Inheritors of the Earth: How Nature is Thriving in an Age of Extinction

"I’m writing and reading a lot about the impact of humans upon the natural world, and this has been the most thought-provoking book I’ve read on the topic this year. It outlines the capacity of plant and animal life to adapt to the Anthropocene world, and is—as Elizabeth Kolbert says on the back cover—“improbably hopeful” on the planet’s prospects in the face of a rapidly changing climate. This was a recommendation from my interview with Laura Dassow Walls , the Thoreau biographer. Another apocalyptic book, of a sort – I’ve been reading on a theme – but a weird one this, full of strangeness and unexplained wonders. It kept me up two nights running. It’s the first book in the Southern Reach trilogy, although this is (to my eyes) by far the strongest of the three books."