Discover Fred Pearce’s top literary picks from his library, in our latest instalment of Writers’ Reads…
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Fred Pearce is an award-winning environmental journalist and author whose new book, Despite It All, makes a compelling case for cautious hope in the face of climate and ecological crisis. Read on to find out seven of his top literary picks…
The History of the Countryside (1986) by Oliver Rackham
Many have tried (John Wright’s recent Hedgerow is good), but this geography and ecology of rural Britain is unsurpassed in its breadth, authority and readability – so much more than just a tale of deforestation, something he shows that we’ve done several times over.
Cadillac Desert (1986) by Marc Reisner
The classic tale of how water made the American West – the chicanery, bad engineering and pork-barrel politics behind the way in which ‘water flows uphill to money’.
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Bleak House (1853) by Charles Dickens
Beats George Elliot by a short head. From the Dedlock dynasty to Jo the crossing sweeper and the sclerotic Court of Chancery, an unmatched satire on the social geography of Victorian Britain and its magnificent decay.
Hiroshima (1946) by John Hersey
The devastating personal stories of six survivors of the ‘noiseless flash’ as the first atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima. Unmatched reportage.
The First Casualty (1975) by Phillip Knightley
How myths are made. A top reporter fact-checks how, especially in war, journalists get hoodwinked. From the Crimea War to Vietnam, truth is the first casualty of conflict.
The Ultimate Resource (1981) by Julian L Simon
A bracing take-down of received environmental wisdom. Humans, Simon says, are the ultimate resource, our ingenuity overcoming every environmental obstacle. I get it. But his optimism only works if we embrace the green agenda. His free-market Trumpian denialism will bring disaster.
East West Street (2016) by Philippe Sands
A top radical lawyer unearths his family’s lost history in central Europe. A gripping story of genocide, betrayal and heroism. Written before the Ukraine conflict, it explains so much.
