Overview

A landmark collection of Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Kolbert's most important pieces about climate change and the natural world A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR ""To be a well-informed citizen of Planet Earth,"" Rolling Stone has advised, ""you need to read Elizabeth Kolbert."" From her National Magazine Award-winning series The Climate of Man to her Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Sixth Extinction, Kolbert’s work has shaped the way we think about the environment in the twenty-first century. Collected in Life on a Little-Known Planet are her most influential and thought-provoking essays. An intrepid reporter and a skillful translator of scientific idees, Kolbert expertly captures the wonders of nature and paints vivid portraits of the researchers and concerned citizens working to preserve them. She takes readers all around the globe, from an island in Denmark that’s succeeded in going carbon neutral, to a community in Florida that voted to give rights to waterways, to the Greenland ice sheet, which is melting in a way that has implications for everyone. We meet a biologist who believes we can talk to whales, an entomologist racing to find rare caterpillars before they disappear, and a climatologist who’s considered the ""father of global warming,"" amongst other scientists at the forefront of environmental protection. The threats to our planet that Kolbert has devoted so much of her career to exposing have only grown more serious. Now is the time to deepen our understanding of the world we are in danger of losing.

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Reviews

Praise for Life on a Little-Known Planet “Kolbert gracefully balances a realistic awareness of losses brought about by human activity—particularly by the use of fossil fuels—with a sense of wonder at just how much there is still to learn about this ‘little-known planet’ and admiration for those who quixotically explore and attempt to heal it. . . . [D]espair and hope dance together [in these] thought-provoking speculations about a world on the edge of violent change.”—Kirkus Review, starred review Praise for Elizabeth Kolbert “[Kolbert] makes a page-turner out of even the most sober and scientifically demanding aspects of extinction. Combining a lucid, steady, understated style with some enviable reporting adventures.”―New York Magazine “Kolbert is an economical and deft explainer of the technical, and about as intrepid a reporter as they come . . . Her reporting is meticulous.”―Harper’s “[Kolbert’s] prose is lucid, accessible and even entertaining as she reveals the dark theater playing out on our globe.”―San Francisco Chronicle “Kolbert is an astute observer, excellent explainer and superb synthesizer, and even manages to find humor in her subject matter.”―The Seattle Times “What’s exceptional about Kolbert’s writing is the combination of scientific rigor and wry humor that keeps you turning the pages.”―National Geographic “Kolbert tells by showing. Without beating the reader over the head, she makes it clear how far we already are from a world of undisturbed, perfectly balanced nature—and how far we must still go to find a new balance for the planet’s future that still has us humans in it.”—NPR “To be a well-informed citizen of Planet Earth, you need to read Elizabeth Kolbert… It’s a tribute to Kolbert’s skills as a storyteller that she transforms the quest to deal with the climate crisis into a darkly comic tale of human hubris and imagination that could either end in flames or in a new vision of Paradise.”—Rolling Stone “Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Kolbert’s beat is examining the impact of humans on the environment, and she does it better than basically everyone.”—Literary Hub

Praise for Life on a Little-Known Planet “Kolbert’s writing is serious but adroit [with] just enough wry humour. The necessity of fitting huge subjects into 20 clear pages suits her style. Each essay is pacy, with energising turns. . . . Kolbert [is] a necessary voice on the environment.”—The Observer “Kolbert gracefully balances a realistic awareness of losses brought about by human activity—particularly by the use of fossil fuels—with a sense of wonder at just how much there is still to learn about this ‘little-known planet’ and admiration for those who quixotically explore and attempt to heal it. . . . [D]espair and hope dance together [in these] thought-provoking speculations about a world on the edge of violent change.”—Kirkus Review, starred review “[Life on a Little-Known Planet] reads like a world tour of what’s disappearing and what’s being brought back to life . . . Kolbert’s writing is clear and well sourced. [She] reminds us that even in a time of crisis, regeneration is possible.”—Imagine5 “There is a great deal that humanity doesn’t know about how the world works, and expanding that knowledge may turn out to be crucial. [Life on a Little-Known Planet is] a worthwhile and convenient collection from one of the best-known writers on climate change and the environment.”—Library Journal “With a topic as broad, technical—and let’s be honest, doomsy—as climate change is, Life on a Little-Known Planet is a master class in how to write about our changing world.”—Mother Jones “Kolbert brings every creature, place, person, fact, and issue to scintillating life in these deft, engaging, lucid, and thought-provoking dispatches covering 20 years of her world travels during epic planetary changes. . . . Kolbert resolutely and brilliantly alerts us to how little we know about our precious planet, how much harm we do, and how we must and can do better.”—Booklist “Kolbert is one of our most important and lucid voices on climate change, and she’s been ringing the bell for longer than most. This book . . . will be essential.”—Emily Temple, Literary Hub “Kolbert has radically informed the way modern audiences understand climate change, and her newest collection is no exception, zooming into stories of hope, activism, and innovation across the globe.”—The Millions

Author Information

Elizabeth Kolbert is the bestselling author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe, The Sixth Extinction, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize, and Under a White Sky, which was named a top ten book of the year by The Washington Post. For her work at The New Yorker, where she's a staff writer, she has received two National Magazine Awards and the Blake-Dodd Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts, with her husband and children.

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