Book reviews

We present a selection of our reviews covering significant, groundbreaking books and films that are often ignored by the mainstream media. The reviews include those that have been published in the magazine and additional reviews that for reasons of space we were unable to publish in the magazine.

Reviews from the past year are shown below. Older reviews are listed separately. Reviews can also be located through our article archive search facility.

Latest Reviews

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A Barrister for the Earth: Ten Cases of Hope for Our Future by Monica Feria-Tint

Issue 356 • May/June 2026 > Reviews > Optimism rather than hope

Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism by Vanessa Machado de Oliveira

Issue 356 • May/June 2026 > Reviews > Time for radical change

Metamorphosis: A Natural and Human History by Oren Harman

Issue 356 • May/June 2026 > Reviews > The mysteries of transformation

The Waterlands: Follow a Raindrop from Source to Sea by Stephen Rutt

Issue 356 • May/June 2026 > Reviews > Total immersion

The Wild Within: What Plants Taught Me about Life, Recovery and Renewal by Brigit Anna McNeill

Issue 356 • May/June 2026 > Reviews > Revelling in wildness

When the Forest Breathes: Renewal and Resilience in the Natural World by Suzanne Simard

Issue 356 • May/June 2026 > Reviews > Revisiting the mother trees

Wild Basketry: Making Baskets and Natural Cordage from Foraged Plants by Ruby Taylor

Issue 356 • May/June 2026 > Reviews > Weaving wisdom

Reviews from the past year

Ackroyd & Harvey: The art of Activism by Fiona Cunningham-Reid

Issue 351 • July/August 2025 > Reviews > The art of declaring a climate emergency

Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity by Paul Kingsnorth 

Issue 355 • March/April 2026 > Reviews > Rerouting to find meaning

All Hands on Deck: Climate Activism and the Way Ahead by Jan Goodey

Issue 352 • September/October 2025 > Reviews > Anarchism needs pragmatism

Climate Injustice: Why We Need to Fight Global Inequality to Combat Climate Change by Friederike Otto

Issue 352 • September/October 2025 > Reviews > Forecast a raw deal

Climate Radicals: Why Our Environmental Politics Isn’t Working by Cameron Abadi

Issue 350 • May/June 2025 > Reviews > Where should we direct our action?

Earth Capital: The Long History of Capitalism and Its Aftermath  by Alessandro Stanziani

Issue 355 • March/April 2026 > Reviews > Sold at what cost?

How Animals Heal Us by Jay Griffiths

Issue 353 • November/December 2025 > Reviews > Will we listen?

How to Fall in Love with the Future: A Time Traveller’s Guide to Changing the World  by Rob Hopkins

Issue 355 • March/April 2026 > Reviews > Idealised dream or powerful tool?

Is A River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane

Issue 350 • May/June 2025 > Reviews > Nature writing that allows Nature to speak

Just Earth: How a Fairer World Will Save the Planet by Tony Juniper

Issue 350 • May/June 2025 > Reviews > It’s a question of equity and better balance

Life on a Little-Known Planet: Dispatches from a Changing World  by Elizabeth Kolbert

Issue 355 • March/April 2026 > Reviews > Writing from the frontline

Liquidate: How Money is Dissolving the World by Alf Hornborg

Issue 351 • July/August 2025 > Reviews > Pondering a post-growth future

Lone Wolf: Walking the Faultlines of Europe by Adam Weymouth

Issue 351 • July/August 2025 > Reviews > The freedom to roam

Minority Rule: Adventures in the Culture War by Ash Sarkar

Issue 351 • July/August 2025 > Reviews > The real problem at hand

Moral Ambition: Stop Wasting Your Talent and Start Making a Difference by Rutger Bregman

Issue 351 • July/August 2025 > Reviews > A much-needed pep talk?

Mother Animal by Helen Jukes

Issue 351 • July/August 2025 > Reviews > What the parenting handbooks do not cover

Or Something Worse: Why We Need to Disrupt the Climate Transition by Nicholas Beuret

Issue 353 • November/December 2025 > Reviews > Time for hopeful pessimism

Pathfinding: On Walking, Motherhood and Freedom by Kerri Andrews

Issue 352 • September/October 2025 > Reviews > An honest account of motherhood

Peatlands: A Journey Between Land and Water by Alys Fowler

Issue 354 • January/February 2026 > Reviews > Places of enchantment

Positive Tipping Points: How to Fix the Climate Crisis by Tim Lenton

Issue 353 • November/December 2025 > Reviews > How to pivot the system

Radical Abundance: How to Win a Green, Democratic Future  by Kai Heron, Keir Milburn and Bertie Russell

Issue 355 • March/April 2026 > Reviews > Building economy and ecology

Scenes from the Climate Era by David Finnigan

Issue 354 • January/February 2026 > Reviews > Climate voices put centre stage

Scientists on Survival: Personal Stories of Climate Action by Scientists for XR

Issue 351 • July/August 2025 > Reviews > Science in protest

Sink or Swim: How the World Needs to Adapt to a Changing Climate  by Susannah Fisher

Issue 355 • March/April 2026 > Reviews > Collective determination

Six Minutes to Winter: Nuclear War and How to Avoid It by Mark Lynas

Issue 352 • September/October 2025 > Reviews > A nuclear-weapon-free future?

Sowing the Seeds of the Wild by Dyba and Adam Lach

Issue 353 • November/December 2025 > Reviews > A flowing pilgrimage

The Long Heat: Climate Politics When It’s Too Late  by Wim Carton and Andreas Malm

Issue 354 • January/February 2026 > Reviews > Too late for transformation

The Nature of Nature: The Metabolic Disorder of Climate Change by Vandana Shiva

Issue 350 • May/June 2025 > Reviews > Choosing stewardship of our food system

The North Road by Rob Cowen

Issue 354 • January/February 2026 > Reviews > The road less contemplated

The Profitable Farm: Balancing Business, Nature and Energy through Maximum Sustainable Output by Chris Clark and Brian Scanlon

Issue 353 • November/December 2025 > Reviews > Balancing the books of sustainable agriculture

The Serviceberry: An Economy of Gifts and Abundance by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Issue 350 • May/June 2025 > Reviews > Learning from how Nature shares harvests

The Shetland Way: Community and Climate Crisis on My Father’s Islands by Marianne Brown

Issue 352 • September/October 2025 > Reviews > The cost of green energy

The Wolf Within by Frederico Manneschi

Issue 350 • May/June 2025 > Reviews > The case for coexistence

Theory of Water: Nishnaabe Maps to the Times Ahead  by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson 

Issue 352 • September/October 2025 > Reviews > Weaving a new, old future

Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World by Marcia Bjornerud

Issue 353 • November/December 2025 > Reviews > Shaped by the Earth's rocky logic

To Have or To Hold: Nature’s Hidden Relationships by Sophie Pavelle

Issue 354 • January/February 2026 > Reviews > Under the skin

Transformative Adaptation: Another World Is Still Just Possible by Rupert Read and Morgan Philips with Manda Scott

Issue 350 • May/June 2025 > Reviews > Reimagining a flourishing future

Uncommon Ground: Rethinking our Relationship with the Countryside by Patrick Galbraith

Issue 352 • September/October 2025 > Reviews > A right to Nature?

We Grow the World Together: Parenting Toward Abolition  by Maya Schenwar and Kim Wilson (eds)

Issue 355 • March/April 2026 > Reviews > Systems of compassion

What Sheep Think About the Weather by Amelia Thomas

Issue 353 • November/December 2025 > Reviews > The power of connection

Go to older reviews.