Top 5: Alex Matthiessen

4. Bottlemania, Elizabeth Royte
Matthiessen calls this account of the creation of the $60 billion bottled-water industry and its negative impact on the environment incredible—and incredibly disturbing. “It illustrates the pernicious effects of mass marketing through which corporate giants have been able to create one of the most profitable businesses in the world selling a ‘product’ that is virtually free and very clean and safe.”

5. End of Nature, Bill McKibben Matthiessen calls this book by preeminent nature writer Bill McKibben “one of the most elegiac books on the environment ever written.” Why? “It gets underneath the facts and figures,” says Matthiessen, “and by the now well-known story of climate change and begins to address the potential psychological impact on humans of having done such enormous damage to the only planet we have.”