Top climate books to look out for in 2026 – recommended by experts
From compelling stories to non-fiction, books can spark ideas that help us navigate the climate crisis. As part of The Conversation’s ongoing Climate Storytelling strand, we asked climate research and creative writing experts to review some of the best new and upcoming titles to look out for in 2026. We’d love to know which ones you enjoy – share your thoughts in the comments below.
Surviving Climate and Chaos: What Dinosaurs Teach Us About Climate Change and Resilience by Evan Jevnikar (December 2025)
Surviving Climate and Chaos offers a refreshing take on dinosaur narratives. While far from the first to guide readers through Mesozoic menageries, Evan Jevnikar contributes a deftly woven history of palaeo-climates alongside the chronological history of the dinosaurs.
Jevnikar shows how dinosaur evolution was intrinsically linked to Earth’s ever-changing climate. Throughout the Mesozoic Era – the “age of reptiles”, which lasted from 252 to 66 million years ago – we see them rise, adapt, and diversify. This was thanks to the way their metabolism and physiology were suited to the warmer, carbon-rich climates of the Triassic period (between 250 and 201 million years ago) and the Jurassic period (201 to 145 million years ago). But the rapid climate change triggered by a fateful asteroid strike (66 million years ago) outpaced the ability of highly specialist dinosaurs (particularly non-flying species) to adapt to a colder and sparser world.
Jevnikar notes how human-influenced climate changes mimic prehistoric catastrophes. Key examples include comparisons between the rising intensity of modern storms and the monsoons of the Triassic period, as well as parallels between carbon-dense volcanic activity throughout Earth’s history and the contemporary mass release of carbon dioxide by people burning fossil fuels.
Jevnikar’s inclusion of actionable solutions is reassuring, though: far from prophesying apocalypse, he couples objective warnings about the influences of climate on ecosystems with remedial steps that humanity can take to reverse some of the damage it has caused. These include reforestation initiatives, carbon capture technology and personal acts of climate consciousness.
Backed by scientific evidence yet communicated clearly enough for people who are not palaeo-climatologists, Jevnikar contemplates our roles as climate stewards in an entertaining and accessible way.
Nathan Bramald is a PhD candidate researching the scientific communication of dinosaurs in literature
Called By the Hills: A Home in the Himalaya by Anuradha Roy (January 2026)
For the past 25 years, novelist and publisher Anuradha Roy has called the Himalaya her home and her world. In Called by the Hills, she invites us up and into the Ranikhet hillside of northern India?, where oxygen fizzes like champagne, leopards stalk the forests and langur monkey troops dance on roofs.
Roy’s absorbing book offers a personal panorama of the region: here is the oak tree I planted, she says, that is where the internet cafe was. Throughout, she tends to her sentences with patience and personality, the same way she tends to her Himalaya-facing garden.
The UK edition, smartly presented by Daunt, includes Roy’s adoring watercolours of the dogs who found their way into her home. A book of wildflowers and kafal berries, Called by the Hills stands as both a gardening memoir and a love letter to an endless forest that now faces an ending, as climate change begins to muddle the seasons.
Dominic O'Key is an English-teaching associate
Despite it All: a Handbook for Climate Hopefuls by Fred Pearce (February 2026)
Journalist and writer Fred Pearce argues that climate action is already underway and that defeatism only narrows our imagination. He does not claim to be writing an academic text, yet he provides clear explanations, with careful sourcing and suggestions for further reading that draw the reader into a wider conversation.
His writing on inequity is particularly strong, especially the Enough for a Decent Life section, which confronts the fact that the wealthiest 10% have driven two-thirds of global warming since 1990. It asks how we meet the basic needs of 8 billion people while protecting the systems that support life.
Pearce’s treatment of technology and geopolitical action is thoughtful, using the global response to the stratospheric ozone hole to show that coordinated action can shift outcomes when it is taken seriously. The book focuses on collective work rather than individual lifestyle tweaks.
His examples illustrate what genuine progress looks like, from Indigenous stewardship to eco-restoration projects. The result is a sustained case for cautious optimism that feels earned rather than wishful.
Sam Illingworth is a professor of creative pedagogies
The climate crisis has a communications problem. How do we tell stories that move people – not just to fear the future, but to imagine and build a better one? This article is part of Climate Storytelling, a series exploring how arts and science can join forces to spark understanding, hope and action.
Frontierlands by Hazel Sheffield (February 2026)
The UK has one of the most concentrated forms of land ownership in the world. People are denied access to thousands of derelict properties, boarded up after factories close or landlords raise rents. Hazel Sheffield calls these unused buildings and properties Britain’s “frontiers”.
Documenting the tremendous obstacles to bringing them into productive use again, yet refusing pessimism, she follows artists, community organisers, bricklayers and car repair people who build with a new ethos. They propose collective ownership and neighbourhood co-production of crafts, festivals, healthy food options, together with affordable, low-carbon retrofitting.
In Frontierlands, Sheffield offers countless ideas for increasing our resilience in the face of late-stage capitalism. She also advocates for building neighbourhoods with better protection against a wetter and hotter climate. It’s a convincing argument: these initiatives will improve the nation’s health as well as its infrastructure.
Stephanie Palmer is a senior lecturer in the school of social sciences
The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change by Rebecca Solnit (March 2026)
Rebecca Solnit’s latest work is a powerful meditation on transformation in turbulent times. This slim volume situates today’s polarisation, authoritarian resurgence and reaction against progressive values within a broader historical arc.
The book opens with a moving land-return ceremony to Indigenous Americans and continues with examples of progress achieved through resistance and activism. Through vivid metaphors – caterpillars becoming butterflies, the labour pains of a new world — Solnit argues that the current turmoil signals the dying throes of patriarchy and colonialism.
At its heart, this book is a rallying call for all those who yearn for a just, sustainable and flourishing society. Solnit tells us not to give up hope, reassuring us that these struggles mark the shedding of the old and the birth of a new civilisation. As a sustainability academic, writer and climate-anxious activist myself, it’s just what I needed to hear.
Denise Baden is a professor of sustainable business
Elemental: How We Will Live on a Warming Planet by Arthur Snell (March 2026)
With more than 25 years’ experience in conflict zones and fragile states, Arthur Snell travels from the heat of the Sahel to the Arctic Circle to show how climate change is coinciding with a breakdown in geopolitical order, increasing conflict, military spending and violence.
“This is not a book of predictions … [it] is a guide to the future,” he writes. Snell uses the four elements – earth, air, fire and water – to frame climate change as a force reshaping present-day global politics. Drawing on history and current affairs, he paints a picture of climate change as more than “just” an environmental challenge. He outlines how it is reshaping national security, economic stability and even sovereignty.
He connects drought and the scramble for critical minerals to food insecurity, reminding readers that land remains central to survival. Rising temperatures and air quality pressures drive migration, while wildfires and the “pyrocene” expose vulnerabilities in fossil fuel-dependent economies. Water, meanwhile, links floods in Asia to Arctic ambitions.
Snell’s analysis is rigorous yet human, resisting fatalism and emphasising how outcomes depend on governance and cooperation: choices we make today. Elemental is an interdisciplinary masterclass on power and responsibility in the 21st century.
Mary Johnstone-Louis is a sustainable business researcher.
The Given World by Melissa Harrison (May 2026)
The Given World is a novel rooted in nature. Set in the fictional English village of Lower Eodham, bird song and wildlife are observed in fine detail, interwoven with a well-paced plot. The narrative skips about characters, with each chapter (except the last) focusing on a different village inhabitant or visitor.
Somewhat sparse dialogue gives space to focus on the inner world of these people, with hints at their lives and the connections between them. There is a slightly dark tone, with mysteries we need to wait to understand about difficulties the characters have experienced or may in the future.
Set in post-COVID, modern day life, climate change is an undertone from the start. There are references to wildfires on the news, as well as the consumerist or anti-consumerist leanings of different characters. Mention of the now-closed wholefood vegetarian restaurant chain Cranks made me smile, remembering visits with my father before veganism went mainstream.
The Given World is a thoughtful and thought-provoking story which will resonate with those interested in our reliance on, and complex relationship with, the natural world.
Rosie Robison is a professor of social sustainability
My Body is a Meadow by Bethany Handley (May 2026)
I went through various emotions reading My Body is a Meadow – from angry and amused through to ashamed and annoyed. This reflects the author’s own journey to “radical acceptance” of being Disabled. Disabled like the environment is. Disabled like the flora and fauna that inhibit it are.
The book is at times a painfully honest assessment of how the damage done to Disabled people mirrors that being done to the environment, the barriers both encounter and in turn how these barriers could be overcome.
Handley is also a poet, which is reflected in the many beautiful turns of phrase that litter the book. Some of the points seem a little over worked – but perhaps necessarily so. This is a message that needs to germinate, take root and be planted in people’s minds in order for people and the planet to flourish.
Maria Kett is a professor of humanitarianism and social inclusion
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 47,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.
This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.