Park Hill Community Bookstore suggests books exploring the natural world

Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Park Hill Community Books in Denver recommends books on climate change, ecosystems and the landscape humans have created.

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From the publisher: In 1956, the New York Times prophesied that once global warming really kicked in, we could see parrots in the Antarctic. In 2010, when science deniers had control of the climate story, Sen. James Inhofe and his family built an igloo on the Washington Mall and plunked a sign on top: AL GORE’S NEW HOME: HONK IF YOU LOVE CLIMATE CHANGE. In “The Parrot and the Igloo,” best-selling author David Lipsky tells the astonishing story of how we moved from one extreme (the correct one) to the other. With narrative sweep and a superb eye for character, Lipsky unfolds the dramatic narrative of the long, strange march of climate science.

From John Krause, board president:  If you are one of many who have wondered why our response to global warming has seemed alarmingly slow, this book provides some answers. It shows that as climate science established itself, it roused the forces of science denial—forces whose campaigns had already claimed several victories in recent U.S. history. The battle is ongoing; much depends on its outcome.

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From the publisher: When a whale dies, its massive body silently sinks down, down, through the inky darkness, finally coming to rest on the silty seafloor. For the whale, it’s the end of a 70-year-long life. But for a little-known community of deep-sea dwellers, it’s a new beginning. First come the hungry hagfish, which can smell the whale from miles around. Then the sleeper sharks begin their prowl, feasting on skin and blubber. After about six months, the meat is gone. Year after year, decade after decade, the whale nourishes all kinds of organisms from zombie worms to squat lobsters to deep-sea microbes.

From Linda Baie, volunteer coordinator: This book (ages 4-8 years) shows the beauty of how nature recycles a whale after it dies. Melissa Stewart shows us how, step-by-step, this huge creature totally disappears, having provided sustenance for millions of sea creatures. Rob Dunlavey’s illustrations illuminate the ocean habitat’s beauty page after page, starting with those that first smell the whale, like the hungry hagfish. The whale may have lived for long years, but this time, in a way, it gives back for perhaps another 50. There is much more information in the backmatter with many creatures illustrated and described, plus selected resources and a list of books, articles, books, and videos for further exploration. It’s terrific and really wonderful to read and learn about this.

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From the publisher: We live at a time in which scientists race to reanimate extinct beasts, our most essential ecosystems require monumental engineering projects to survive, chicken breasts grow in test tubes, and multinational corporations conspire to poison the blood of every living creature. No rock, leaf, or cubic foot of air on Earth has escaped humanity’s clumsy signature. The old distinctions―between natural and artificial, dystopia and utopia, science fiction and science fact―have blurred, losing all meaning. We inhabit an uncanny landscape of our own creation.

In “Second Nature,” ordinary people make desperate efforts to preserve their humanity in a world that seems increasingly alien. Their stories―obsessive, intimate, and deeply reported―point the way to a new kind of environmental literature, in which dramatic narrative helps us to understand our place in a reality that resembles nothing human beings have known.

From Sheryl Hartmann, volunteer: This book is a series of essays covering polluters, poisoners, social and genetic engineering, and several other nightmare scenarios. A few examples:

“Dark Waters”, tells the story of Robert Bilott, the lawyer who sued the DuPont Chemical Company for massive dumping of toxic perfluorooctanoic acid (a component of Teflon) into landfills near Parkersburg, West Virginia, causing horrific animal deaths and deformities on the surrounding farms. This chapter was the basis for the 2019 film “Dark Waters” directed by Todd Haynes and starring Mark Ruffalo as Robert Bilott.

“Aspen Saves The World” where the uber-wealthy, who have homes on “Billionaire Mountain”, battle local citizens and authorities to prevent regulations that would limit the use of local resources with respect to, among other profligacies, heating and air conditioning private homes which are only used about 2 weeks per year. 

“As Gods,” the third and final section of essays, is the creepiest, especially the ones on de-extinction, also called resurrection biology. This is where science is used to resurrect species that have died out or gone extinct. The techniques involve back-breeding, cloning and genome editing.

BTW: Nathaniel Rich wrote the novel “Odds Against Tomorrow” in which “the main character grows wealthy from visions of an apocalyptic future that comes all too true.” I read this several years ago and would recommend it to anyone interested in climate change scenarios.

Type of Story: Review

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