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Unsettling: Surviving Extinction Together
The time has come to reimagine our relationship to the environment before it is too late. As wildfires char the American West, extreme weather transforms landscapes, glaciers retreat, and climate zones shift, we are undeniably experiencing the effects of the climate crisis in more and more destructive ways. Climate change is impacting every inhabited region of the world, but there is much we can still do. Unsettling explores human impacts on the environment through science, popular culture, personal narrative, and landscape. Using the stories of animals, landscapes, and people who have exhibited resilience in the face of persistent colonization across the North American continent, science writer Elizabeth Weinberg explores how climate change is a direct result of white supremacy, colonialism, sexism, and heteronormativity. Travel through the deep sea; along Louisiana's vanishing bayous; down the Colorado, Mississippi, and Potomac rivers; and over the Cascade Mountains, and examine how we as humans, particularly white humans, have drawn a stark line between human and animal, culture and nature, in order to exploit anything and anyone we find useful. With gorgeous and pointed prose, Weinberg weaves together science, personal essay, history, and pop culture to propose a new way of thinking about climate change--one that is rooted in queerness and antiracism.
201 pages, Hardcover
Published October 18, 2022
7 people are currently reading
184 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Weinberg
2 books6 followersElizabeth Weinberg is a queer essayist and science communicator, and the author of Unsettling: Surviving Extinction Together. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Washington, and her writing has appeared in The Rumpus, The Toast, American Wild Magazine, SEVENSEAS magazine, and other publications. She lives and writes in the traditional and ancestral homelands of the Kizh Peoples (Los Angeles) with her spouse, Leslie, and their dog, Pigeon.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
October 13, 2022
A beautifully written, thoroughly researched, thought-provoking book.
Each essay jumps between places and times, mixing history on a geologic scale, human history, and personal experiences in an engaging way. The personal details - memories of Disney movies, backpacking trips, and everything in between - provide a reminder of how we as individuals and as a community fit in to the big picture of natural history, detail how we have altered our environment, and serve as the basis to ask "what if we did things differently?". What could we accomplish if we ditch the profit and domination driven capitalist system that has shaped so much of our history?
I sometimes struggle to read about climate change; I want to stay engaged, but wind up feeling hopeless or full of existential dread, which is arguably an appropriate reaction to our current climate crisis. While portions were upsetting to read, Unsettling manages to both present the terrible reality of what we’ve done to the world around us and still weave in threads of hope. It is a book about climate change, yes, but it’s also about finding community, the power of collective action, and a reminder that we can and should rethink our lifestyles, our priorities, and our actions.
In addition to tackling these timely issues, Unsettling is full of fascinating details about the world around us, like how whales support diverse ecosystems both in life and death. Highly recommended for anyone interested in climate justice and social justice, anyone who recreates outdoors and wants to spend some time thinking about their relationship to those spaces, and anyone interested in whale poop (…which is everyone, right?)
Each essay jumps between places and times, mixing history on a geologic scale, human history, and personal experiences in an engaging way. The personal details - memories of Disney movies, backpacking trips, and everything in between - provide a reminder of how we as individuals and as a community fit in to the big picture of natural history, detail how we have altered our environment, and serve as the basis to ask "what if we did things differently?". What could we accomplish if we ditch the profit and domination driven capitalist system that has shaped so much of our history?
I sometimes struggle to read about climate change; I want to stay engaged, but wind up feeling hopeless or full of existential dread, which is arguably an appropriate reaction to our current climate crisis. While portions were upsetting to read, Unsettling manages to both present the terrible reality of what we’ve done to the world around us and still weave in threads of hope. It is a book about climate change, yes, but it’s also about finding community, the power of collective action, and a reminder that we can and should rethink our lifestyles, our priorities, and our actions.
In addition to tackling these timely issues, Unsettling is full of fascinating details about the world around us, like how whales support diverse ecosystems both in life and death. Highly recommended for anyone interested in climate justice and social justice, anyone who recreates outdoors and wants to spend some time thinking about their relationship to those spaces, and anyone interested in whale poop (…which is everyone, right?)
October 13, 2022
This wonderful book is part non-fiction and part memoir. It documents and describes the unprecedented changes humans have unleashed on the planet interspersed with the author's personal stories and anecdotes about growing up queer and finding her own place in the world.
The book starts off describing large whales and the importance of them to our ecosystems -- and their importance even in death as whale fall sites. It then goes on to touch on many major themes relevant to today's world, including environmental justice, social justice, racism, climate change, habitat destruction, and more -- and, while many of these topics are heavy and difficult, the author also captures the beauty, magic, and wonder of the earth and our place as one part of it.
Highly recommend to all who want to make the world a better place for all creatures (and even those who don't and need to change their mind). Five stars!
The book starts off describing large whales and the importance of them to our ecosystems -- and their importance even in death as whale fall sites. It then goes on to touch on many major themes relevant to today's world, including environmental justice, social justice, racism, climate change, habitat destruction, and more -- and, while many of these topics are heavy and difficult, the author also captures the beauty, magic, and wonder of the earth and our place as one part of it.
Highly recommend to all who want to make the world a better place for all creatures (and even those who don't and need to change their mind). Five stars!
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December 21, 2022Unsettling is a thoughtful synthesis of the effects of the environmental crisis in the US. In an accessible and engaging way, pulling together Marvel references and vulnerable personal anecdotes, it unpacks how this crisis is tied to the settler-colonial mindset that defines the dominant relationship with the environment on the continent.
Reading this book, I felt like Elizabeth Weinberg's personal journey with environmental ethics and awareness was almost uncomfortably similar to my own, and perhaps many others in our generation. Because of this, and perhaps because the reference list had some significant overlap with both my university syllabi and personal bookshelf, it felt a little predictable. At times, I felt like I was reading about my own phases of environmentalism. Here was my first long backpacking trip where I went home and became enthralled with John Muir, National Parks, and the idea of wilderness. Here is when I started to learn how these things are intertwined with white supremacy and colonization. Here is when I tried to learn all the names of the local flora and fauna. Here was my glacier phase when I read about ice cores and wanted to be a climate scientist and work in an ice lab. Here was that time I wouldn't stop telling my friends about the complexity of orca pod social and linguistic dynamics...
All this to say, I found this book relatable. However, where I think it falls short is in its mechanisms for a path forward. Many paragraphs end with statements of uncertainty and overwhelm. This is honest, and maybe I was too hopeful in expecting a practical steps or even ideas for how, as the title implies, we might go about un-doing settler colonialism. The book does encourage the reader to engage in introspection and critically reflect on how we have benefited from colonization, how we continue to colonize, where our beliefs about the environment come from, and how we may imagine a better future relationship with the earth. While this is certainly a first step, I wasn't left with much of a picture for a path forward to the queer, antiracist, unsettled world I was hoping for opening the book.
Reading this book, I felt like Elizabeth Weinberg's personal journey with environmental ethics and awareness was almost uncomfortably similar to my own, and perhaps many others in our generation. Because of this, and perhaps because the reference list had some significant overlap with both my university syllabi and personal bookshelf, it felt a little predictable. At times, I felt like I was reading about my own phases of environmentalism. Here was my first long backpacking trip where I went home and became enthralled with John Muir, National Parks, and the idea of wilderness. Here is when I started to learn how these things are intertwined with white supremacy and colonization. Here is when I tried to learn all the names of the local flora and fauna. Here was my glacier phase when I read about ice cores and wanted to be a climate scientist and work in an ice lab. Here was that time I wouldn't stop telling my friends about the complexity of orca pod social and linguistic dynamics...
All this to say, I found this book relatable. However, where I think it falls short is in its mechanisms for a path forward. Many paragraphs end with statements of uncertainty and overwhelm. This is honest, and maybe I was too hopeful in expecting a practical steps or even ideas for how, as the title implies, we might go about un-doing settler colonialism. The book does encourage the reader to engage in introspection and critically reflect on how we have benefited from colonization, how we continue to colonize, where our beliefs about the environment come from, and how we may imagine a better future relationship with the earth. While this is certainly a first step, I wasn't left with much of a picture for a path forward to the queer, antiracist, unsettled world I was hoping for opening the book.
October 14, 2022
This wonderful book completely puts to rest the idea that books about science are dry and technical. The lyrical beauty of the words combined with the passions of the author create a moving and thought-provoking book about the disastrous state of our natural world. The same poetic prose that is used to describe, lovingly, the earth and its animals also brings us to a new understanding of climate change and the parallels to our larger social and political perspective. But the thing that struck me most about this book was the personal and emotional aspect that Weinberg infused into some pretty heady discussions. This book reads like a loving story about a troubled family struggling with queerness, patriarchy, and the legacy of white supremacy, and by the end, you are as invested in this family as though it were your own. And the spectacular conclusion reached is that, yes, indeed, it is. It is all our families and all our homes. This book is a must-read!
July 19, 2024
As you can see, I flew through this book in a day. I can confidently say that it is one of the best books I have read in a long time. Weinberg effortlessly weaved together their lived experiences—particularly being queer in outdoor spaces—with captivating narratives about our changing climate and biosphere.
Lucky for me, I also got to meet and hang out with Weinberg during our time as teaching faculty at the Juneau Icefield Research Program. Not only did I get to ask them my many questions about their book (and the life of a writer) but I also had the privilege of getting to know them quite well during our time on the icefield. I can confidently say that they are one of the most incredible, grounded, supportive, warm, and inspiring people I have ever met. I am so excited to see what they do next.
Lucky for me, I also got to meet and hang out with Weinberg during our time as teaching faculty at the Juneau Icefield Research Program. Not only did I get to ask them my many questions about their book (and the life of a writer) but I also had the privilege of getting to know them quite well during our time on the icefield. I can confidently say that they are one of the most incredible, grounded, supportive, warm, and inspiring people I have ever met. I am so excited to see what they do next.
October 13, 2022
Unsettling is at once a call to action and a memoir woven together with highly digestible and interesting scientific stories. Weinberg reimagines our relationships with nature, each other, and ourselves by challenging our preconceived notions of identity and what is possible in the face of overwhelming change. Beautifully written, it feels like a conversation with a friend. Each chapter focuses on a different environmental or social issue, or species, with lots of fun pop culture references sprinkled in! I learned so many new things while also learning new ways to understand how these challenges intersect BIPOC, queer, and ecological communities. This is an informative and enjoyable read for people with any level of understanding of intersectional environmentalism.
October 18, 2022
Glaciers! Avengers! Whale poop! Weinberg opens and examines issues of science, history, and culture, queering the essay itself as she puts unlikely pieces together to exact meaning and humor and heart. With all the clarity of a science writer, the humanity of a memoirist, and the urgency of an activist—Weinberg asks us to sit (uncomfortably and in awe, always unsettled) with the scale of the planet we share, and the enormity of the shared task ahead of us. If we all begin to see the climate crisis and our interconnected world as Weinberg does, we have reason for hope.
March 31, 2023
Solid book on climate change. I found some parts to be a bit repetitive but loved a few of the stories. The author described a couple examples of horrible things humans have done to animals over the years. Some of them are definitely overdone and talked about such as the orcas but I thought the section on coyotes was fascinating. I also did not know that a zoo in New York put a human from Africa in their primate house and had to look that one up to believe it. Overall the book is solid and has some unique stories and information.
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August 2, 2024great memoir + essay combo about queer identity and human identity within our world. i thought it had a good balance of being real about how shit we have made the world and showing the beauty that still exists and why we should protect it.
June 6, 2025
I really wanted to love this book, such an important subject and discussion. The subtitle gripped me: “Surviving Extinction Together.” To me, this is an admission that we are past the warning stage and that we are in the midst, that we are in the “Brace yourselves!”-stage-of-the-game. I believe this; if the corporate interests and oligarchs, so intent on destroying the earth, have lied through their teeth about everything else at the expense of greed, there is no reason for them to stop their belligerent dissembling. And this subtitle makes compatriots of those of us who know the truth—let’s face this devastation together, let’s weep and grieve together. The only caveat: we’re not likely—as the subtitle suggests—to survive.
The author is an environmental science writer. She’s queer. She has the perfect profile for a dissertation of this magnitude. I came to like her through her writing. Her writing is competent. …Which is why I cringe to have to say, this book is not really successful.
Having reviewed other books by this publisher—Broadleaf Books—it has become evident that the publisher does *not* have a strong editorial focus as part of their business. The greater responsibility for this book’s lack of success is the publisher’s editing failures. This is a draft of a book. No one, apparently, took it upon themselves at this publishing house to offer assistance to the author with the flow of her work. Thus, the entire work is disjointed, unfocused, disorienting, and tangentially rambling.
The main problem is that the author felt that personal stories—including childhood remembrances—would accentuate the points of her environmental writing, and the topics of each particular chapter. Ummm…nope. She uses her infatuation with Marvel and Disney movies to try accomplishing this tactic…but fails miserably. Personal stories serve here only to remove the reader from the topic at hand, make us forget what the point was, and be re-oriented to perhaps another whimsical story or a different facet of environmental degradation that we can’t be sure has anything to do with the original train of thought.
As an example, in the chapter on “River[s]” (Chapter 6), the author starts with the topic of the poisoning of waterways beginning with the introduction of white conquistadors in the Western Hemisphere and continuing through the Industrial Revolution and corporate expansion in the 20th century. Then she swivels to her childhood love of the Disney movie Pocahontas, which she later realizes is egregiously racist, misogynistic, stereotypes Indigenous people, and is presented from a white-supremacist perspective. Well, what exactly are we supposed to be focused on at this point? Are we still talking about the destruction of our rivers and waterways…or are we moving towards how white-supremacy ruins everything? The truth is that the author made the segway transition under the most flimsy of connections (The movie Pocahontas includes scenes of Indigenous people swimming and canoeing in pristine waters and streams…but obviously in cartoon images of “pristine” waters.) Soooooo…ummm…what now? Where are we? Is this a movie review or a discussion of environmental alarm? Readers might be forgiven for their complete discombobulation…but any respectable editor would have suggested striking the passage (or re-writing it) to stay focused on topic or adjusting it to remain succinctly on topic.
The book also might be forgiven if such tangential discombobulation were a one-off. But it’s the style of THE WHOLE BOOK.
Endnotes would have been better served integrated into the body of the text, or at minimum, as footnotes on the pages of the body of the text. Unfortunately, none of the end notes are numbered in the body of the text, thus, reading the author’s work begets the assumption that she is relying solely on her own knowledge. There are no experts who were interviewed or quoted, no papers or environmental studies referenced. And it’s not so much that we are dubious of the author’s knowledge, but reference support and scientist confirmation within the body of the work would have gone a long way to giving this book a degree of respectability and authority it so desperately needed. Instead, it comes off as an amateurish—certainly unprofessional—contemplation on environmental issues that we’ve been reading in the headlines for decades.
I kept putting this book on hiatus and picking it back up at various times hoping it would get better… Unfortunately, it did not. There *is* important information in this book—a compendium of the horrors we've reaped upon the Earth and her inhabitants of all genres and species…including ourselves (humans). And, not enough emphasis was placed on the interconnection between *ALL* life on the planet, in my opinion.
At the very end of the book, Weinberg places blame on…us:
…Which, to me, is the guilt trip that I’ve been fed my entire life (and I’m a generation older than the author). And so, yes, we *do* have to take responsibility for making some changes in our personal lives to help fight the fight for our planet and our existence. But also, “NO,” accepting blame is not what is going to fix things. If the current economic disparities and the villainous antics of the oligarchs RIGHT NOW AT THIS JUNCTURE IN HISTORY have shown us anything, it is that people, Americans and the "West" in particular, have been railroaded by the interests of hyper-Capitalism and greed. It has not mattered how we have voted in elections…It matters not what "regulations" are put in place; the petroleum, oil, and gas industries relentlessly refuse to alter their trajectory. Since the 1950s we have been fed a steady diet of plastics and chemicals and PCBs to an extent that WE HAD NO CHOICE BUT TO USE THEM because there was no alternative offered. Plastics are now ubiquitous in our lives. They saturated the market and THERE WERE NO ALTERNATIVES. We were duped into believing that the efficiency of plastics was natural.
So, “no,” we don’t personally have to take all the blame, and if we want to do something about the crisis, we will have to start thinking of much more radical solutions…and when I say “much more radical solutions,” I mean that the destruction of the oligarchy must happen, so that we can take back control of how the earth is treated. We are only to blame for being misled by power and money hungry billionaires. And if voting doesn’t cure things, and if legislation fails again and again, and if the judicial system fails or is corrupt by money or partisanship, if boycotts don’t make a dent, if we are not allowed to unionize in order to fight from the inside, if non-violent protests are dismissed offhand…what is the last and seemingly only tool left for the people to use? If even a science journalist like Weinberg doesn’t get it, then I don’t know what to tell you… I’m disappointed that I’m disappointed. Sad trombone: Whomp-whomp.
The author is an environmental science writer. She’s queer. She has the perfect profile for a dissertation of this magnitude. I came to like her through her writing. Her writing is competent. …Which is why I cringe to have to say, this book is not really successful.
Having reviewed other books by this publisher—Broadleaf Books—it has become evident that the publisher does *not* have a strong editorial focus as part of their business. The greater responsibility for this book’s lack of success is the publisher’s editing failures. This is a draft of a book. No one, apparently, took it upon themselves at this publishing house to offer assistance to the author with the flow of her work. Thus, the entire work is disjointed, unfocused, disorienting, and tangentially rambling.
The main problem is that the author felt that personal stories—including childhood remembrances—would accentuate the points of her environmental writing, and the topics of each particular chapter. Ummm…nope. She uses her infatuation with Marvel and Disney movies to try accomplishing this tactic…but fails miserably. Personal stories serve here only to remove the reader from the topic at hand, make us forget what the point was, and be re-oriented to perhaps another whimsical story or a different facet of environmental degradation that we can’t be sure has anything to do with the original train of thought.
As an example, in the chapter on “River[s]” (Chapter 6), the author starts with the topic of the poisoning of waterways beginning with the introduction of white conquistadors in the Western Hemisphere and continuing through the Industrial Revolution and corporate expansion in the 20th century. Then she swivels to her childhood love of the Disney movie Pocahontas, which she later realizes is egregiously racist, misogynistic, stereotypes Indigenous people, and is presented from a white-supremacist perspective. Well, what exactly are we supposed to be focused on at this point? Are we still talking about the destruction of our rivers and waterways…or are we moving towards how white-supremacy ruins everything? The truth is that the author made the segway transition under the most flimsy of connections (The movie Pocahontas includes scenes of Indigenous people swimming and canoeing in pristine waters and streams…but obviously in cartoon images of “pristine” waters.) Soooooo…ummm…what now? Where are we? Is this a movie review or a discussion of environmental alarm? Readers might be forgiven for their complete discombobulation…but any respectable editor would have suggested striking the passage (or re-writing it) to stay focused on topic or adjusting it to remain succinctly on topic.
The book also might be forgiven if such tangential discombobulation were a one-off. But it’s the style of THE WHOLE BOOK.
Endnotes would have been better served integrated into the body of the text, or at minimum, as footnotes on the pages of the body of the text. Unfortunately, none of the end notes are numbered in the body of the text, thus, reading the author’s work begets the assumption that she is relying solely on her own knowledge. There are no experts who were interviewed or quoted, no papers or environmental studies referenced. And it’s not so much that we are dubious of the author’s knowledge, but reference support and scientist confirmation within the body of the work would have gone a long way to giving this book a degree of respectability and authority it so desperately needed. Instead, it comes off as an amateurish—certainly unprofessional—contemplation on environmental issues that we’ve been reading in the headlines for decades.
I kept putting this book on hiatus and picking it back up at various times hoping it would get better… Unfortunately, it did not. There *is* important information in this book—a compendium of the horrors we've reaped upon the Earth and her inhabitants of all genres and species…including ourselves (humans). And, not enough emphasis was placed on the interconnection between *ALL* life on the planet, in my opinion.
At the very end of the book, Weinberg places blame on…us:
”…And even through our tears, we have to learn to say that yes, we have done these unspeakable things, and yes, we must speak these things, and then we have to change. We have to see the beauty in this world and be willing to give up everything—our settler ways, our iPhones, our plane rides, our belief that it isn’t worth trying—to keep it alive.”
…Which, to me, is the guilt trip that I’ve been fed my entire life (and I’m a generation older than the author). And so, yes, we *do* have to take responsibility for making some changes in our personal lives to help fight the fight for our planet and our existence. But also, “NO,” accepting blame is not what is going to fix things. If the current economic disparities and the villainous antics of the oligarchs RIGHT NOW AT THIS JUNCTURE IN HISTORY have shown us anything, it is that people, Americans and the "West" in particular, have been railroaded by the interests of hyper-Capitalism and greed. It has not mattered how we have voted in elections…It matters not what "regulations" are put in place; the petroleum, oil, and gas industries relentlessly refuse to alter their trajectory. Since the 1950s we have been fed a steady diet of plastics and chemicals and PCBs to an extent that WE HAD NO CHOICE BUT TO USE THEM because there was no alternative offered. Plastics are now ubiquitous in our lives. They saturated the market and THERE WERE NO ALTERNATIVES. We were duped into believing that the efficiency of plastics was natural.
So, “no,” we don’t personally have to take all the blame, and if we want to do something about the crisis, we will have to start thinking of much more radical solutions…and when I say “much more radical solutions,” I mean that the destruction of the oligarchy must happen, so that we can take back control of how the earth is treated. We are only to blame for being misled by power and money hungry billionaires. And if voting doesn’t cure things, and if legislation fails again and again, and if the judicial system fails or is corrupt by money or partisanship, if boycotts don’t make a dent, if we are not allowed to unionize in order to fight from the inside, if non-violent protests are dismissed offhand…what is the last and seemingly only tool left for the people to use? If even a science journalist like Weinberg doesn’t get it, then I don’t know what to tell you… I’m disappointed that I’m disappointed. Sad trombone: Whomp-whomp.
January 30, 2023
I’m not generally a non-fiction person, and climate change in particular is a bummer; I tend to lean towards fictional stories where I can lose myself and forget about the dumpster fire world we live in. Elizabeth Weinberg’s Unsettling asks that we toss aside those fictions and really pay attention to the world around us. But rather than preaching or info-dumping, Weinberg explores this by combining pop science and personal memoir. Sure, the book is chock full of facts – learning about whale poop’s vital spot in the oceanic ecosystem was especially interesting – but the aim of this book is more geared towards exploring a personal connection with the natural world. There are so many personal, quiet moments in this book, and Weinberg has a knack for bundling ecological facts and pop culture metaphor with personal tales of introspection that demonstrate her experience as a queer woman who deeply cares about the fate of natural spaces and ecosystems.
Using both personal storytelling and lessons from the Marvel metaverse and Disney classics to unpack some pretty heavy topics help to make this an accessible entryway into exploring nature and the human experience, and interrogating our responsibilities in addressing devastating changes to this planet.
Using both personal storytelling and lessons from the Marvel metaverse and Disney classics to unpack some pretty heavy topics help to make this an accessible entryway into exploring nature and the human experience, and interrogating our responsibilities in addressing devastating changes to this planet.
October 4, 2022
This book is beautiful, moving, and filled with thought-provoking questions about how our identities, histories, and outsider perspectives can help us think creatively about the traumatizing impact of climate change. The passages that go deep into unfolding the beautiful layers of the natural world are simply dazzling. When Weinberg describes a whale fall, I'm left awestruck by the complexity of the life, the wonder of it all. The adventures of a coyote on a train. The long, slow return of the tundra after disturbance. The fragility and resiliency of life abounds in this hybrid work that blends autobiography, nature writing, theory, and science. I loved thinking about the ways that my own queer identity - and the ways in which I've had to blend in or be bold, at odds with a system that demands allegiance to its version of normalcy - could help me grasp the climate crisis in new ways and look for avenues to interrupt the apocalypse brought about by societal conditioning to norms. What a gift. I am always excited by books like this that break me out of dualities and binaries and limited worldviews. I highly recommend it!!
June 29, 2023
4 stars
A worthwhile but definitely depressing read (how could it be anything else with the subject matter?). I appreciated the fresh approach to climate change writing from a queer writer and definitely connected with a lot of Weinberg's reflections. The pop culture references were a welcome reprieve from some of the more grim science facts.
And yes, I did look up the video footage of Benjamin, the last thylacine.
My only minor complaint is that I wish Weinberg had provided at least a few ideas on solutions to the climate change crisis. That wasn't necessarily the objective of her book, but I still would have appreciated it. It's a little bit of a letdown to read such impassioned prose about the problems we're facing and then have the book end without anywhere concrete to put that energy.
A worthwhile but definitely depressing read (how could it be anything else with the subject matter?). I appreciated the fresh approach to climate change writing from a queer writer and definitely connected with a lot of Weinberg's reflections. The pop culture references were a welcome reprieve from some of the more grim science facts.
And yes, I did look up the video footage of Benjamin, the last thylacine.
My only minor complaint is that I wish Weinberg had provided at least a few ideas on solutions to the climate change crisis. That wasn't necessarily the objective of her book, but I still would have appreciated it. It's a little bit of a letdown to read such impassioned prose about the problems we're facing and then have the book end without anywhere concrete to put that energy.
January 4, 2023
Elizabeth Weinberg weaves together an excellent narrative with short stories of engaging science and personal anecdotes relating to queerness and the outdoors wonderfully. 'Unsettling: Surviving Extinction Together' is filled with engaging metaphors that I felt instantly connected to given parallels with my own interests, childhood and experiences--and yet I was left feeling that most anyone reading the book would feel gripped (even without paralleled experiences).
From catching my attention with the benefits of whale poop, to frankly talking about difficult issues interwoven with moments of hope and positivity, Unsettling is my very favorite non-fiction book of 2022.
I highly recommend that all humans read this book.
From catching my attention with the benefits of whale poop, to frankly talking about difficult issues interwoven with moments of hope and positivity, Unsettling is my very favorite non-fiction book of 2022.
I highly recommend that all humans read this book.
September 19, 2023
This had a lot of potential as a climate change book written by a queer voice, and I appreciated the intersectional environmentalism aspect of this book, but I must have missed the part on "surviving extinction together". It was very much a gloom and doom book about climate change and human impact, which is understandable, but the title is a bit misleading and if you are already well-versed on climate change, there wasn't much offered here that hasn't been offered before. The book also felt very disjointed, and I personally just don't care for pop culture/movie references, so the beginning of the book was pretty hard to get through.
July 9, 2023
I was hoping for more from this book...or at least a different direction. It felt less about what its subtitle proclaims--"surviving extinction together"--and more about how climate change is devastating. I wanted a deeper dive into how we might actually survive together using tactics by anyone not a part of the cis/het patriarchy and didn't feel like I got it. I think this is a great overview for introducing people to climate change, but as someone who already has that foundation, I found it fairly uninteresting.
March 30, 2023
Unsettling is a really powerful look at climate change. Elizabeth Weinberg is a talented writer who brings pop culture and queer history into her work, and I felt like I could really understand what she was talking about because of that. This is a book that everyone should read.
January 28, 2024
I liked the part about the whale pump in the beginning. That was something ive almost never heard if before. Whales are much cooler now.
I have to stop judging non fiction books the same way as fiction ones. They are not as exciting. Obviously.
I have to stop judging non fiction books the same way as fiction ones. They are not as exciting. Obviously.
November 28, 2023
Unsettling was an interesting intersection of queerness, climate change, and colonialism—which I hadn’t considered combining all of before.
November 30, 2023
A delusion-free collection of reflections on our changing world. The introspective qualities of the author leave us with a sense that a better world is possible if we look deeply at cause and effect.
April 27, 2025
Part memoir, part environmental call to action. A lovely reflection on wild spaces, reciprocity, queerness, self identity, and the way it all ties together.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews