
One of The New York Times's 10 Best Books of the Year, a Christian Science Monitor Best Nonfiction Book, a Newsday Top 10 Books pick, a People magazine Top 10 pick, a Good Reads Best Book of the Year, and a Kirkus Best Nonfiction Book
A National Book Critics Circle Award finalistIn 2004, at a beach resort on the coast of Sri Lanka, Sonali Deraniyagala and her family--parents, husband, sons--were swept away by a tsunami. Only Sonali survived to tell their tale. This is her account of the nearly incomprehensible event and its aftermath.

Siroccos, Santa Anas, chinooks, and monsoons - the wind has as many names as its moods. Few other forces have so universally shaped the lands and waters of the earth, the plants and animals, the patterns of exploration, settlement, and civilization. Few other phenomena have exerted such profound influence on the history and psyche of humankind. Wind touches all of us every day of our lives, and yet remarkably little has been written about it except as a component of the weather. In Wind, Jan DeBlieu brings a poet's voice and a scientist's eye to this remarkable natural force, showing how the bumping of a few molecules can lead to the creation of religions, the discovery of continents, the destruction of empires.

Year after year science continually proves that global climate change is real. But what does it all really mean and what can or should we do about it?
Climate Change For Beginners is a clear, fluid narrative by a leading scientist and educator who takes a scrupulously balanced approach in explaining the history of global climate monitoring and change, and the whos, hows, whats, whens, wheres and whys of the interaction between human activity and recent trends in the Earth's climate.
Working from the premise that no one can do everything, but everyone can do something, Dean Goodwin challenges readers with experiments they can conduct to gain a better understanding of the science underlying the problems facing our planet and concludes with a list of 50 easy actions readers can choose from to start doing their part in the effort to slow or stop global warming.
Replaces previous edition, ISBN 9781934389270.

Read it, please. Straight through to the end. Whatever else you were planning to do next, nothing could be more important. --Barbara Kingsolver
Twenty years ago, with The End of Nature, Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about global warming. Those warnings went mostly unheeded; now, he insists, we need to acknowledge that we've waited too long, and that massive change is not only unavoidable but already under way. Our old familiar globe is suddenly melting, drying, acidifying, flooding, and burning in ways that no human has ever seen. We've created, in very short order, a new planet, still recognizable but fundamentally different. We may as well call it Eaarth. That new planet is filled with new binds and traps. A changing world costs large sums to defend--think of the money that went to repair New Orleans, or the trillions it will take to transform our energy systems. But the endless economic growth that could underwrite such largesse depends on the stable planet we've managed to damage and degrade. We can't rely on old habits any longer. Our hope depends, McKibben argues, on scaling back--on building the kind of societies and economies that can hunker down, concentrate on essentials, and create the type of community (in the neighborhood, but also on the Internet) that will allow us to weather trouble on an unprecedented scale. Change--fundamental change--is our best hope on a planet suddenly and violently out of balance.


A controversial hit that sparked debate among businessmen, environmentalists, and bloggers, The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler is an eye-opening look at the unprecedented challenges we face in the years ahead, as oil runs out and the global systems built on it are forced to change radically.

When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a prosperous Syrian-American and father of four, chose to stay through the storm to protect his house and contracting business. In the days after the storm, he traveled the flooded streets in a secondhand canoe, passing on supplies and helping those he could. A week later, on September 6, 2005, Zeitoun abruptly disappeared. Eggers's riveting nonfiction book, three years in the making, explores Zeitoun's roots in Syria, his marriage to Kathy -- an American who converted to Islam -- and their children, and the surreal atmosphere (in New Orleans and the United States generally) in which what happened to Abdulrahman Zeitoun was possible. Like What Is the What, Zeitoun was written in close collaboration with its subjects and involved vast research -- in this case, in the United States, Spain, and Syria.

From the dog days of summer to "cold enough for you?" winter mornings, Minnesotans love to talk about the weather. Hot and humid or frigid and icy, the weather affects our choice of clothing, our outdoor activities, our daily routines.
Minnesota Weather Almanac measures Minnesota's human history in terms of high temperatures, significant rainfall, and devastating blizzards. Organized by season, this fun and invaluable handbook showcases an astonishing variety of data and lore on weather systems past. Narratives on the character of our seasons and holidays, stories of climate stations around the state from the oldest to the coldest, and biographies of passionate weather people are accompanied by quick quizzes and colorful weather jargon. And no almanac would be complete without tables and maps illustrating such crucial details as statewide snowfall totals and extreme temperatures.
This fully revised edition takes into account the state's new thirty- year normals (1981-2010), updating records for cold, heat, and precipitation. And in a chapter on climate change and Minnesota's future, Mark Seeley draws on decades of observations to show trends and consequences of our changing climate--and highlights ways for us to adapt and to continue to steward the state's treasured resources.

Produced by Climate Central--a highly regarded independent, nonprofit journalism and research foundation founded in 2008--and reviewed by scientists at major educational and research institutions the world over, "Global Weirdness" summarizes, in clear and accessible prose, everything we know about the science of climate change; explains what is likely to happen to the climate in the future; and lays out in practical terms what we can and cannot do to avoid further shifts.
Sixty easy-to-read entries tackle such questions as: Is climate ever "normal"? Why and how do fossil-fuel burning and other human practices produce greenhouse gases? What natural forces have caused climate change in the past? What risks does climate change pose for human health? What accounts for the diminishment of mountain glaciers and small ice caps around the world since 1850? What are the economic costs and benefits of reducing carbon emissions?
"Global Weirdness" enlarges our understanding of how climate change affects our daily lives, and arms us with the incontrovertible facts we need to make informed decisions about the future of the planet and of humankind.
"With black-and-white images interspersed throughout."