Blueback

Like Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, Tim Winton's Blueback is a tale of one individual's search for meaning through a relationship with sea.  Abel Jackson has lived by the sea ever since he can remember.  Out diving one day with his mother, he encounters and befriends a Blueback, a large, blue fish.  Winton called this novel a contemporary fable, and there is certainly a clear and obvious moral with a positive answer to the question of how we live in  the modern world with our morality and respect for the encironment intact.  This is a lovely, and easy to read novel which will appeal to children of all ages, as well as adults.



Blueback
Tim Winton
South Melbourne, Macmillian, 1997

Anthill

Eminent and controversial Harvard biologist, twice Pulitzer Prize author, Edward O. Wilson has written his first fictional novel, Anthill.  With striking scientific detail and startling revelations of the true meaning of nature's wildness, Anthill gives an extraordinary ant' eye view of the world.  Inspirational and magical, Wilson builds the story of a boy who grows up determined to save the world from its most savage ecological predator, Man himself.  Fighting the encroachment of developers' bulldozers in the courtroom, hero Raff Cody provideds readers with new insights into the meaning of survival in our rapidly changing world.

Anthill
E. O. Wilson
New York, W.W. Norton, 2010.

Solar

When I read the phrases 'save the world from environmental disaster’ and 'the most pressing and complex problem of our time’ on the back cover, I feared greatly for anyones reading pleasure. Instead of a debate on climate change or an informative sermon on the dangers of global warming, McEwan’s secret weapon is humour in this eco-novel. The main character Michael Beard is a self-serving and unethical Nobel laureate physicist involved in a number of projects to create a source of power that doesn’t rely on fossil fuels.

Solar
Ian McEwan
New York : Anchor Books, 2011
Good Reads

Ape House

Sara Gruen once again makes connections between animals and humans in the her second novel, Ape House.  An educational read about bonobo apes living in a research lab in Kansas City.  Adept in using American Sign Language the apes are able to express their thoughts, wishes and interact with their human keepers.  When the laboratory is the target of a violent explosion, apparently by animal activist, the apes escape only to find themselves exploited in a reality-TV obsessed culture.

Ape House

Sara Gruen

Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 2010
Books & Authors

Black Tide

Black Tide follows Australian journalist India Kane, on assignment aboard a Greenpeace ship in pursuit of a whaling fleet.  One night the ship rammed by an unregistered ghost vessel killing crew members and friends.  Surviving the attack India begins an investigation into who's responsible, an exclusive which uncovers an extensive mafia style ring of corruption involving a large Australian family, their involvement in illegal waste dumping and the improper use of chemicals in their new eco friendly refrigerators.

Black Tide
Caroline Carver
London: Orion, 2004

The Monkey Wrench Gang

Written in 1975, The Monkey Wrench Gang follows the fictional exploits of four self-appointed eco-saboteurs as they work tirelessly to prevent the encroachment of industry and development into the American Southwest. The novel centers on Vietnam veteran George Washington Hayduke, who returns to find his beloved canyons and rives threatened by industrial development. With a supporting cast's of disparate characters together they wage war on big yellow machine, dam builders, road builders and strip miners they believe are spoiling their desert landscape.  The book is credited with having inspired the formation of the ecological protest group, Earth First.


The Monkey Wrench Gang
Edward Abbey
London: Picador, 1982, c1973

The World Beneath

Set in beautiful Tasmania, many readers suggest the rugged and unpredictable wilderness itself becomes a character in Kennedy's The World Beneath.
Kennedy's two main characters, environmental activist, Sandy and her estranged and well-trakked husband Rich who met on the 1982/83 Franklin River Blockade, have now compromised their green ideals and are living fairly normal middle-class lives. Thier Greenie past reappears when Rich decides to take their 15-year-old daughter, Sophie, on a trek to the Tasmanian wilderness. The trek is the Overland track in Cradle Mountain, a route now full of tourists and hikers from across the world.

The novel wonderfully weaves themes such as, growing old and compromising your values, raising children in a commercial environment, the importance of protecting the wilderness and the unique experience of relating to nature.

The World Beneath
Cate Kennedy
North Calton, Victoria: Scribe, 2009

Oryx and Crake and Year of the Flood

Together, these biotech apocalypse novels by Margaret Atwood tell the story of what happens when two mad scientist decide to save the planet by replacing humanity with a more environmentally-friendly intelligent species. Set in a future where genetic engineering is commonplace, and the super rich extend their lives with spa treatments, the two novels show us how a horrific, humanity-destroying plague affects both the rich as well as a commune of radical environmentalist.

Oryx and Crake
Margaret Atwood
London: Bloomsbury, 2003

Watership Down

Set in the green hills of the United Kingdom, Watership Down is a novel that has worldwide appeal, not only as a good story, but also for the strong message it sends about the impact of development on the wildlife population. Adams presents rabbits as intelligent, caring, feeling creatures who undergo many trials and misfortunes for the sole purpose of finding a home where they can live out their lives. The book often carries a tone that suggests that humanity has lost something it used to have, the ability to live free, as the rabbits do. The notion that people should live as a part of nature rather than apart from nature is a strong undercurrent that flows through much of the work.


Richard Adams
Watership Down
New York: Scribner, 2005 (original London: Rex Collings, 1972)

Into Thin Air

Author Jon Krakauer was on the climbers that was attempting to reach the peak of Mt Everest on May 11, 1996. Before the day was over, the mountain would claim the lives of eight people. This book is an astonishing account of the events of that day, and the days leading up to it. Krakauer is a skilled writer and he combines it with the attention to detail of journalist. The result is a book that takes you into the heart of the disaster and describes in excruciating detail the stuggle that is the ascent of Everest. The events of the book prove that real events, people and the wrath of our unpredicatable environment are more compelling and astonishing than any fiction could possible be.



Jon Krakauer
Into Thin air
London: Pan Books, 2011