ECOFICTION

"The Children of Men" by P.D.
James - This dystopian novel is set in a future where humans have

become infertile, and explores the impact of environmental degradation on human society. While not
explicitly focused on ecolinguistics, the book raises important questions about the relationship between
language, power, and the environment.
"The Word for World is Forest" by Ursula K. Le Guin - This science fiction novel explores the impact of
human colonization on an alien world, and the ways in which language and culture shape our
relationship with the natural world.
"The Overstory" by Richard Powers - This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel weaves together the stories of
various characters whose lives are connected by trees, and explores the idea that trees have their own
form of communication and consciousness.
"The Lorax" by Dr. Seuss - This classic children's book is a cautionary tale about the dangers of
environmental destruction, and the importance of protecting our natural resources.
"The Nature of Life and Death" by Patricia Wellingham-Jones - This play explores the ways in which
language and culture influence our attitudes towards the natural world, and how we can work to
preserve the environment for future generations.
"The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd - While not explicitly about eco-linguistics, this novel
explores themes of interconnectedness and the importance of nurturing the natural world.
"Flight Behavior" by Barbara Kingsolver - This novel centers around the migration of monarch
butterflies, and explores the impact of climate change on both the natural world and human
communities.
"The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver - This novel follows the lives of a missionary family in
the Congo, and examines the ways in which cultural and linguistic differences can lead to
misunderstandings and conflicts with the natural world.
"The Island of Dr. Moreau" by H.G. Wells - This classic science fiction novel explores the ethical
implications of scientific experimentation and the boundaries between human and animal intelligence.
"The Beach" by Alex Garland - While not directly about eco-linguistics, this novel examines the impact
of tourism on fragile ecosystems and the tensions that arise between different cultural groups.
"Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson - This groundbreaking book is often credited with sparking the modern
environmental movement, and examines the impact of pesticides on the natural world.
"The Anthropocene Reviewed" by John Green - This collection of essays explores the ways in which
human beings have impacted the natural world, and how our language and culture shape our
perceptions of the environment.
"The Sixth Extinction" by Elizabeth Kolbert - This non-fiction book examines the current mass extinction
of species, and how human activity is contributing to this crisis. It also touches on the ways in which
language and culture shape our relationship with the natural world.
"The Invention of Nature" by Andrea Wulf - This biography of the scientist Alexander von Humboldt
examines his groundbreaking work in ecology and the ways in which his ideas shaped our understanding
of the natural world.
"The Monkey Wrench Gang" by Edward Abbey - This novel follows a group of environmental activists
who use direct action to protect the natural world from industrial development. It explores the tension
between economic development and environmental protection.
"The Living" by Annie Dillard - This novel follows a year in the life of a Pacific Northwest town and
examines the relationship between human beings and the natural world. It explores themes of
ecological balance and the ways in which humans disrupt that balance.
"The Revenant" by Michael Punke - This novel follows a fur trapper in the early 19th century as he
struggles to survive in the wilderness, and examines the ways in which human beings have exploited and
disrupted natural ecosystems throughout history.
1. "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy - This post-apocalyptic novel follows a father and son as they
travel through a devastated landscape in search of safety. It explores themes of survival,
resilience, and the relationship between human beings and the natural world.
2. "A Sand County Almanac" by Aldo Leopold - This classic work of environmental literature is a
collection of essays that explores the beauty and diversity of the natural world, and the ways in
which human beings can live in harmony with the land. It also touches on the ways in which
language and culture shape our understanding of the environment.
3. "The Uninhabitable Earth" by David Wallace-Wells - This non-fiction book offers a stark
warning about the impact of climate change on the planet and its inhabitants. It explores the
ways in which language and culture shape our perceptions of the environment, and argues that
we need new narratives to help us confront the crisis.
4. Annihilation" by Jeff Vandermeer - This science fiction novel follows a group of scientists as
they explore a mysterious and dangerous area known as Area X. It explores themes of ecology,
biology, and the relationship between humans and the natural world.
5. 1. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

The mother of all eco-fictions, a book that chronicles a man-made climate
disaster before we knew what to call it. The dispossessed, hungry, and homeless
migrate through baking dust in search of better lives, only to be turned back by
callously protectionist locals. Sound familiar? It’s also a heartbreaking testament
to the fact that eco-fiction need not be speculative. And even the most hard-
hearted readers will be softened by Steinbeck’s eternally revolutionary idea:
“Maybe all men got one big soul ever’body’s a part of.”
6. 2. The Word for World Is Forest by Ursula Le Guin
A prescient novella about an interstellar logging colony, written by perhaps our
greatest practitioner of “literary sci-fi”. Published in 1972, Le Guin’s book
asserted that colonialism, extractivism, and environmental despoliation are
endemic to humankind, and we surely haven’t proved her wrong in the years
since. Concerning her novella’s similarities to the blockbuster film Avatar, which
Le Guin described as “a high-budget, highly successful film” that “completely
reverses the book’s moral premise, presenting the central and unsolved problem
of the book, mass violence, as a solution”, she wrote: “I’m glad I have nothing at
all to do with it”.
7. 3. Gold Fame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins
In her bold and strange novel, Watkins disassembles the mythology of the
American west, paying particular attention to its brutal expansionism and
unquestioned promise of personal reinvention. The story concerns a young
couple trying to navigate post-apocalyptic California, where severe drought has
baked the once fertile landscape into sandstorms and squalor. Peopled by
wandering cults and water dowsers, Gold Fame Citrus shows us that perhaps the
notions of “Shangri-La” and “Man-Made Hell on Earth” are two sides of the same
ideological coin.
8. 4. The Drowned World by JG Ballard
Published in 1962, and only Ballard’s second book, The Drowned World ought to
be recognised as one of the pioneering works of climate fiction. By 2145, global
warming has made slush of the ice caps (we knew this would happen, Exxon!), the
seas have risen, and tropical swamps and jungles now dominate most of the
Earth’s surface. A group of surveyors are sent from Greenland to soggy, flooded
London to determine whether the southern world can someday be reclaimed.
Writing during the era we believed most fervently that the world was ours to
mould and shape, Ballard warned us that it wasn’t.
9.
10. Prequel to the Apocalypse … Richard Powers in Great Smokeys National Park in
Tennessee. Photograph: Mike Belleme
11. 5. The Overstory by Richard Powers
Not the apocalypse so much as the prequel to it. Armed with more tree-related
research than you can stack in your woodshed, Powers decentralises humans
from his story to great effect, demonstrating how wanton deforestation and the
reckless disregard for the complexity of natural systems have landed us in the
mess we’re in. If you don’t come away from this novel with a deeper appreciation
for trees, then you’re probably the CEO of a leading forestry company.
12. 6. Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
This brilliant National Book award-winning novel concerns the plight of Esch, a
poor and pregnant 15-year-old, living with her family in Bois Sauvage, a mostly
black Mississippi bayou town sitting smack dab in the path of hurricane Katrina.
Set during the 12-day lead-up to landfall (plus a few days of aftermath), this
mythic tragedy demonstrates what it means when the most vulnerable (and
immobile) of us are struck by disaster. No novel draws a better link between
personal traumas and climate traumas. In the storm’s wake, Esch muses:
“Suddenly there is a great split between now and then, and I wonder where the
world where that day happened has gone, because we are not in it.”
13. 7. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Though the exact cause of the calamity that necessitates all kinds of scrabbling
barbarism remains unclear, its human ramifications are described with ruthless
specificity. In an interview, McCarthy later claimed that he imagined the disaster
as the aftermath of a comet strike, but I don’t buy it. This is eco-fiction through
and through. And now that I’m a father, I can’t help but read The Road as an ode
to parenting in a fallen world; to sighting the disaster that you hope your children
won’t have to face, but know deep-down they will and must. Regularly I have my
own Road-type conversations with my sons: “Why do we buy gas if it’s destroying
our planet, Dad?” “Because I need to get to work.” “Then why don’t you work
somewhere closer to our house?” and on it goes. I mean really, what’s the best
way to tell a child that this wondrous world they’ve just come to know is hurtling
towards ruin?
14. 8. American War by Omar El Akkad
Omar El Akkad tapped into his experience as a journalist in Afghanistan and the
Middle East to prophesy a whole new history for the US, including the second
civil war of 2074, which was just as barbaric as the first. The conflict was kicked
off when the northern states outlawed fossil fuels after Florida was flooded with
seawater, and, naturally, the southerners revolted, and the country again tore in
half. A harrowing reminder that our old wounds can flare up in times of greatest
turmoil.
15. 9. Clade by James Bradley
The best eco-fiction doesn’t present our reckless alteration of the natural
ecological order as a single apocalyptic event, with us playing the resident
despoilers and the Earth our helpless victim. Instead it reminds us of our
profound and inescapable interconnection with the natural world. Clade,
Australian novelist James Bradley’s ingenious novel, tells the story of many
generations of one family, all played out on a stage that is being incrementally
destroyed by climate change, though few of the characters notice. Clade reminds
us that world indeed won’t end with a bang, but with a long series of breakdowns,
extinctions, die-offs, fires, floods, droughts, blights, and dust storms, during
which our human lives will carry on just as messily as ever. And perhaps our
greatest sin of all will be our failure to notice.

ECOFICTION

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ECOFICTION

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"The Children of Men" by P.D.

James - This dystopian novel is set in a future where humans have

5. 1. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

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