Earth Day - Green Book Challenge!

April 22 is Earth Day, and in honor of the Earth (and her day), I thought I'd propose a challenge.

Environmental writing comes in many forms - novels, stories, memoirs, essays, odes-to-nature, calls-to-action, and green how-to's - all of which challenge the reader to think outside of him or herself to consider the global community to which we all belong. It moves us to rethink how we live, and in its best incarnations it impacts our choices positively.

Here's the challenge:

Choose an environmental/conservationist/green book that you've read and liked, and submit a one paragraph recommendation of that book. I will publish the best of the recommendations submitted here on the site, along with the recommenders' names.

One paragraph! How hard could that be? Here's an example:

"Naked" is a collection of short fiction and nonfiction concerned with the spaces in which people meet nature. Pieces range wildly: an excerpt from Alexandra Fuller's memoir of her African childhood, a handful of Edward Abbey's letters, and a sexual encounter with a dolphin from hallucinatory-fiction writer, Ted Mooney. At the heart of the collection is a passage from Joy William's "Ill Nature," a stylistically aggressive ecological rant in which the narrator indicts humanity for our superficial relationship with the natural world. Editor Susan Zakin's selections for "Naked" are eclectic in both content and tone. She casts a wide net upon our intersections with nature, and the resulting collection succeeds in engaging and illuminating without condemning nor condoning.

E-mail your recommendation to me at contemporarylit.guide@about.com between now and April 21, 2008 and be sure to include your name and e-mail address in the message body. Good luck! At the very least, we'll all have a new Earth-centric reading list.