Suggested Reading
Introduction
This selection of books have been recommended by the PlaneteerHandbook team. These are useful resources we've read and are recommending to one another, as well as anyone else who wants to help build a better, more caring world.
If you don't want to buy or can't afford these books, be sure to check out your local library. Apps like Libby can help you access books without even going to your library, including audiobooks.
Libraries are a great way to gain and share knowledge, while supporting authors, but without adding to all the unnecessary deforestation and emissions that would be needed to make a copy for every person (who may only read their book once, if at all).
Carbon & Climate Change
The solutions in the book Drawdown can also help reduce, eliminate, or even sequester other greenhouse gases and pollutants too. Some solutions are more feasible than others.
For books that provide more of a "how-to", this page also offers useful information listed under Ecology > Farming Sustainably, Fungi, and Trees, further down on this page.
Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming "In the face of widespread fear and apathy, an international coalition of researchers, professionals, and scientists have come together to offer a set of realistic and bold solutions to climate change. One hundred techniques and practices are described here—some are well known; some you may have never heard of. They range from clean energy to educating girls in lower-income countries to land use practices that pull carbon out of the air. The solutions exist, are economically viable, and communities throughout the world are currently enacting them with skill and determination. If deployed collectively on a global scale over the next thirty years, they represent a credible path forward, not just to slow the earth’s warming but to reach drawdown, that point in time when greenhouse gases in the atmosphere peak and begin to decline. These measures promise cascading benefits to human health, security, prosperity, and well-being—giving us every reason to see this planetary crisis as an opportunity to create a just and livable world."
Communication
General
Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High "When stakes are high, opinions vary, and emotions run strong, you have three choices: Avoid a crucial conversation and suffer the consequences; handle the conversation badly and suffer the consequences; or read Crucial Conversations and discover how to communicate best when it matters most. Crucial Conversations gives you the tools you need to step up to life's most difficult and important conversations, say what's on your mind, and achieve the positive resolutions you want. You'll learn how to:
Prepare for high-impact situations with a six-minute mastery technique
Make it safe to talk about almost anything
Be persuasive, not abrasive
Keep listening when others blow up or clam up
Turn crucial conversations into the action and results you want "
Language Learning
While we are learning plenty of incredible ways to help the planet, language barriers can be a big problem when it comes to spreading the word about these important solutions. In order to help make useful information more widely accessible, learning a new language (or more!) can be a great way to make a big difference and even some new friends!
Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It This book uses humor and an understanding of how human brains work to guide us through simple steps to help improve our learning experience. Some of the tips are also helpful for studying outside of foreign languages.
Teamwork and Leadership
Ecology
Farming Sustainably
Since farming uses the majority of habitable land, uses more water than any other human activity, and billions of tons of chemicals including nutrients and poisons which end up in our waterways, farming is one of the key ways we can reduce our impact as a species. Generations of harmful habits have deteriorated
Dirt to Soil: One Family's Journey Into Regenerative Agriculture "Gabe Brown didn't set out to change the world when he first started working alongside his father-in-law on the family farm in North Dakota. But as a series of weather-related crop disasters put Brown and his wife, Shelly, in desperate financial straits, they started making bold changes to their farm. Brown--in an effort to simply survive--began experimenting with new practices he'd learned about from reading and talking with innovative researchers and ranchers. As he and his family struggled to keep the farm viable, they found themselves on an amazing journey into a new type of farming: regenerative agriculture."
Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soils Back to Life "The problem of agriculture is as old as civilization. Throughout history, great societies that abused their land withered into poverty or disappeared entirely. Now we risk repeating this ancient story on a global scale due to ongoing soil degradation, a changing climate, and a rising population. But there is reason for hope. David R. Montgomery introduces us to farmers around the world at the heart of a brewing soil health revolution that could bring humanity's ailing soil back to life remarkably fast.
Growing a Revolution draws on visits to farms in the industrialized world and developing world to show that a new combination of farming practices can deliver innovative, cost-effective solutions to problems farmers face today. Montgomery explores why practices based on the principles of conservation agriculture help restore soil health and fertility. In addition, he discusses how these practices translate into farms that use less water, generate less pollution, and lower carbon emissions. Combining ancient wisdom with modern science, Growing a Revolution lays out a solid case for an inspiring vision where agriculture becomes the solution to environmental problems." Click here for the audio version.The One Straw Revolution "Fukuoka demonstrates how the way we look at farming influences the way we look at health, the school, nature, nutrition, spiritual health and life itself. He joins the healing of the land to the process of purifying the human spirit and proposes a way of life and a way of farming in which such healing can take place." Click here for the audio version.Â
Gardening & Landscaping
Rewilding & Ecology
The Beginner's Landscape Transformation Manual "This book will teach you to have an easy, productive, healthy garden on less time than you ever thought possible."
Nature's Best Hope A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard "sparked a national conversation about the link between healthy local ecosystems and human well-being. In Nature's Best Hope, he takes the next step and outlines his vision for a grassroots, home-grown approach to conservation.
Nature's Best Hope advocates for homeowners everywhere to turn their yards into conservation corridors that provide wildlife habitats. This home-based approach doesn’t rely on the federal government and protects the environment from the whims of politics. It is also easy to do, and readers will walk away with specific suggestions they can incorporate into their own yards."
Sustainably Harvesting
A Garden to Dye For walks you through basic safety for at-home dyers, non-toxic materials, and useful topics from making and using mordants as well as colour modifiers. Learn how to collect and make your own mordant from fallen acorns, how to do cold dye baths, hot dye baths, and even solar dying with jars left in the sun. The author started out as a gardener, and walks you through how to sustainably harvest anything from roots to flowers, how to make mordant from rusty metals, as well as kitchen waste that offers pretty colours including coffee, onion skins, and soak water from black beans if you want blue or purple!
General
Braiding Sweetgrass "As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learning to give our own gifts in return."
Ecological Planet: An Introduction to Earth's Major Ecosystems "From jungles and rain  forests to the driest deserts and barren arctic terrain, Planet Earth comprises a breathtaking array of ecosystems. As quickly becomes apparent, no one ecosystem exists independently of the rest, and no matter where a person resides, an understanding of all the ecosystems and how they work together as a living planet provides a better understanding of man's place on Earth and the future of the environment.
In this series of lectures, renowned ornithologist John Kricher presents an absorbing analysis of the diverse ecosystems that exist on Planet Earth. He provides a factual study of the many fragile and threatened portions of our biosphere while describing the interaction between each system and the effect of man's presence in these ecosystems. Professor Kricher also explains the amazing variety of flora and fauna that inhabit the individual ecosystems and addresses current ecological issues facing mankind."
Mushrooms & Mycelium
Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures "There is a lifeform so strange and wondrous that it forces us to rethink how life works…
Neither plant nor animal, it is found throughout the earth, the air and our bodies. It can be microscopic, yet also accounts for the largest organisms ever recorded, living for millennia and weighing tens of thousands of tonnes. Its ability to digest rock enabled the first life on land, it can survive unprotected in space, and thrives amidst nuclear radiation."Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World "is a manual for the mycological rescue of the planet. That’s right: growing more mushrooms may be the best thing we can do to save the environment, and in this groundbreaking text from mushroom expert Paul Stamets, you’ll find out how."
Trees
Finding the Mother Tree "From the world's leading forest ecologist who forever changed how people view trees and their connections to one another and to other living things in the forest--a moving, deeply personal journey of discovery."
The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World "Peter Wohlleben shares his deep love of woods and forests and explains the amazing processes of life, death, and regeneration he has observed in the woodland and the amazing scientific processes behind the wonders of which we are blissfully unaware. Much like human families, tree parents live together with their children, communicate with them, and support them as they grow, sharing nutrients with those who are sick or struggling and creating an ecosystem that mitigates the impact of extremes of heat and cold for the whole group. As a result of such interactions, trees in a family or community are protected and can live to be very old. In contrast, solitary trees, like street kids, have a tough time of it and in most cases die much earlier than those in a group. "
DIY for Eco-Friendly Living
Clothes & Textiles
A Garden to Dye For walks you through basic safety for at-home dyers, non-toxic materials, and useful topics from making and using mordants as well as colour modifiers. Learn how to collect and make your own mordant from fallen acorns, how to do cold dye baths, hot dye baths, and even solar dying with jars left in the sun. The author started out as a gardener, and walks you through how to sustainably harvest anything from roots to flowers, how to make mordant from rusty metals, as well as kitchen waste that offers pretty colours including coffee, onion skins, and soak water from black beans if you want blue or purple!
Restyle & Restitch for Little Ones shows you simple ways to turn old adult clothing into free or affordable baby clothing. The Swedish author provides pretty photos showing where pieces were cut from, traceable patterns in the back pages, the front pages are full of useful tips for total beginners and intermediate crafters. If you don't understand any of the instructions, look for step-by-step guides online as there are many with photos as well as videos that are great at demystifying sewing terms and techniques. One of the bags is sewing machine free, and several ideas in this book could be sized up for older children of even adults.
