How to Start a Climate Book Club

And My Top 5 Climate Book Picks

Save Our Happy Place is a climate action newsletter dedicated to making it easy for you to help protect the places you love from climate change, written by Lindsay Nunez. Read on for simple yet effective climate actions, and sustainable + eco-friendly lifestyle tips.

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Hey there sunshine! Welcome back to Save Our Happy Place. One of the more rewarding and fulfilling activities I have taken part in in the climate space is a book club. As a big fan of fiction, I was reluctant to use my escapist activity to saturate my life further with the burden of our climate situation. But let me tell you, with the right people and right books, a climate book club can be so invigorating, inspiring, and up-lifting.

A few quick tips for starting a book club:

1. It doesn’t have to be a large group, in fact smaller groups lead to more intimate conversations. The climate book club I partake in is with only with three other women.

2. It is not necessary to fill the group with climate experts, passionate activists, or people that work in climate. This is an opportunity to educate and build passion within the group members without any pressure.

3. Pick books that speak you to and inspire you. Books with a doomsday theme or ones that read more like text books are not where you have to start. I recommend starting with books that beautifully incapsulate our relationship with nature or give actionable steps to take.

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Lindsay’s Top 5 Picks

For an Inspiring & Beautiful Climate Book Club

1. Braiding Sweetgrass - By: Robin Wall Kimmerer
   ”Kimmerer shows how other living beings—asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass—offer us gifts and lessons, even if we’ve forgotten how to hear their voices.”

2. All We Can Save - Edited By: Ayana Elizabeth Johnson; Katharine Wilkinson
   “An anthology of writings by 60 women at the forefront of the climate movement who are harnessing truth, courage, and solutions to lead humanity forward.”

3. The Climate Optimist - By: Anne Therese Gennari
   ”Helps shift the narrative on climate change so that you can act from a place of courage and excitement, not fear.”

4. The Book of Hope - By: Jane Goodall
   ”Jane focuses on her “Four Reasons for Hope”: The Amazing Human Intellect, The Resilience of Nature, The Power of Young People, and The Indomitable Human Spirit.”

5. The Regenerative Life - By: Carol Sanford
   ”Sanford shows you how to fundamentally change the roles you play in society, enabling you to do more than you ever believed possible.”

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