Climate Fiction Reading Group
Weekly // Thursdays 6:00-8:00 pm
Thurs, Aug 7
Thurs, Aug 14
Thurs, Aug 21
Thurs, Aug 28
Teens & Adults // Enjoy stories of near-future worlds? Interested in climate change? Join Grant McMillan for a free, open-to-the-public reading group! No prior experience or formal education is needed—everyone is welcome to participate. // Online Registration encouraged.
What is Climate Fiction?
Climate fiction, or cli-fi, are works that use "as a narrative element the scientific consensus that humanity's emissions of greenhouse gasses cause global warming" (Climate Fiction and Cultural Analysis, p. 5). In other words, cli-fi novels depict fictional worlds in which human-driven climate change drives the novel's action. In many cases, these novels depict near-future worlds that have been drastically altered by climate change. These works may be dystopian, utopian, or somewhere in between.
Our goal in reading and discussing cli-fi novels will be to explore this fundamental question: What can we, as readers in 2025, learn about climate change in our world by reading these novels?
Cli-fi gives people an alternative starting point to the climate change conversation. Climate change can be daunting to talk about, but doing so in the context of a fictional story can make it easier.
Potential Novels (longlist):
- Playground (2024) by Richard Powers—ISBN: 978-1-324-08603-1
- The Ten Percent Thief (2020) by Lavanya Lakshminarayan—ISBN: 978-1-83786-077-7
- Birnam Wood (2023) by Elenanor Catton—ISBN: 978-1-250-32171-8
- The Coral Bones (2022) by E.J. Swift—ISBN: 978-1-52943-641-9
- Gun Island (2019) by Amitav Gosh—ISBN: 978-1-25075-793-7
- Scattered All Over the Earth (2018) by Yoko Tawada—ISBN: 978-0-81122-928-9
- On Such a Full Sea (2014) by Chang-Rae Lee—ISBN: 978-1-59463-289-1
- Odds Against Tomorrow (2013) by Nathanial Rich—ISBN: 978-1-250-04364-1
- Flight Behavior (2012) by Barbara Kingsolver—ISBN: 978-0-06-212427-2
- Pacific Edge (1990) by Kim Stanley Robinson—ISBN: 0-312-89038-9
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