Environmental Science 110
Introduction to Environmental Science
Fall 2012
Literature Reading Assignment
Here is a list of recommended books to start you thinking. Select something that will hold your interest—if you don’t
enjoy the cover or the back, find another. Books marked with an asterisk (*) are recommended. If the book you are
most interested in reading doesn’t happen to be on this list, come talk to us…
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*Abby, Edward. Desert Solitaire. Ballentine Books: New York, 1985.
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Arms, Myron. Riddle of the Ice: A Scientific Adventure into the Arctic. Anchor Books: New York, 1998.
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Beavan, Colin. No Impact Man: The adventures of a guilty liberal who attempts to save the planet and the
discoveries he makes about himself and our way of life in the process. Farrar, Strous and Giroux. 2009.
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*Berry, Wendell. The Unsettling of American Culture & Agriculture. Avon Books: New York, 1977.
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Bryson, Bill. A Walk in the Woods. Broadway Books: New York, 1998.
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Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Houghton Mifflin Company: Boston, 1962.
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Colborn, Theo, Dianne Dumanoski, and John Peter Meyers. Our Stolen Future: How We Are Threatening Our
Fertility, Intelligence and Survival. Penguin Books: New York, 1997.

Cronin, William. Changes in the Land, Revised Edition: Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England. Hill
and Wang: New York, 2003.
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Davis, Mike. Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster. Vintage Books: New York, 1998.
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*Diamond, Jared, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Viking Press, 2004

Dillard, Annie, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, McGraw-Hill Companies, 1974
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Duany, Andres, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck. Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline
of the American Dream. North Point Press: New York, 2000.

Flannery, Tim. The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth.
Atlantic Monthly Press: New York, 2005.
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Freese, Barbara. Coal: A Human History. Penguin: New York, 2004.
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Fromartz, Samuel. Organic, Inc.: Natural Foods and How They Grew. Harcourt, Inc.: Orlando, Florida, 2006.

Garrett Laurie. The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance. Penguin: New York,
1994.
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*Gelbspan, Ross. Boiling Point. Basic Books: New York, 2004.
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*George, Rose, The Big Necessity: The unmentionable world of human waste and why it matters. Metropolitan
Books, 2008.
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Gleick, P. Bottled and sold: The story behind our obsession with bottled water. Washington DC: Island Press,
2010

Hudson, John C. Across this Land: A Regional Geography of the United States and Canada. Johns Hopkins
University Press: Baltimore, Maryland, 2002.
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*Kingsolver, Barbara, Camille Kingsolver and Steven L. Hopp. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life.
Harper Collins: New York, 2007.
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*Kolbert, Elizabeth. Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change, Bloomsbury
Publishing, 2006.
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Kurlansky, Mark and Richard M. Davidson. Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World. Walker
Publishing Company: 1997.

Lappe, Frances Moore and Anna Lappe. Hope’s Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet. Penguin: New York,
2003.
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Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac. Oxford University Press: New York, 1974.
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Lopez, Barry, Arctic Dreams, Bantam books, 1987

Luov, Richard. The Nature Principle: Reconnecting with Life in a Virtual Age, Algonquin, 2012.

Maclean, Norman. Young Men and Fire. University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1992.
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Mann, Charles C. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, Knopf Publishing, 2005

*Mann, Charles, 1493: Uncovering the new world Columbus created. Vintage, 2012.

Masumoto, David M. Epitaph for a Peach: Four Seasons on My Family Farm. Harper Collins: New York, 1995.
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McDonough, W., & Braungart, M. Cradle to cradle: Remaking the way we make things. New York: North Point
Press. 2002
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McKibben, Bill, Wandering Home: A Long Walk Across America's Most Hopeful Landscape: Vermont's
Champlain Valley and New York's Adirondacks, Crown Journeys, 2005
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*McPhee, John. The Control of Nature. The Noonday Press: New York, 1993.
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Nash, Roderick. Wilderness and the American Mind. Yale University Press: New Haven, Connecticut, 2001.
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Pollan, Michael, Botany of Desire, Random House, 2001
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*Pollan, Michael. Omnivore’s Dilemma. Penguin: New York, 2007.

Ponting, Clive. A New Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations.
Penguin: New York, 2007.
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Ray, Janisse, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, Milkweed Editions, 1999
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Rampton, Sheldon and John Stauber. Trust Us We’re Experts: How Industry Manipulates Science and
Gambles with your Future. Tarcher: 2002.
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*Reisner, Mark. Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water. Penguin Books: New York,
1987.
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*Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation. Houghton Mifflin Company: New York, 2001.
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Stone, Christopher. Earth and Other Ethics: The Case for Moral Pluralism. Harper Collins: 1988.

Tarr, Joel. Devastation and Renewal: An Environmental History of Pittsburgh of Its Region. University of
Pittsburgh Press: Pittsburgh, PA., 2003.
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Thoreau, H.D. Walden. 1854. http://eserver.org/thoreau/walden00.html
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Troesken, Werner. The Great Lead Water Pipe Disaster. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA., 2006.
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Vailiant, John, The Tiger: A true story of vengeance and survival. Knopf 2010.
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*Weidensaul, Scott. Ghost with Trembling Wings: Science, Wishful Thinking, and the Search for Lost Species.
North Point Press: New York, 2003.

Worster, Donald. Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West. Oxford University
Press: New York, 1985.
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