Books I read in June. Activism, crime, music, trees and speculative stuff.

Nominations open for Linnean Medal for research! Awarded for significant and sustained advances in the understanding of nature, including academic research into any relevant branch, including science, history and the humanities. Deadline Sept 30. For more details and past winners 👇️ buff.ly/X52reM9

I would beg you to read the whole thread, as I think very few people have seen how fast the foundations of democracy are being torn out in the UK, and how far down the road towards authoritarianism we have already travelled. Sorry to pester you, but this could not be more important. Thanks.

(1/2) A Humpback whale and a pod of Common dolphins feeding in Donegal bay. 🔊You can hear the whale's breath over the sound of the outboard engine.

You could not make it up.... www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Packing for a residency in Iceland. Brrr 🥶 I was hoping to see the midnight sun, but it looks like we’ll get an hour (one hour!) of darkness. So much light! Any tips for how to survive a month with 7 million Puffins? #magic #summersolstice

“For nature loving dads, I recommend this work of non-fiction that charts the interconnected relationship between trees and humanity.” Lovely to see THE LANGUAGE OF TREES included in @forbes.com roundup of best books for Father’s Day! All my books are dedicated to my dad. He was the best ❤️

"ADMINISTRATION REGISTERS RECORD GROWTH" wapo.st/4vWAPAW

This heatwave brought to you by BP.

It feels strange that humanity dreams of finding life on distant planets while forests here vanish every day. A forest takes decades to grow, to cool the air, protect wildlife, and create peace—yet only moments to destroy. The most important world is the one we already inhabit.

Wild Things: A Geography of Grief, with Barbara Wansbrough and Paul Holdengraber. This should be a wonderful event at the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur, California, Saturday, June 20, 12-1PM. Feel free to pack a lunch! www.eventbrite.com/e/wild-thing...

Our new paper out today in Nature Comms, led by the amazing @profmarkfaghy.bsky.social Current status and future perspectives on the mechanistic And pathophysiological understanding of Long Covid www.nature.com/articles/s43...

1,000-year-old Major Oak in Sherwood Forest dies 😢😔 In 2017, I worked with Nottinghamshire campaigners to stop petrochemicals company INEOS from fracking Sherwood Forest. But the climate crisis got to the Major Oak in the end: www.theguardian.com/environment/...

"Artists are struggling with the same things as everyone else: housing, healthcare, and time off." Wonderful to sit down with @hyperallergic.com editor-in-chief Hakim Bishara in Ridgewood to talk about my journey from art to politics and the perspective I'll bring to Congress.

WOULD YOU BELIEVE me if I told you the Irish Tree Alphabet grew from a seed rooted within James Joyce’s Ulysses? Yes, somehow it offers a way to re-forest literature and our environmental imaginations. Thanks to @emergencemagazine.bsky.social for sharing 🍃 #Bloomsday #NatureWriting #Trees

Happy Bloomsday to all who celebrate! The day is named after Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of James Joyce's novel Ulysses, which take place on Thursday, June 16, 1904. Meanwhile, I'm still translating Ulysses into Irish Trees. Maybe it'll be ready next Bloomsday. Yes I said yes I will Yes!

“For nature loving dads, I recommend this work of non-fiction that charts the interconnected relationship between trees and humanity.” Lovely to see THE LANGUAGE OF TREES included in @forbes.com roundup of best books for Father’s Day! All my books are dedicated to my dad. He was the best ❤️

A hidden circulatory system pulses just beneath the planet’s surface. Embedded in soil, dense networks of microorganisms, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, attach to plant roots. Laid end to end, these filaments would extend for 68 quadrillion miles. Great work by Toby Kiers @spun.earth Gift link 🍄

My hundredth essay at my newsletter (in just under 500 days). It's about beauty and pleasure, films and trees and singing, about the small things,and their relationship to democracy and the large things.

These are the real people of Belfast. Thousands of anti-fascists rally against the far-right at Belfast City Hall today. They sent a clear message that racism is not wanted in their city. Things you love to see ✊❤

Leonardo da Vinci's Notebooks Are Whole Again, 400 Years After a Collector Cut Them Apart www.discovermagazine.com/leonardo-da-...

Pack a lunch, get comfy, and spend an early afternoon under the Redwoods discussing THE LANGUAGE OF TREES. Sounds like heaven! Join me at the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur on October 9, 12PM. Get in the mood, tune into my chat with the BIG SUR PODCAST 👇 #Trees #Forest #NatureWriting #BigSur

Release the letters!

If literacy is in decline, why are bookstores booming?

Help the functionally extinct American chestnut return to New York City! @nyrp.bsky.social is partnering with longtime American chestnut conservationist Bart Chezar and The American Chestnut Foundation to help distribute American chestnut saplings. Want FREE Chestnut #Trees? Register for Yours 🌳

THE LANGUAGE OF TREES — AND THE WORLD WE'VE FORGOTTEN HOW TO READ 🎄 I love Redwoods, so it was a joy to speak with the Big Sur Podcast about life and art and books and trees. You can listen here: www.bigsurpodcast.org/1726307/epis... 🍃 #SaveOurForests #TheLanguageOfTrees #NatureWriting

“If [AI] has escaped "human control" in a malicious way that closely resembles a virus, then the problem is very human. You've designed a shitty product in an incompetent way that did damage you could have avoided. You should be prosecuted and embarrassed for being bad at your job.” Amen 🙏

Looking forward to listening to this conversation with Vivien Sansour, founder of the Palestinian Heirloom Seed Library. She’s spent the last 12 years tending a living archive, collecting #seeds and stories of the Palestinian people. Here she talks to Willow Defebaugh for Atmos. #FreePalestine

"Wearing a mask is a form of protest against the status quo" ✊ YES! I've found my people! I love this so much. I'd love to try to visit some of these bookstores on my book tour.

Lovely!

Good morning. May the day bring you a modicum of the joy felt by this bear after he swam a kilometer across frigid water Glacier Bay, Alaska, and came upon a scrawny tree. Video by my friend Whitney while I floated next to her in a kayak audibly gasping

Love this! Indie bookstores have often served as hubs of political action and community care. These Indie bookstores promote masking and COVID consciousness in 2026. Story by Elisabeth Cook & Lisa Butts @whoevenreads.bsky.social via @thesicktimes.org 😷 #LongCOVID #IndieBookstore #DisabilityJustice

This sounds great! A female protagonist abandons the city to go “to the woods”. Unlike Thoreau, she finds the world there. Fiedorczuk experiments with perspective at the planetary scale, zooming from microscopic forest life to the cosmic. The link in the post below doesn’t work, so click here

More native forests and wetter bogs will help fire proof our country while we also need stiffer fines and more prosecutions for fire starters. The law should include an outright ban on burning the countryside. jrnl.ie/7060104

Japan reforested with Japanese cedar (sugi) and cypress (hinoki) in the 1950s to rebuild post-war forests. Now the pollen gives 40%+ of its population hay fever. Climate change extends pollen seasons further. Today’s decisions shape tomorrow’s reality. Short-term fixes can become long-term crises.

My god I love trees

Excited to visit HARBOR SPRINGS FESTIVAL OF THE BOOK in Harbor Springs, Michigan, September 25-27 🥰 Feeling lucky that I get to tour again with THE LANGUAGE OF TREES (Special Edition) 🍃 Info and more details of my BOOK TOUR here www.katieholten.com/books#/https... #NatureWriting #BookTour #Trees

Then he asked if he could do it again! For disabled travelers in search of adventure, there are a growing number of options. In Oregon, one wheelchair user went tree-climbing. Story by Sonia A. Rao. Visuals by Michael Hanson @nytimes.com Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/06/07/t... #trees 🍃

I always pause to gaze at #trees growing out of trees and knew they sometimes fuse, but not that their vascular systems may also fuse. Trees are amazing. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Join Roshi Joan today for Mutual Belonging: Compassion and Social Responsibility www.upaya.org/program/the-... THE MEASURE OF OUR HUMANITY. Free, online June 7, 11-12:30 MT.

I think we’re in times of revision. It is about redefining what spirituality is in the twenty-first century on a burning planet, and can we replace “God” with, not something outside of Earth, but with the Glorians here on Earth? Terry Tempest Williams in conversation with Emergence Magazine.

We are in the Age of Humans - the Anthropocene. Our new article (open access) shows how even with a moderate future emissions scenario, global temperature will still be elevated by 3-4°C in the year 3000! Lifetime of our CO2 in the air is that long. agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

Today's archival episode is a 2019 conversation with Richard Powers about The Overstory Audio:📻🍃: milkweed.org/between-the-... @wwnorton.com @pulitzerprizes.bsky.social @milkweededitions.bsky.social

did you know wisteria can take over a tree

Book by Lynda V. Mapes - The Trees Are Speaking: Dispatches from the Salmon Forests "With vibrant storytelling supported by science and traditional ecological knowledge, Mapes invites readers to understand the world where trees are kin, not commodities." uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295...

Ursula K Le Guin: Conversations on Writing returns this fall in a gorgeous refreshed edition. You can pre-order it here: zandoprojects.com/books/ursula... @ursulakleguin.com @zandoprojects.bsky.social @tinhouse.bsky.social

Pride 🌈✨

Jonathan Watts is a treasure. Here's his recent piece on Fossil Fuel Fascism 🔥

If you're in Dublin tomorrow, please come to @molimuseum.bsky.social where Joanna Walsh and Temmuz Süreyya Gürbüz will talk to me about their books Amateurs! and Judith Butler & Film We'll talk critical theory, creative practice, publishing, and audience Free tickets here: moli.ie/events/first...

Seems like a sensible path for humanity, so will be ignored, of course