I’ve collected a list of some books I especially recommend.
Boyle, Mark. The Way Home: Tales from a life without technology. Simon and Schuster, 2019.
I like this book a lot. It describes the efforts of one man to live without most modern technology such as computers and electricity. It’s well worth a read and makes you think twice about what you really need in life.
Boyle, Mark. Drinking Molotov Cocktails with Gandhi. New Society Publishers, 2015.
Another excellent book by Mark Boyle that talks about the various sorts of violence in our society, how we perceive violence, and how this perception blinds us to new possibilities.
Jensen, Derrick, Lierre Keith, and Max Wilbert. Bright green lies: How the environmental movement lost its way and what we can do about it. Monkfish Book Publishing, 2021.
Jensen and colleagues describe how the ecological movement has been subervted by global capitalism. Although not all ecological efforts are bad, some are misguied and this book seriously questions some dogma in mainstream environmentalism.
Kaczynski, Theodore John. “Industrial society and its future.” (1995).
Kaczynski’s famous monograph about the failure of industrial society as a way of making life better. A very clear and easy read.
Skrbina, David. The metaphysics of technology. Routledge, 2014.
This is the most important book about technology I have read. It not only summarizes the major metaphysical analyses of technology from great philosophers, but also presents a unified framework of the pantechnikon to explain the deterministic force behind technological evolution.
Wilson, Edward O. Half-earth: our planet’s fight for life. WW Norton & Company, 2016.
Wilson’s book is a sort of precursor to the modern movement of rewilding. It proposes a plan to set aside half the earth for wildlife, a proposal I wholeheartedly agree with.
Earle, Sylvia A. The world is blue: How our fate and the ocean’s are one. National Geographic Books, 2010.
Earle’s book nicely explains the problems with ocean conservation, which is sorely needed because most people ignore the ocean.
McKibben, Bill. The end of nature. Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2006.
I think this is probably one of McKibben’s best books, which takes a general look at the ecological and atmospheric problems we face.