It all started with a simple message in FirstClass asking a simple question—what do Antiochians consider the top eco books? From Rachel Carlson’s Silent Spring, Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey, and The Control of Nature by John McPhee, to Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax, weeks and weeks went by and the responses just kept on coming. When all was said and done a diverse list of some one hundred books had been offered as among the best and most influential eco-centered books published.
The full list from the FirstClass discussion:
| Adult Books | |
| A Clockwork Orange | Anthony Burgess |
| A Country Year: Living the Questions | Sue Hubbell |
| A Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey | Jane Goodall |
| A Sand County Almanac | Aldo Leopold |
| ALL WORKS BY | Wendell Berry |
| ALL WORKS BY | Ursula Le Guin |
| ALL WORKS BY | Rick Bass. |
| And No Birds Sing | Mark Jaffe |
| Believing Cassandra: An optimist Looks at a Pessimist’s World | Alan Atkisson |
| Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water | Marc Reisner |
| Chasing the Dragon’s Tail: The Struggle to Save Thailand’s Wildcats | Alan Rabinowitz |
| Conservative Environmentalism | James R. Dunn & John E. Kinney |
| Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things | William McDonough & Michael Braungart |
| Desert Solitaire | Edward Abbey |
| Developing Ecological Consciousness: Paths to a Sustainable World | Christopher Uhl |
| Ecology (Key Concepts in Critical Theory) | Carolyn Merchant |
| Ecotopia | Ernest Callenbach |
| Eye of the Albatross: Visions of Hope and Survival | Carl Safina |
| Fast Food Nation | Eric Schlosser |
| Free Market Environmentalism | Terry L. Anderson & Donald R. Leal |
| Hard Green: Saving the Environment from the Environmentalists (A Conservative Manifesto) | Peter Huber |
| How to Identify and Grow Psilocybin Mushrooms | Jule Stevens |
| Let the Mountains Talk, Let the Rivers Run: A Call to Those Who Would Save the Earth | David Brower |
| Life of Pi | Yann Martel |
| Lord of the Rings | J.R.R. Tolkien |
| Moon by Whale Light: And Other Adventures Among Bats, Penguins, Crocodilians, and Whales | Diane Ackerman |
| My Ishmael | Daniel Quinn |
| My Story as Told by Water | David James Duncan |
| National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America, 4th Edition | National Geographic Society |
| Natural Capitalism | Paul Hawken |
| Naturalist | Edward O. Wilson |
| Nature Writings: The Story of my Boyhood and Youth | Muir |
| Our Stolen Future | Theo Colborn |
| Pilgrim at Tinker Creek | Annie Dillard |
| Practice of the Wild | Gary Snyder |
| Prodigal Summer & ALL WORKS BY | Barbara Kingsolver |
| Radical Ecology: The Search for a Livable World | Carolyn Merchant |
| Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place | Terry Tempest Williams |
| Silent Spring | Rachel Carlson |
| The Bible(particularly the Book of Genesis) | |
| The Control of Nature | John McPhee |
| The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People are Changing the World | Paul H. Ray, PhD & Sherry Anderson |
| The Diversity of Life | Edward O. Wilson |
| The Immigration Dilemma: Avoiding the Tragedy of the Commons | Garrett Hardin |
| The Other Way to Listen | Byrd Baylor |
| The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America | John Micklethwait & Adrian Wooldridge |
| The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World | Bjorn Lomborg |
| The Spell of the Sensuous | David Abram |
| The Trees in My Forest | Bernd Heinrich |
| The Web of Life | Fritjof Capra |
| Voluntary Simplicity | Duane Elgin |
| Walden | Henry David Thoreau |
| Children’s Books | |
| A Wrinkle in Time | Madeleine L’Engle |
| Andy Goldsworthy: Collaboration with Nature | Andy Goldsworthy |
| Audubon nature guides | |
| Dream Freedom | Sonia Levitin |
| Fun with Nature: A Take-Along Guide | Mel Boring |
| In a Nutshell (Sharing Nature with Children Book) | Joseph Anthony |
| Lord of the Rings series | J.R.R. Tolkien |
| Miracle at Willowcreek | Annette Lebox |
| Montana 1948 | Larry Watson |
| My Side of the Mountain | Jean Craighead George |
| O’ Pioneers! | Willa Cather |
| Seedfolks | Paul Fleischman |
| The Ancient One | T.A. Barron |
| The City of Ember | Jeanne Duprau |
| The Diary of a Worm | Doreen Cronin |
| The Earth From Above | Yann Arthus-Bertrand |
| The Giving Tree | Shel Silverstein |
| The Last Basselope: One Ferocious Story | Berkeley Breathed |
| The Lorax | Dr. Seuss |
| The Salamander Room | Anne Mazer |
| The Table Where Rich People Sit | Byrd Baylor & Peter Parnall |
| The Universe is a Green Dragon: A Cosmic Creation Story | Brian Swimme |
| Things Fall Apart | Chinua Achebe |
| Two Old Women | Velma Wallis |
| Vermont Nature Guide | Sheri Amsel |
| Yertle the Turtle | Dr. Seuss |
