions of the landscape and more have massive implications for nature. BookShelf reviews Ben Goldfarb’s eye-opening new book, “Crossings,” and the realities of road ecology.

A new book makes the case that U.S. cities have had their environments, their housing and their businesses warped by parking policies. BookShelf contributor Jennifer Weeks, who shares her own parking-related frustrations, explores the arguments made in “Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World,” and also takes a look at what the author sees as “parking-light” solutions.

The climate change debate is often so focused on fossil fuels and mining that it ignores impacts in economic, political, neo-colonial and social terms, writes BookShelf’s Melody Kemp in her review of “Carbon Colonialism: How Rich Countries Export Climate Breakdown.” Why concepts like corporate social responsibility do little to stem the losses that come with such development.

Toilet-to-tap water jokes aside, the technology and economics of turning sewage into potable drinking water is increasingly seen as a remedy for water-stressed communities. The new BookShelf review of “Purified: How Recycled Sewage is Transforming Our Water,” explains how water shortages, climate change, unsustainable growth and other factors have led some communities, most recently Los Angeles, to consider going “all in” on purified wastewater.

To make climate change less abstract and more direct, writer Madeline Ostrander traveled the country to speak to those living with its impacts in the places they call home. In a BookShelf “Between the Lines” Q&A, Ostrander discusses her resulting book, “At Home on an Unruly Planet: Finding Refuge on a Changed Earth,” and addresses the lenses she used, the characters she portrayed and the surprises she encountered.