All the Best Books on Sustainability, the Environment and Activism
Not only life-changing, but Earth-changing, these books will leave you enlightened and the Earth a better place for future generations. We list books on reducing waste, climate change, systemic change, our food system, slow living, and intersectionality to read over the holidays.
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Whether it is summer or winter where you are, the December/January holidays are the perfect time of year to get stuck into a good book! We list more than enough books to keep you busy over the holidays and well into the new year.
Inspiring, motivating, insightful, and meaningful, many of these books are not easy reads, and some are challenging, containing scary facts or requiring a shift in mindset, but they are important to read if we are going to make the world a better, more sustainable place.
Find out what you can personally do, what we need to do as a society, and what is already happening…
On Going Zero Waste/Plastic Free
Better, Bolder, Different by Kate Hall (Ethically Kate): Simple, practical ways to live better for the planet, from consuming less to reducing waste, in all ways that improve your wellbeing and fill your life with joy. She embraces sustainable living in a way that will make you smile!
Waste Not by Erin Rhoads (The Rogue Ginger): Erin’s book share tools, tips and tricks for throwing away less. It is a great starting point for anyone wanting to make changes to reduce their individual impact and carbon footprint at home and in everyday life. Her second book, Waste Not Everyday has 365 easy changes everyone can make.
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A Family Guide to Waste Free Living by Oberon & Lauren Carter: Perfect for families wanting to reduce their waste, gives you all the information, advice, budget-friendly recipes, and projects you'll need to start reducing waste as a family.
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Life Without Plastic by Chantal Plamondon and Jay Sinha: All about finding better ways of living without plastic, this book is a deeply researched and tested mix of science, practical action and activism. It has tons of tips and tools for minimising plastic across all aspects of life.
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A Zero Waste Life in Thirty Days by Anita Vandyke: Written by a an actual rocket scientist, it shows that going zero waste is not rocket science and you can do it without compromising your lifestyle. It helps readers reduce their waste by 80% in 30 days.
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Quitting Plastic by Clara Williams Roldan and Louise Williams: Sharing the problem with plastic and why we need to quit it, it then goes on to give guidance on going plastic free, tackling all the big and small questions.
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Zero Waste Home: The Ultimate Guide to Simplifying Your Life by Reducing Your Waste by Bea Johnson: The story of how Bea Johnson simplified her life by reducing her waste and her insights from her experience.
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Less Stuff by Lindsay Miles: The subtitle says it all: "Simple zero-waste steps to a joyful and clutter-free life!”
Booksio (US) / Waterstones (UK) / QBD Books (AU)Year of No Garbage By Eve O. Schaub: Delves into recycling lies, plastic problems, and one woman's trashy journey to zero waste.
Booksio (US) / Waterstones (UK) / Booktopia (AU)Thanks for Sharing: How I Gave Up Buying & Embraced Swapping, Borrowing & Renting By Eleanor Tucker: An absorbing and entertaining guide to sustainable sharing that follows a year-long experiment and gives best-for recommendations for different types of sharing to create an easily accessible shortcut into sharing.
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On Climate Change/Ecological Collapse
The Carbon Club by Marian Wilkinson: How a network of influential climate sceptics, politicians and business leaders have controlled Australia’s climate policy.
Booksio (US) / QBD Books (AU)Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming by Paul Hawken: The 100 most substantive solutions to global warming according to thorough research are described in this book, including each one’s history, carbon impact, relative cost and savings, and path to adoption.
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2040 Handbook for the Regeneration by Damon Gameau: Based on the 2040 documentary (worth watching!), which shares solutions to climate change and ways to reset our planet's health and improve lives, it provides practical ways individuals can do this too and make a genuine difference through activities like cooking, shopping, gardening, sharing, working, and educating our kids.
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This Is Not A Drill: An Extinction Rebellion Handbook by Extinction Rebellion: A handbook by global activist movement Extinction Rebellion, which is demanding action from governments, It contains the facts about climate change, empowering stories, and instructions on how to rebel.
Amazon (US) / Waterstones (UK) / QBD Books (AU)
Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea, and Human Life by George Monbiot: A book on how by inviting nature back into our lives, we can cure our ‘ecological boredom’ and begin repairing centuries of environmental damage.
Amazon (US) / Waterstones (UK) / QBD Books (AU)
The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells: A call to action, sharing the ways that warming will transform global politics, the meaning of technology and nature in the modern world, the sustainability of capitalism, and the trajectory of human progress.
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Climate Justice - a man-made problem with a feminist solution by Mary Robinson: Mary Robinson travels the world, sharing stories of grassroots level action on climate justice, mainly by women.
Amazon (US) / Waterstones (UK) / Booktopia (AU)
On Systemic Change/Activism
Rise & Resist: How to change the world by Clare Press: Stories of passionate change-makers across the globe who believe in the power of the positive and a look at how we can make our voices heard.
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Hope in the Dark: Untold histories, wild possibilities by Rebecca Solnit: Hope in the Dark makes a case for hope as a commitment to act in a world whose future remains uncertain and unknowable.
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Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas: How the global elite's efforts to change the world preserve the status quo and obscure their role in causing the problems they later seek to solve.
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Invest For Good: A healthier world and a wealthier you by y Mark Mobius, Carlos von Hardenberg, and Greg Konieczny: All about sustainable investment, this book gives readers a clearer understanding of what sustainable investment actually means, the positive effects it can have on businesses and societies, what to look for in order to identify sound and sustainable investment opportunities, and how to balance sustainable investing with good returns.
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Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by Michael Braungart and William McDonough: Provides examples of and explores how to create a truly regenerative circular economy.
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The End of Politicians: Time for a Real Democracy by Brett Hennig: The history of democracy and how to fix democracy by eliminating politicians and replacing them with a representative network of everyday citizens.
Amazon (US) / Waterstones (UK)
Shut It Down: Stories from a Fierce, Loving Resistance by Lisa Fithian: A veteran activist's guide to direct action and strategic civil disobedience as the most radical and rapid means to social change.
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This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century by Mark Engler and Paul Engler: How people with few resources and little conventional influence can harness the power of nonviolent movements to create lasting change.
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Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist by by Kate Raworth: Key ways to fundamentally reframe our understanding of what economics is and does, how we can break our addiction to growth, redesign money, finance, and business to be in service to people, and create economies that are regenerative and distributive by design.
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Be The Change: A Toolkit for the Activist in You by Gina Martin: Practical and inspiring advice to empower everyone with the tools and the courage to challenge injustice and fight for change.
Booksio (US) / Amazon (US) / Waterstones (UK) / Booktopia (AU)How Did We Get into This Mess? by George Monbiot: A clear-sighted and reasonable diagnosis of the problems we face and everyday life, political and economical changes we need to make to get out of this mess.
Booksio (US) / Amazon (US) / Waterstones (UK) / Booktopia (AU)7 Sparks to Light a New Economy by Friends of the Earth Europe: Transformational ideas for a life-sustaining economy within Earth’s limits.
Download a free PDF or read online herePlastic Unlimited: How Corporations Are Fuelling the Ecological Crisis and What We Can Do About It by Alice Mah: Sociologist Alice Mah covers exactly what’s in the title of the book: how petrochemical and plastics corporations are still ensuring demand for plastics and expanding plastics production and the steps we can take to stop it.
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On The Food System & Cooking
Food or War by Julian Cribb: This book describes a new food system capable of meeting our global needs, looking at the health, safety, affordability, diversity, and sustainability of food, as well as keeping peace in the face of food shortages.
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How To Go Vegan: The why, the how, and everything you need to make going vegan easy by Veganuary: An explanation of why going vegan is good for the environment and its personal health benefits, as well as providing a guide for easy replacements, eating out and travelling when vegan, and meal planning.
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The Little Veggie Patch: How to grow food in small spaces by Fabian Capomolla and Mat Pember: Edible gardening for people without big gardens! This book shows how to grow your own food no matter how little the space you have to do it in.
Root to Bloom by Mat Pember and Jocelyn Cross: A modern guide to whole food use, Root to Bloom equips readers with the knowledge and tools to grow, eat and celebrate every edible part of the plant.
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My Zero-Waste Kitchen: Easy Ways to Eat Waste Free by Kate Turner: A cookbook for zero waste cooking! It teaches you how to reduce food waste with quick tips and simple solutions as well as containing no waste recipes.
Amazon (US) / Waterstones (UK) / Booktopia (AU)
More Plants Less Waste By Max La Manna: Plant-based recipes, zero waste life hacks and setting purposeful daily routines by zero waste chef Max La Manna.
Booksio (US) / Waterstones (UK) / Amazon (US) / QBD Books (AU)I Quit Sugar: Simplicious Flow by Sarah Wilson: Not just a book about quitting sugar, this book is listed here because it is so much more than sugar-free recipes, it shares the process of cooking nutritious, delicious food for less money, in less time, and with absolutely minimal waste. The sequel I Quit Sugar For Life follows with more recipes.
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The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, and Long-Term Health by T. Colin Campbell: Why the benefits of a plant-based diet are unparalleled and how patients stand to benefit from a surging interest in plant-based nutrition.
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Ferment Your Vegetables by Amander Feifer: About 90 step-by-step recipes and all you need to know to naturally ferment vegetables using simple methods and equipment.
Booktopia (AU)
On Other Self-Resilient Skills & Community Resilience
Modern Mending by Erin Lewis-Fitzgerald: Mending, but make it modern! A comprehensive guide to mending your own clothes, it includes step-by-step instructions for a range of techniques, including stitching, darning, patching, needle felting and machine darning, you can use to repair clothing in a way that makes them look even more fashionable than before.
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RetroSuburbia by David Holmgren: Written by the co-originator of the permaculture concept and subtitled The Downshifter's Guide to a Resilient Future, this is a manual showing how those living in suburbia can downshift and retrofit their homes, gardens, communities to be more self-organised, sustainable, and resilient into an uncertain future.
Amazon (US)
Milkwood by Kirsten Bradley and Nick Ritar: Full of hands-on instructions for learning the skills for down-to-earth living, it passes on in-depth knowledge on and inspires growing, keeping, cooking and making.
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Futuresteading: Live like tomorrow matters: Practical skills, recipes and rituals for a simpler life by Jade Miles
Booksio (US) / Waterstones (UK) / Amazon (US) / Booktopia (AU)Various publications by Shareable: People-powered solutions for the common good
Download free publications here
On Learning From & Listening To BIPOC
The sustainability movement must be “an inclusive intersectional movement that doesn’t forget that racism, capitalism, and white supremecy are the biggest barriers to reaching a circular economy” (quote by @ecofriendly_vegan from @bipocswho_zerowaste).
Dark Emu: Aboriginal Australia and the Birth of Agriculture by Bruce Pascoe: Revealing the truth of Aboriginal history, this book also reveals how we can learn from Australia’s First Peoples about managing and caring for the land.
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Decolonising Solidarity: Dilemmas and Directions for Supporters of Indigenous Struggles by Clare Land: A discussion on the need for middle-class settler activists supporting Indigenous people to be transformed through a process of both public political action and critical self-reflection, without which successful alliances and meaningful social change are not possible.
White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo: The counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality is explored by this book.
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Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge: Exploring issues from eradicated black history to the political purpose of white dominance, whitewashed feminism to the inextricable link between class and race, this book offers a framework for how to see, acknowledge, and counter racism.
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Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer: Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, a mother, and a woman, Kimmerer shows how plants offer us gifts and lessons.
Booksio (US) / Waterstones (UK) / Booktopia (AU)Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save The World by Tyson Yunkaporta: a cultural and philosophic discussion about Indigenous thinking, how we can do things differently, and how this can change the world.
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On Slow Living, Permaculture & Minimalism
The Art of Frugal Hedonism by Annie Raser-Rowland & Adam Grubb: Subtitled A Guide to Spending Less While Enjoying Everything More, helps readers target the most important habits of mind and action needed to live frugally but hedonistically.
The Year of Less by Cait Flanders: Trying to escape the consumerism cycle like Cait? She challenged herself to buying nothing but consumables for 12 months and documents her journey in this book.
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Degrowth in the Suburbs: A Radical Urban Imaginary by Samuel Alexander: Degrowth is discussed as a solution to the question: how can the vast suburban landscapes that ring the globe can be made safe and sustainable in the face of planetary ecological crisis?
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The Conscious Closet by Elizabeth L. Cline: How to build an effortless capsule wardrobe, keep up with trends without harming the environment, buy better quality, and seek out ethical brands.
Booksio (US) / Waterstones (UK) / QBD Books (AU)
Clean: The New Science of Skin and the Beauty of Doing Less by James Hamblin: How soap and skincare products actually harm skin and the environment, and why we don't actually really need them.
Booksio (US) / Waterstones (UK) / Booktopia (AU)Earth Restorer's Guide to Permaculture by Rosemary Morrow: How we can collectively continue the task of Earth restoration is shared in this hopeful, practical and evidence-based guide that encourages individuals, communities, cities and businesses to take action
Booksio (US) / Booktopia (AU)Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World by Jason Hickel: How we can bring our economy back into balance with the living world and build a thriving society for all.
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What are you reading this sweltering summer? Have you read any of these? What did you think? Let us know below in the comments!
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