How the books were picked
Here are 10 excellent books for anyone interested in learning about connections between the pursuit of prosperity, energy, land, the environment, and society. I was looking for books that are enjoyable reads with rave reviews from both the public and professional book reviewers. Several have either been nominated for or won awards. All of these books are located at the 333 call number in the library’s business collection area. They feature themes of sustainability, ecology, alternate energy, and the great outdoors, with an economic perspective.
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The books
1. Teton County, Wyoming, is the richest county in the nation with the largest income inequality gap. In Billionaire wilderness, author Justin Farrell interviews the working poor to paint a picture of the billionaire class they work for and the effects that billionaires accumulating untold amounts of wealth have on the American West and the environment.
2. Amity and Prosperity by Eliza Griswold won a Pulitzer prize in 2019. Citizens in the town of Amity, Pennsylvania leased their land to a natural gas company based in Texas. Farm and domestic animals started to die and then children in the town began to get sick. After appealing to the company, people in the town decide to sue.
3. Explore the connections between reliable electricity and opportunity with A Question of Power by Robert Bryce. Bryce follows the history of lighting up the dark and the invention of electricity and its uses in the modern world. Explore challenges of accessing electricity in western societies, India, Lebanon, and the Muslim world. Then, in the 2nd half of the book, discover what technology and electricity mean in the new American economy of the 21st century.
4. Bubble in the Sun by Christopher Knowlton takes us back 100 years for a look at the Florida property boom, the irreversible environmental effects on the everglades, and the treatment of workers, many of whom were black, that built and maintained prosperity for elites. Terrible hurricanes sweep away at what was built and kill or injure thousands in 1926 and 1928. Then in 1929, the stock market crashes. Includes lavish depictions of and reveals a dark side to glitz, glamour, greed, and excess.
5. Discover solar energy with Georgetown professor and Forbes 30 under 30 alum Varun Sivaram in his book, Taming the Sun. In this optimistic review, learn what solar energy is, what it can be, and about its role in the greater scheme of switching to renewable energies. Sivaram brings a wealth of evidence to his perspective and offers public policy suggestions.
6. The Death and life of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan was the 2019 Read Between the Ravines book pick at the Lake Forest Library and the winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Award. Egan himself is a two-time Pulitzer prize finalist for his reporting. Egan follows the line of history in the Eastern United States. Here, he tells the story of engineering marvels and other changes Midwesterners and Easterners made to the environment that changed the Great Lakes forever, with consequences across the United States for our future fresh water supply.
7. After reading The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, visit California with The Dreamt Land by Mark Arax. Arax is a Fresno, California native and brings that local interest and history perspective in a way that only a native can. He interviews major crop farmers and details methods of moving water Californians have used, such as long canals, deep wells and moving rivers, for the sake of agriculture to spin a tale of the people who worked the land and the politics of accessing water.
8. Russell Gold, Wall Street Journal Senior Energy Reporter, describes a transition happening in America from fossil fuels to alternate energy in Superpower. Michael Skelly’s wind power company sold for $2 million and in doing so, made wind energy look like a real option. Gold interviews farmers with a new cash crop, Skelly’s financers, an oil family that turned to renewable energy, and more, for a portrait of what wind energy has to offer.
9. Get lost in the wilderness with author Mark Kenyon in That Wild Country. Learn about American history through visiting its public lands, and the threats against its continued existence today. Part history, part travelogue; follow along Mark and his wife Kylie as they go on a road trip across the county.
10. In Leave it as it is, author David Gessner treks across the country following Teddy Roosevelt’s travels over 100 years later. Gessner both searches for his own voice and Teddy Roosevelt’s voice and reveals challenges faced by Roosevelt as he set aside 230 million acres as protected land. Part biography of Teddy Roosevelt, part travelogue, and part conservation call to action.
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