Aldern, Clayton Page. The Weight of Nature: How a Changing Climate Changes Our Brains. Dutton. Apr. 2024. 320p. ISBN 9780593472743. $30. SCI

What is a changing climate doing to our brains? Aldern, who holds degrees in neuroscience and public policy from Oxford, details the alarming effects—IQ measurements decrease, sleeplessness rises, biological carries of brain disease spread farther. He’s known for his compulsively viewable visual data models, but early buzz is that Aldern’s writing is compelling too.

Guilbeault, Nina. The Good Eater: A Vegan’s Search for the Future of Food. Bloomsbury. Apr. 2024. 304p. ISBN 9781635576993. $28.99. SOC SCI

Cofounder of Plant Futures, with a PhD from Harvard and attention from The Atlantic, The Telegraph, and Refinery29, vegan and sociologist Guilbeault offers an expansive social history of veganism, the science behind it, and its implications for food culture and the environment.

Humes, Edward. Total Garbage: How We Can Fix Our Waste and Heal Our World. Avery. Apr. 2024. 288p. ISBN 9780593543368. $28. SCI

Pulitzer Prize and PEN Award winner Humes returns with an immersive investigation of waste, his follow-up to Garbology. He considers waste of all kinds—plastic, food, and energy—and the way we accept and produce absurd levels of it. A big-thinking book that offers practical, can-do, advice.

Johnson, Ayana Elizabeth. What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures. One World. Apr. 2024. 400p. ISBN 9780593229361. $32. SCI

Johnson, a marine biologist, Ted Talk star, and Time 100 Next lister, offers a collection of essays, conversations, data, poems, and art that presents solutions and possible safe outcomes from the looming environmental dystopia. She coedited the bestselling All We Can Save and edited the 2022 edition of Mariner’s The Best American Science and Nature Writing.

Kimble, Megan. City Limits: Infrastructure, Inequality, and the Future of America’s Highways. Crown. Apr. 2024. 352p. ISBN 9780593443781. $30. SOC SCI

Highways offer a singular meditation point for high emissions, urban sprawl, broken communities, and loss of green space. Southwest Book of the Year winner Kimble’s newest, a mix of history, investigative journalism, and nonfiction storytelling, was shortlisted for the 2023 J. Anthony Lukas Work-In-Progress Award.

Schapira, Kate. Lessons from the Climate Anxiety Counseling Booth: How To Live with Care and Purpose in an Endangered World. Hachette Go. Apr. 2024. 288p. ISBN 9780306831676. $30. SELF-HELP

Poet and senior lecturer at Brown University, Schapira was driven by her own anxiety over climate change to set up a sidewalk counseling booth to talk about it with others who also feel helplessness and grief over orange air and dying coral reefs. Her book offers a mix of support and guides for community action.

Vigliotti, Jonathan. Before It’s Gone: Stories from the Front Lines of Climate Change in Small Town America. Atria/One Signal. Apr. 2024. 288p. ISBN 9781668008171. $28. SCI

Emmy Award–winning CBS News national correspondent Vigliotti debuts with an on-the-ground, journalistic, story-driven look at the impacts of climate change on individuals across the country, detailing the devastation already being experienced through wildfires, floods, coastline loss, and vast economic impact. His work is a call to action.

White, Heather. 60 Days to a Greener Life: Ease Eco-Anxiety Through Joyful Daily Action. Harper Horizon. Apr. 2024. 144p. ISBN 9781400341290. pap. $15.99. SELF-HELP

An advocate known as the Brené Brown of the environmental movement, White (One Green Thing) offers a 60-day challenge for climate action. Each of the wide-ranging entries, from connecting to nature to implementing sustainable school lunch choices, offers practical steps and insights designed to calm eco-anxiety and support greener choices.