The Company of Owls: A Memoir by Polly Atkin. This memoir unfolds over a period of several years during the pandemic, when the author and her partner get to know a family of owls living in the woods near their home. Atkin emphasizes that she is not an ornithologist or an expert, just a neighbor–but she brings a keen curiosity, empathy, and respect toward these arboreal residents. These reflective essays meander along associative paths as she considers the nuances of solitude, connecting to the natural world as a person with a disability, and being open about how little we know about our nonhuman neighbors.

Awake in the Floating City by Susanna Kwon. In a near-future San Francisco that has been flooding by constant rain, an artist-turned-caretaker takes a job assisting a supercentenarian in her final days. The city has been abandoned by many of its residents, but there are rooftop markets, floating museums, and well-tended libraries even as the waters rise. The artist finds herself enthralled by the life of her 130-year-old charge, who has survived war and displacement and hunger; the ongoing climate emergency is life-changing and world-ending, but it is not the first world-ending event in this woman’s life. Lovely and lyrically written, this novel meditates on what it means to live a creative and meaningful life in the midst of an ongoing crisis.

Roam: Wild Animals and the Race to Repair Our Fractured World by Hillary Rosner. This book illustrates a massive and underreported problem: how a completely human-centered view of the world has impacted the ability of other species to move around. But it’s also about solutions, and hope: How we can forge new links between landscapes that have become isolated pieces. How we can stitch ecosystems back together, so that the processes still work, and the systems can evolve as they need to. How we can build a world in which humans recognize their interconnectedness with the rest of the planet, and view other species with empathy and compassion.

What are you reading lately?