In a previous bookshelf, Yale Climate Connections highlighted 12 works of climate fiction published in 2025. In this post, we suggest 12 books that will appeal to climate readers of non-fiction.
The list starts in the outer reaches of the solar system, winds its way through the Earth’s crust and oceans and into the coal in its seams, pauses to consider the lives and standing of rivers and trees, and concludes with several takes on humanity’s responses to the era-defining challenge of climate change.
Six of the 12 titles have appeared in previous bookshelves or were the focus of author interviews published by Yale Climate Connections over the last year. (Links are provided to the interviews.)
The remaining six are new to these webpages; four were published within the last 60 days. (See the titles marked by asterisks.) Chances are very good that one of these titles will elicit a satisfying surprise when they are unwrapped by the recipient of your holiday cheer.
As always, the descriptions of the titles are adapted from copy provided by their publishers.
Ripples on the Cosmic Ocean: An Environmental History of Our Place in the Solar System by Dagomar Degroot (Harvard University Press 2025, pages, $32.00) *
Our solar system is a dynamic arena where asteroids careen off course and solar winds hurl charged particles across billions of miles of space. Yet we seldom consider how these events influence our fragile blue planet: Earth. In Ripples on the Cosmic Ocean, Dagomar Degroot traces the surprising threads linking human endeavor to the rest of the solar system. He reveals how variability in planetary environments has shaped geopolitics, spurred scientific and cultural innovation, and encouraged new ideas about the emergence and fate of life. Cosmic environments may hold the key to slowing the destruction of environments on Earth. Ripples on the Cosmic Ocean urges us to develop an interplanetary environmentalism that binds us to the cosmos and each other.
The Whispers of Rock: The Stories That Stone Tells About Our World and Our Lives by Anjana Khatwa (Basic Books 2025, 336 pages, $30.00) *
In The Whispers of Rock, earth scientist Anjana Khatwa asks us to listen to the stories stones tell. Boldly alternating between modern science and ancient wisdom, Khatwa takes us on an exhilarating journey through deep time. In unearthing those stories and more, Khatwa shows how rocks have always spoken to us, and we humans to them. She delicately intertwines Indigenous stories of Earth’s creation with our scientific understanding of its development, deftly showing how our lives are intimately linked to time’s ancient storytellers. Through tales of planetary change, ancient wisdom, and modern creativity, The Whispers of Rock offers the hope of reconnection with Earth. With Khatwa as your guide, you will feel the magic of deep time seep into your bones.
The Ocean’s Menagerie: How Earth’s Strangest Creatures Reshape the Rules of Life by Drew Harvell (Viking Books 2025, 288 pages, $32.00)
In The Ocean’s Menagerie, marine ecologist Dr. Drew Harvell takes us diving from Hawaii to the Salish Sea, from St. Croix to Indonesia, to uncover the incredible underwater “superpowers” of spineless creatures. We meet corals many times stronger than steel or concrete, sponges that create potent chemical compounds to fight off disease, and sea stars that garden the coastlines, keeping the other species in balance. As our planet changes, the biomedical, engineering, and energy innovations of these wondrous creatures inspire ever more important solutions to our own survival. The Ocean’s Menagerie is a tale of biological marvels, a story of a woman’s adventurous career in science, and a call to arms to protect the world’s most ancient ecosystems.
Black and Gold: The Rise, Reign, and Fall of American Coal by Boby Wyss (University of California Press 2025, 312 pages, $28.95) *
For decades, coal has been crucial to America’s culture, society, and environment. Journalist Bob Wyss describes how coal sparked the Industrial Revolution, powered railroads, and built urban skylines, while providing home comforts for families. Coal’s history and heritage are also fundamental to understanding its legacy of threats to America’s well-being. As the industry developed so did clashes between powerful tycoons, coal miners, and innocent families, which led to victimization, deadly violence, and, ultimately, the American labor movement. Now two centuries of carbon combustion endanger American lives and safety, a threat that remains unresolved. This is coal’s most enduring legacy; Black Gold is pivotal in helping us understand how we got here.
Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane (W.W. Norton 2025, 384 pages, $31.99)
Is a River Alive? is a joyful, mind-expanding exploration of an ancient, urgent idea: that rivers are living beings who should be recognized as such in imagination and law. Macfarlane takes readers on three unforgettable journeys teeming with extraordinary people, stories, and places: to the miraculous cloud-forests and mountain streams of Ecuador, to the wounded creeks and lagoons of India, and to the spectacular wild rivers of Canada―imperiled respectively by mining, pollution, and dams. Powered by dazzling prose and lit by other voices, Is a River Alive? will open hearts, challenge perspectives, and remind us that our fate flows with that of rivers―and always has.
The Lost Trees of Willow Avenue: A Story of Climate and Hope on One American Street by Mike Tidwell (St. Martin’s Press 2025, 288 pages, $29.00)
In 2023, author and activist Mike Tidwell decided to keep a record for a full year of the growing impacts of climate change on his one urban block right on the border with Washington, DC. A love letter to the magnificent oaks and other trees dying from record heat waves and bizarre rain, Tidwell’s story depicts the neighborhood’s battle to save the trees and combat climate change: The midwife who builds a geothermal energy system on the block, the Congressman who battles cancer and climate change at the same time, and the Chinese-American climate scientist who wants to bury billions of the world’s dying trees to store their carbon and help stabilize the atmosphere. The Lost Trees of Willow Avenue is a hopeful proxy for every street in America and every place on Earth.
Readers can find Yale Climate Connections’ interview with Mike Tidwell here.
Growing Papaya Trees: Nurturing Indigenous Roots During Climate Displacement by Jessica Hernandez (North Atlantic Books 2025, 224 pages, $20.95 paperback)
Dr. Jessica Hernandez offers readers an Indigenous, Global-South lens on the climate crisis, delivering a compelling and urgent exploration of its causes—and its costs. She shares how the impacts of colonial climate catastrophe—from warming oceans to forced displacement of settler ontologies—can only be addressed at the root. What, she asks, does it mean to be Indigenous when we’re separated from our lands? How do we nurture future generations knowing that they, too, will have to live away from their ancestral places? But cultures are not lost, even amid genocide, turmoil, and climate displacement. Hernandez shows us how to be better kin to each other against the ecological violence, colonial oppression, and distorted status quo of the Global North.
Climate Injustice: Why We Need to Fight Global Inequality to Combat Climate Change by Friederike Otto (Greystone Books 2025, 272 pages, $29.00)
An engrossing, deeply moving book, Climate Injustice shares the stories of real people, shining a light on the real damage extreme weather events inflict on real lives. Importantly, it shows how racism, colonialism, sexism, and climate change are interconnected, and how positive changes on one level can lead to positive effects on another. Authored by the co-founder of World Weather Attribution, a cutting-edge scientific method that pinpoints the role of climate change in extreme weather events, Climate Injustice offers a groundbreaking view on the fires, floods, heatwaves, and storms that are wreaking havoc at an alarming pace—as well as an essential change in perspective for how we might finally solve this crisis together.
Readers can find Yale Climate Connections’ interview with Friederike Otto here.
Human Nature: Nine Ways to Feel about Our Changing Planet by Kate Marvel (Ecco Books 2025, 304 pages, $30.00)
Scientist Kate Marvel has seen the world end before, sometimes several times a day. In the computer models she uses to study climate change, it’s easy to simulate rising temperatures, catastrophic outcomes, and bleak futures. But climate change isn’t just happening in those models. It’s happening here, to the only good planet in the universe. It’s happening to us. And she has feelings about that. Human Nature is a deeply felt inquiry into our rapidly changing Earth. In each chapter, Marvel uses a different emotion to explore the science and stories behind climate change. As expected, there is anger, fear, and grief—but also wonder, hope, and love. Hopeful, heartbreaking, and surprisingly funny, Human Nature explores how it feels to live in a changing world.
Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization by Bill McKibben (W.W. Norton 2025, 224 pages, $29.99)
Here Comes the Sun tells the story of the sudden spike in power from the sun and wind—and the desperate fight of the fossil fuel industry and their politicians to hold this new power at bay. From the everyday citizens who installed solar panels equal to a third of Pakistan’s electric grid in a year to the world’s sixth-largest economy—California—nearly halving its use of natural gas in the last two years, Bill McKibben traces the arrival of plentiful, inexpensive solar energy. He shows how solar power is more than just a path out of the climate crisis: it is a chance to reorder the world. There’s no guarantee we can make this change in time, but there is a hope—in McKibben’s eyes, our best hope—for a new, saner civilization.
Readers can find Yale Climate Connections’ interview with Bill McKibben here.
Sink or Swim: How the World Needs to Adapt to a Changing Climate by Susannah Fisher (Bloomsbury Publishing 2025, 288 pages, $28.00) *
Sink or Swim explores the hard choices that lie ahead concerning how people earn a living, the way governments manage relationships between countries, and how communities accommodate the movement of people. Should people be encouraged to move away from the coast? How can global food supplies be managed when parts of the world are hit by simultaneous droughts? How can conflict be handled when there isn’t enough water? Drawing on cutting edge research, interviews with experts, and practical examples from across the world, Susannah Fisher tells the story of the tough choices on adaptation that lie ahead, and looks at ways we can still have a liveable planet later in this century and beyond. Will we choose to sink or swim?
The New Global Possible: Rebuilding Optimism in the Age of Climate Crisis by Ani Dasgupta (Disruption Books 2025, 376 pages, $29.00)
In 2015, world leaders came together in Paris and signed an agreement to save the planet. Ten years later, we have made little progress on the ground, and the climate crisis is worse than ever. We’ve mostly figured out what we need to do, but not how to get it done―and time is running out. In this groundbreaking new book, World Resources Institute President and CEO Ani Dasgupta explores how to orchestrate change at speed and scale. Based on conversations with more than one hundred leaders around the world, The New Global Possible weaves together stories of unusual partnerships, collaborative leadership, and lessons learned from failure. Mining the rich history of the climate movement, Dasgupta describes a possible path to a hopeful future.
Readers can find Yale Climate Connections’ interview with Ani Dasgupta here.
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