Are you an SEJ member who's authored, co-authored or edited a non-fiction or fiction environmental book (published in 2013) you'd like included on this page? Documentaries are also welcome. Please send the following to web content manager Cindy MacDonald:

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Find links to members' books published in other years here.

Non-Fiction

"Cows Save the Planet: And Other Improbable Ways of Restoring Soil to Heal the Earth"

By Judith D. Schwartz

In "Cows Save the Planet," journalist Judith D. Schwartz looks at soil as a crucible for our many overlapping environmental, economic and social crises. Schwartz reveals that for many of these problems — climate change, desertification, biodiversity loss, droughts, floods, wildfires, rural poverty, malnutrition and obesity — there are positive, alternative scenarios to the degradation and devastation we face. In each case, our ability to turn these crises into opportunities depends on how we treat the soil. Drawing on the work of thinkers and doers, renegade scientists and institutional whistleblowers from around the world, Schwartz challenges much of the conventional thinking about global warming and other problems. For example, land can suffer from undergrazing as well as overgrazing, since certain landscapes, such as grasslands, require the disturbance from livestock to thrive. Regarding climate, when we focus on carbon dioxide, we neglect the central role of water in soil — "green water" — in temperature regulation. And much of the carbon dioxide that burdens the atmosphere is not the result of fuel emissions, but from agriculture; returning carbon to the soil not only reduces carbon dioxide levels but also enhances soil fertility. "Cows Save the Planet" is at once a primer on soil's pivotal role in our ecology and economy, a call to action and an antidote to the despair that environmental news so often leaves us with. Chelsea Green Publishing, 2013. ISBN: 9781603584326. More information.

"Eagles in the Pacific Northwest"

By Hans Tammemagi

"Eagles in the Pacific Northwest" describes bald eagles, their life cycle and their habitat on the beautiful northwest coast. The book is rich in information making it an excellent reference. The book is written in an engaging, friendly style and is illustrated with numerous, colour photos; many are up-close and intimate. The author describes how he bonded with these majestic raptors. "Eagles in the Pacific Northwest" is an e-book suitable for all e-book readers including Kindle, Kobo and i Pad. It is available for $3.99. Smashwords Inc., 2013. ISBN: 9781301789979.

"Eternal Harvest: The Legacy of American Bombs in Laos"

By Karen Coates & Jerry Redfern

Every week, 50-year-old American bombs kill and injure Laotian villagers. In a country whose people largely survive by subsistence farming, it is dangerous to dig. Between 1964 and 1973, the United States dumped billions of pounds of explosives on Laos, in the equivalent of one raid every 8 minutes for 9 years. Up to 30 percent of those bombs did not detonate when they fell, and millions remain in the soil today as unexploded ordnance (UXO). Through photos and stories, "Eternal Harvest: The Legacy of American Bombs in Laos" documents the ongoing human and environmental toll of war. U.S. bombs have killed and injured more than 20,000 people in Laos since the end of war. Over the course of eight years, the authors traveled extensively through remote stretches of this landlocked country to share the stories of Laotians who live with this legacy of war in Southeast Asia. Jerry Redfern's photos from a related magazine article won the 2012 SEJ Award for Outstanding Photography. ThingsAsian Press, 2013. ISBN-13: 978-1934159491. More information.

"The Golden Shore: California's Love Affair with the Sea"

By David Helvarg

From the first human settlements to the latest marine explorations, "The Golden Shore" tells the tale of the history, culture, and changing nature of California's coasts and ocean. Author David Helvarg takes the reader on both a geographic and literary journey along the 1,100-mile Pacific coastline, from the Oregon border to the San Diego/Tijuana international border fence and out into its whale-, seal-, and shark-rich offshore seamounts, rock isles, and kelp forests. "It captures in a really readable way, the quirky and head over heels love we have for our seas," says Ted Danson. St. Martin's Press, 2013. ISBN 978-0-312-66496-1. More information.

"Tigers Forever: Saving the World's Most Endangered Big Cat"

By Steve Winter and Sharon Guynup

Tigers are in trouble, and National Geographic photographer Steve Winter is on a one-man mission to address the plight of this magnificent cat — while there’s still time. Together with Panthera, the world’s largest nonprofit organization dedicated to saving big cats, and its Tigers Initiative, Winter reveals a decade worth of stunning images and stories of tigers in their world. In "Tigers Forever", readers follow Winter through Myanmar’s leech-infested jungles in search of tigers; into the forbidden realm of poachers in Sumatra; and witness the breathtaking intimacy between a tiger mother and her cub. Winter’s gripping images, along with co-author Sharon Guynup’s eloquent prose, tell the dramatic story of the tiger’s fight for survival, and the lengths to which one man would go to bring that story to the world. Above all else, "Tigers Forever" reveals the tiger itself: elusive, majestic, ferocious, powerful, mysterious — and in desperate need of our help to survive. National Geographic, 2013. ISBN-10: 1426212402. ISBN-13: 978-1426212406. More information.

"Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation"

By Dan Fagin

The riveting true story of a small town ravaged by industrial pollution, "Toms River" melds hard-hitting investigative reporting, a fascinating scientific detective story, and an unforgettable cast of characters into a sweeping narrative in the tradition of "A Civil Action", "The Emperor of All Maladies", and "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks". One of New Jersey’s seemingly innumerable quiet seaside towns, Toms River became the unlikely setting for a decades-long drama that culminated in 2001 with one of the largest legal settlements in the annals of toxic dumping. A town that would rather have been known for its Little League World Series champions ended up making history for an entirely different reason: a notorious cluster of childhood cancers scientifically linked to local air and water pollution. For years, large chemical companies had been using Toms River as their private dumping ground, burying tens of thousands of leaky drums in open pits and discharging billions of gallons of acid-laced wastewater into the town’s namesake river. In an astonishing feat of investigative reporting, prize-winning journalist Dan Fagin recounts the sixty-year saga of rampant pollution and inadequate oversight that made Toms River a cautionary example for fast-growing industrial towns from South Jersey to South China. Bantam, 2013. ISBN-10: 055380653X. ISBN-13: 978-0553806533. More information.