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BookShelf

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The BookShelf features monthly reviews of the latest environmental and energy books of interest to journalists, as well as an occasional question-and-answer in which published authors offer insight into the motivations behind their work and provide advice to environmental reporters and writers.

For questions and comments, or to suggest future BookShelf reviews, or to offer to review a book, email the SEJournal BookShelf Editor Tom Henry at thenry@theblade.com.

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June 17, 2020

  • “Billionaire Wilderness: The Ultra-Wealthy and the Remaking of the American West”

    It’s a site of stunning natural beauty. It’s also the place with America’s worst income inequality. A new book details how Wyoming’s Teton County elite have, perhaps unwittingly, used their extreme wealth to remake the region through conservation easements and donations to environmental causes, but remain blind to the needs of the area’s poorer residents. The latest BookShelf review explains.

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May 20, 2020

  • “Choked: Life and Breath in the Age of Air Pollution”

    To better grasp how COVID-19 is linked to the persistent problem of polluted air, our latest BookShelf review recommends going back to a prescient text, “Choked: Life and Breath in the Age of Air Pollution.” While the volume predates the pandemic, it makes painfully clear why, during this crisis, healthy air matters more than ever.

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April 15, 2020

  • Go-To Books for Understanding and Surviving a Pandemic

    If you’re looking for perspective in your reporting connected with the coronavirus story, it might help to turn to the extensive library of non-fiction books offering insight into disease and epidemics. Our own Bob Wyss offers a helping hand, with a select list of the most useful texts. Plus, links to resource lists for many more, in the latest BookShelf.

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February 5, 2020

  • ‘Last Days of the Mighty Mekong’ and ‘Dead in the Water’

    The Mekong River is a lifeline for millions and a biodiversity hotspot. But massive hydropower projects have put the Southeast Asian body of water, as well as the lives of the people and natural world around it, in serious jeopardy. In the latest BookShelf, writer Melody Kemp, who lives alongside the legendary river, reviews two volumes that help explain what’s killing the Mekong.

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January 8, 2020

  • “Cat Tale: The Wild, Weird Battle To Save the Florida Panther”

    Sometimes in the face of bad news, it can help to laugh a little. That’s what award-winning environmental writer Craig Pittman may help readers do with his new dispatch from the Sunshine State. Our latest BookShelf reviews Pittman’s upcoming witty, truth-telling volume,“Cat Tale: The Wild, Weird Battle To Save the Florida Panther.”

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December 11, 2019

November 6, 2019

  • “Giants of the Monsoon Forest: Living and Working With Elephants”

    A new book, “Giants of the Monsoon Forest,” offers an intimate look at the lives of working elephants in conflict-ridden Myanmar, where one of the planet’s most majestic animals faces increasing pressures. BookShelf reviewer Melody Kemp, based in Laos, describes her own experience with elephants, their surprising history with man and hopeful possibilities for their future.

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October 2, 2019

September 4, 2019

  • “Superpower: One Man’s Quest to Transform American Energy”

    The new book, “Superpower: One Man’s Quest to Transform American Energy,” takes what our reviewer calls an illuminating look into the politics and economics of energy development. The volume examines the decade-long effort to build long-distance transmission lines for wind-generated electricity. More in our latest BookShelf review.

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June 5, 2019

  • “Ocean Outbreak: Confronting the Rising Tide of Marine Disease”

    Marine ecologist Drew Harvell’s new book makes the case that the world’s oceans are sick and that few are paying enough attention. According to our latest BookShelf review, her “Ocean Outbreak” takes readers on a panoramic journey through the deep, while equipping reporters to better report problems that go well beyond climate change.

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