As political events in the United States wobble towards an authoritarian takeover it’s easy to lose sight of the larger picture. The price of food is going nowhere but up as climate disruption, soil depletion and water scarcity take hold. Scientists warn that changes to the earth’s life support systems could trigger irreversible changes to the biosphere. In his book How to Fix a Broken Planet, Julian Cribb describes the interrelated problems and remedial actions that could lead to meaningful change.

As a human rights investigator Michael Shaikh shared many meals with people fleeing war and political persecution. One of the overlooked casualties of this violence is cuisine and hospitality traditions. His book is part history, part travelog and part cookbook where you learn about the world and then re-create the aromas and tastes of other times and places.

As we watch climate chaos and the rise of fascism fundamentally change our world we need to find new ways of structuring society. In her book 'Practicing Social Ecology' Eleanor Finley uses examples of grassroots movements that are rethinking our relationship to the natural world and each other.

PFAS is a group of chemicals that didn't exist in the world until humans created them in the 1940's. They're highly toxic endocrine disruptors that affect the thyroid, liver, kidney and reproductive organs. Now they are everywhere. They're found in the bloodstreams of polar bears and the rain falling on the Tibetan plateau. How did this happen? In her book They Poisoned the World Mariah Blake traces PFAS from the Manhattan Project to the Trump regime.

In Eiren Caffall's memoir she pairs her private grief over learning she has a genetic disease that will end her life prematurely with the collective grief for the collapsing ecosystem.

Before the last election Lee McIntyre published his book On Disinformation: How to Fight for Truth and Protect Democracy. Now that we are dealing with Constitutional collapse his message is even more crucial.

As the environment heats up and authoritarianism is on the rise, dgivide and conquer has been a very effective technique to keep people from organizing for political or economic change. In her book Common Ground Eileen Flanagan explores how we can come together in spite of difference in race, class and religion.

Homelessness is visible in every city in the United States but the number of people on the streets is just the tip of the iceberg according to journalist and anthropologist Brian

Goldstone. In his new book, There Is No Place For Us: Working and Homeless in America , he follows families in Atlanta as they struggle to stay housed. The combination of low wages, skyrocketing housing costs and lax government regulations bear down on working families. Goldstone looks at the causes, magnitude and consequences of the problem with portraits of families who are left off the official statistics because they sleep in cars or squalid extended stay hotels.