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The BookShelf features monthly reviews of the latest environmental and energy books of interest to journalists, as well as an occasional question-and-answer in which published authors offer insight into the motivations behind their work and provide advice to environmental reporters and writers.

For questions and comments, or to suggest future BookShelf reviews, or to offer to review a book, email the SEJournal BookShelf Editor Tom Henry at thenry@theblade.com.


May 1, 2019

  • Washington, D.C.’s long-neglected Anacostia River bears both tragedy and beauty. And author Krista Schlyer plumbs its depths in her most recent book, “River of Redemption.” In this Between the Lines, she speaks of her connection to the urban waterway, as well as her latest reporting on the environmental impact of the border wall.

April 3, 2019

  • Does the military use ecological restoration as a means to “green” over the complex relationship between nature and culture, undermining the impacts of history and warfare? Our latest BookShelf review of the new volume, “Bombs Away: Militarization, Conservation, and Ecological Restoration,” explores one author’s argument that it does.

February 13, 2019

  • A former head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has written a powder keg of a book, “Confessions of a Rogue Nuclear Regulator.” Author Gregory Jaczko left the post in 2012, far more critical of nuclear power’s safety claims than he came in, his concerns amplified by the Fukushima meltdown in Japan in 2011. Now, he worries that its lessons have not sunk in deeply enough with an industry that he believes is headed toward catastrophe. Read our latest BookShelf review.

January 9, 2019

  • The economics of fracking may be as big a worry as its environmental impacts, finds a new book on the energy extraction industry. Our latest BookShelf reviews the volume from a seasoned business reporter, who questions conventional views about a renewed U.S. energy “dominance,” probes the financial instability of the industry’s boom and raises the politically destabilizing spectre of a future decline for the fossil fuel market.

  • “Think big, but keep your feet on the ground” — that’s the kind of sound advice that would-be authors receive behind closed doors at the Society of Environmental Journalists’ annual conference, where book editors offer confidential feedback on author pitches in the yearly “Book Slam.” Now, SEJournal has tapped Slam moderator Meera Subramanian to gather book editors’ top 15 tips from the 2018 SEJ gathering in Flint. We share them with you in our latest Between the Lines.

December 5, 2018

  • As our BookShelf column moves to a monthly schedule, we take a look at an imaginative take on how to deal with the spread of invasive species — eating them! A pair of children’s book authors offers insight into the problem for young adult readers (and the rest of us), along with recipes. Read our review.

October 10, 2018

June 27, 2018

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