Vacation itineraries and long flights have a way of making room for fiction. Climate fiction has quietly become one of publishing’s most inventive corners, turning environmental anxiety into some of the most talked-about stories. The genre has grown considerably in recent years, racking up Booker Prizes, National Book Award nods and even its own dedicated accolade (The Climate Fiction Prize). Here are nine of our favorites to take along this summer.
‘The Mountain in the Sea‘
By Ray Nayler
In this Locus Award-winning debut, a team of scientists studies a newly discovered, highly intelligent octopus species off a remote island. Their find forces a reckoning with just how much humanity owes the natural world — and with a corporation racing to exploit it. Nayler, a former international advisor to the NOAA on marine sanctuaries, brings real expertise in ocean conservation to the novel. It’s science fiction, but its questions about corporate power and environmental ethics feel increasingly relevant as companies face growing scrutiny over their impact on the natural world.
‘Orbital‘
By Samantha Harvey
This book follows six astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) as they circle Earth 16 times in a single day, watching sunrise and sunset reprise beneath them. Harvey has said that watching live footage from the ISS left her overwhelmed by the beauty and strangeness of our planet, a feeling she distills in this 2024 Booker Prize winner. The slim, meditative volume is a thoughtful reminder of just how intertwined our environmental and social systems are.
‘The Actual Star‘
By Monica Byrne
This novel weaves together three settings a thousand years apart (ancient Maya, contemporary Belize and a far-future world reshaped by climate catastrophe), tracing how societies adapt or collapse under pressure. New Scientist called it “a stone-cold masterpiece,” and it drew similar praise from The Guardian. Its long, telescoping view of climate and civilization makes it especially compelling for sustainability professionals who sometimes think in decades and centuries as much as in fiscal quarters.
‘All the Water in the World‘
By Eiren Caffall
Set in a flooded future New York, this debut follows a girl with a “deep feeling for water” as she and her family shelter on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History, trying to preserve fragments of human history and culture as a superstorm bears down. A Library Journal review termed it “incandescent,” and Scientific American praised its tense, gripping momentum. It’s a compelling read for sustainability professionals thinking through climate risk and community resilience.
‘The Wall‘
By John Lanchester
In this near-future novel, longlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize, a coastal nation has sealed itself off behind a concrete wall to keep out rising seas and the refugees they have displaced. New recruit Joseph Kavanagh is assigned to defend a stretch of the wall and soon discovers that everything is not as it seems, forcing him to grapple with ethical dilemmas that may feel familiar: the price others pay for our safety, the way environmental change redraws borders and more.
‘Bewilderment‘
By Richard Powers
After his wife’s death, an astrobiologist searching for signs of life on distant planets struggles to reach his environmentally anxious young son back on Earth. Shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize, the novel comes from Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Powers, whom The Guardian has praised for his “extraordinary gifts as a writer.” At its core, this is a novel about loss, grief and hope, offering a more personal lens on environmental change.
‘A Children’s Bible‘
By Lydia Millet
Set during what starts as an ordinary summer vacation, this novel follows a group of children who watch escalating climate disasters unfold while the adults around them stay determinedly, drunkenly indifferent. A finalist for the National Book Award, it was described by Kirkus as “a bleak and righteously angry tale determined to challenge our rationalizations about climate change.” Millet blends dark satire with real urgency, imagining what happens when leadership fails and the people written off as powerless have to step up instead.
‘The Light Pirate‘
By Lily Brooks-Dalton
Spanning several decades as rising seas slowly submerge Florida, this novel follows one woman’s life as the coastline — and the society built along it — is remade around her. A Good Morning America Book Club pick, it was praised by Kirkus for creating “an all-too-believable picture of nature reclaiming Florida from its human inhabitants.” Rather than dwelling only on catastrophe, Brooks-Dalton is just as interested in what people build back up, making the novel a study of resilience and adaptation as well as of loss.
‘Hum‘
By Helen Phillips
Set in a near-future city reshaped by artificial intelligence and environmental decline, this book follows a mother who alters her own face to evade surveillance, then watches automation reshape her family’s life. The novel won the 2026 Climate Fiction Prize and landed on year-end best-of lists from the New York Times and The New Yorker. It’s a sharp and unsettling read for anyone grappling with how technology and climate are converging to remake ordinary life.
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