Love reading and want to be inspired to take positive action on environmental issues? These sustainable living books are filled with practical advice, inspirational stories and the facts and figures that can help you make informed choices in your day to day life.
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General Sustainable Living Books
- Eco Thrifty Living – Save Money, Save the Environment and Live the Life You Want – Zoë Morrison. Slightly biased about this one as I wrote it – filled with practical tips and advice on how to reducing your spending and impact on the environment. Based on my knowledge of reducing my spending so much in eco-friendly ways that I was able to quit my job and become a stay at home mum/ blogger.
- Christine Liu – A sustainable home
- Natalie Fee – How to save the world for free
- Jen Gale – The Sustainable(ish) Living Guide.
Minimalism
- Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus – Everything that remains. The authors write the incredibly popular and successful blog theminimalists.com)
- Marie Kondo – The Life Changing Magic of Tidying: A simple, effective way to banish clutter forever . This book doesn’t cover the environmental issues created by decluttering, which is why you need Lindsay’s book too!)
- Lindsay Miles – Less Stuff: Simple zero-waste steps to a joyful and clutter-free life
- James Wallman – Stuffocation. The key message of this book is to choose experiences over stuff, but well worth a read about some of the surprising problems with having so much stuff
- Roz Savage – Rowing the Atlantic. An inspirational story about a woman who quit her career and rowed long distances solo. It is in the minimalism section because it goes to show how we need a lot less stuff than we think we do.
The Natural World
- David Attenborough – A life on our planet – (out on 1/10/20)
- Anthony Lawrence – The Last Rhinos. A real tearjerker and brings to life the struggles to save endangered species.
- George Monbiot – Feral – A very interesting book about rewilding. The idea is to release wildlife back into areas, that have been long gone, so that they can reshape, reform, repair and rewild the landscape. There are a number of rewilding projects going on in the UK these days.
Activisism
- Greta Thunberg – No One Is Too Small To Make a Difference
Zero Waste Sustainable Living Books
- Tara Button – A life less throwaway
- Bea Johnson – Zero Waste Home . An icon in and one of the founders of the zero waste movement!
- Kathryn Kellog – 101 ways to go zero waste . A zero waste blogger, who shares her expertise in this book – check out her stylish zero waste blog here: Going Zero Waste
Food and Kitchen Waste
- Anna Pitt – Leftover Pie: 101 Ways to Reduce Your Food Waste. Anna is part of the Zero Waste Week team – look out for one or two of my recipes in this book!
- Lindsay Miles – Less Waste, No Fuss Kitchen: Simple, sustainable ways to shop, cook and eat.
- Anne-Marie Bonneau – The Zero Waste Chef: Plant-Forward Recipes and Tips for a Sustainable Kitchen and Planet (coming out 13/4/21).
- Kate Turner: My Zero-Waste Kitchen: Easy Ways to Eat Waste Free. I read this book a few years ago and found that it was informative, but a quick read as it has a lot of pictures in the book. A good introduction to the subject.
Climate Change
- Mike Berners Lee: How Bad are Bananas – The Carbon Footprint of Everything. This book has been updated in 2020 and is an invaluable resource to gain an understanding of the carbon cost of our day to day activities. Read my full review of the book here: How Bad are Bananas book review
- Marco Tedesco: Ice Tales from a Disappearing World. This book is written by a polar scientist and is set in a day in the life on a Greenland Icesheet. I really enjoyed reading it. Read my full review here: Ice Tales From a Disappearing World
Plastic focussed sustainable Living Books
- Beth Terry – Plastic Free – How I kicked the plastic habit and how you can too . A mix of facts and figures, hints and tips and Beth’s personal story. Beth is passionate about going plastic free and has been blogging about it for years too.
- Lucy Siegle – Turning the Tide on Plastic: How Humanity (and You) Can Make Our Globe Clean Again
It’s fantastic that there are so many books to choose from that can help and inspire us all to live better more eco-friendly lifes. This reading list just scratches the surface of the books out there, but is a great place to get started.
Which are your favourite sustainable living books and why? Which authors have inspired you to make changes in your life?