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April 2024 MassBook List

Fire Weather by John Vaillant

In May 2016, the city of Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada, burned to the ground, forcing 88,000 people to flee their homes. It was the largest evacuation ever of a city in the face of a forest fire, raising the curtain on a new age of increasingly destructive wildfires. This book is a suspenseful account of one of North America’s most devastating forest fires–and a stark exploration of our dawning era of climate catastrophes.

Of Time and Turtles by Sy Montgomery

When acclaimed naturalist Sy Montgomery and wildlife artist Matt Patterson arrive at Turtle Rescue League, they are greeted by hundreds of turtles recovering from injury and illness. Endangered by cars and highways, pollution and poachers, these turtles–with wounds so severe that even veterinarians would have dismissed them as fatal–are given a second chance at life. The League’s founders, Natasha and Alexxia, live by one motto: Never give up on a turtle. But why turtles? What is it about them that inspires such devotion?

The Comfort of Crows by Margaret Renkl

In The Comfort of Crows, Margaret Renkl presents a literary devotional: fifty-two chapters that follow the creatures and plants in her backyard over the course of a year. As we move through the seasons

What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World's Most Enigmatic Birds by Jennifer Ackerman

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Genius of Birds and The Bird Way, a brilliant scientific exploration of owls, the most elusive group of birds, and an investigation into why these remarkable and yet mysterious animals exert such a hold on human imagination.

When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice by Terry Tempest Williams

In fifty-four chapters that unfold like a series of yoga poses, each with its own logic and beauty, Williams (beloved author of “Refuge”) creates a lyrical and caring meditation of the mystery of her mother’s journals .. and what it means to have a voice beyond a selfless existence informed by children and a husband.

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

The story of a 1,100 mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe–and built her back up again.

Under a White Sky by Elizabeth Kolbert

Elizabeth Kolbert takes a hard look at the new world people are creating. She meets scientists who are trying to preserve the world’s rarest fish, which lives in a single, tiny pool in the middle of the Mojave. She visits a lava field in Iceland, where engineers are turning carbon emissions to stone; an aquarium in Australia, where researchers are trying to develop ‘super coral’ that can survive on a hotter globe; and a lab at Harvard, where physicists are contemplating shooting tiny diamonds into the stratosphere in order to reflect sunlight back to space and cool the earth