The World as We Knew It
Dispatches from a Changing Climate
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About this listen
Nineteen leading literary writers from around the globe offer timely, haunting first-person reflections on how climate change has altered their lives
In this riveting anthology, leading literary writers reflect on how climate change has altered their lives, revealing the personal and haunting consequences of this global threat.
In the opening essay, National Book Award finalist Lydia Millet mourns the end of the Saguaro cacti in her Arizona backyard due to drought. Later, Omar El Akkad contemplates how the rise of temperatures in the Middle East is destroying his home and the wellspring of his art. Gabrielle Bellot reflects on how a bizarre lionfish invasion devastated the coral reef near her home in the Caribbean—a precursor to even stranger events to come. Traveling through Nebraska, Terese Svoboda witnesses cougars running across highways and showing up in kindergartens.
As the stories unfold—from Antarctica to Australia, New Hampshire to New York—an intimate portrait of a climate-changed world emerges, captured by writers whose lives jostle against incongruous memories of familiar places that have been transformed in startling ways.
©2022 Amy Brady and Tajja Isen (P)2022 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
For years, America's national parks have provided public breathing spaces in a world in which such spaces are steadily disappearing, which is why close to 300 million people visit the parks each year. Now, to honor the centennial of the National Park Service, Terry Tempest Williams, the author of the beloved memoir When Women Were Birds, returns with The Hour of Land, a literary celebration of our national parks, what they mean to us, and what we mean to them.
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It could have been good.
- By udzuzu on 04-14-18
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Rain
- A Natural and Cultural History
- By: Cynthia Barnett
- Narrated by: Christina Traister
- Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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It is elemental, mysterious, precious, destructive. It is the subject of countless poems and paintings; the top of the weather report; the source of all the world's water. Yet this is the first audiobook to tell the story of rain.
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Mostly a cultural history
- By serine on 02-10-16
By: Cynthia Barnett
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The Great Wall of China and the Salton Sea
- Monuments, Missteps, and the Audacity of Ambition
- By: Russell Rathbun
- Narrated by: Larry Herron
- Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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We've been building and making things ever since we stumbled out of paradise. Some of those things are incredible continuations of God's creation, while others are nothing but ambitious catastrophes. We continue making, says Russell Rathbun, but we've lost ourselves in the process.
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Excellent narrator
- By Tammy on 03-17-18
By: Russell Rathbun
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In the Valleys of the Noble Beyond
- In Search of the Sasquatch
- By: John Zada
- Narrated by: Pete Cross
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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On the central and north coast of British Columbia, the Great Bear Rainforest is the largest intact temperate rainforest in the world, containing more organic matter than any other terrestrial ecosystem on the planet. The area plays host to a wide range of species, from thousand-year-old western cedars to humpback whales to iconic white Spirit bears. According to local residents, another giant is said to live in these woods.
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Not a relatable book
- By RJK on 07-14-19
By: John Zada
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Almost Anywhere
- Road-Trip Ruminations on Love, Nature, Recovery, and Nonsense
- By: Krista Schlyer
- Narrated by: Marisa Vitali
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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What do you do when your world ends? At 28 years old, Krista Schlyer sold almost everything she owned and packed the rest of it in a station wagon bound for the American wild. Her two best friends joined her - one a grumpy, grieving introvert, the other a feisty dog - and together they sought out every national park, historic site, forest, and wilderness they could get to before their money ran out or their minds gave in.
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No a travelogue - its a diary
- By Jonathan on 12-29-20
By: Krista Schlyer
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Lassoing the Sun
- A Year in America's National Parks
- By: Mark Woods
- Narrated by: Corey M. Snow
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Many childhood summers, Mark Woods piled into a station wagon with his parents and two sisters and headed to America's national parks. Mark's most vivid childhood memories are set against a backdrop of mountains, woods, and fireflies in places like Redwood, Yosemite, and Grand Canyon national parks. On the eve of turning 50, and a little burned out, Mark decided to reconnect with the great outdoors. He'd spend a year visiting the national parks.
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great narrator, lackluster story, wonderful themes
- By MT on 08-21-18
By: Mark Woods
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Reservation Restless
- By: Jim Kristofic
- Narrated by: Jim Kristofic
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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In the powerful and haunting lands of the Southwest, rainbows grow unexpectedly from the sky, mountain lions roam the desert, and summer storms roll over the Colorado River. As a park ranger, Kristofic explores the Ganado valley, traces the paths of the Anasazi, and finds mythic experiences on sacred mountains that explain the pain and loss promised for every person who decides to love. After reconnecting with his Navajo sister and brother, Kristofic must confront his own nightmares of the Anglo society and the future it has created.
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It is a gift to see the world through Jim's eyes
- By Josh Boyle on 06-23-21
By: Jim Kristofic
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To Hell and Back
- The Last Train from Hiroshima
- By: Charles Pellegrino
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 18 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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To Hell and Back offers listeners a stunning "you are there" time capsule, wrapped in elegant prose. Charles Pellegrino's scientific authority and close relationship with the A-bomb survivors make his account the most gripping and authoritative ever written.
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The Pica-Don
- By Tad Davis on 09-07-20
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Deep Creek
- Finding Hope in the High Country
- By: Pam Houston
- Narrated by: Pam Houston
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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On her 120-acre homestead high in the Colorado Rockies, beloved writer Pam Houston learns what it means to care for a piece of land and the creatures on it. Elk calves and bluebirds mark the changing seasons, winter temperatures drop to 35 below, and lightning sparks a 110,000-acre wildfire, threatening her century-old barn and all its inhabitants. Through her travels from the Gulf of Mexico to Alaska, she explores what ties her to the Earth, the ranch most of all.
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The most beautiful book I’ve ever read
- By KFratt on 04-26-19
By: Pam Houston
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Tomboyland
- Essays
- By: Melissa Faliveno, Joey Soloway - introduction
- Narrated by: Melissa Faliveno
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Flyover country, the middle of nowhere, the space between the coasts. The American Midwest is a place beyond definition, whose very boundaries are a question. It's a place of rolling prairies and towering pines, where guns in bars and trucks on blocks are as much a part of the landscape as rivers and lakes and farms. Where girls are girls and boys are boys, where women are mothers and wives, where one is taught to work hard and live between the lines.
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Embrace the Quirk
- By Lorraine S. on 07-26-22
By: Melissa Faliveno, and others
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In the Land of Good Living
- A Journey to the Heart of Florida
- By: Kent Russell
- Narrated by: Kent Russell
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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A wickedly smart, funny, and irresistibly off-kilter account of an improbable thousand-mile journey on foot into the heart of modern Florida, the state that Russell calls "America Concentrate".
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Wanna be writer and other fools
- By E on 08-11-20
By: Kent Russell