I'm With the Bears: Short Stories from a Damaged Planet

Dystopian. Good selection.

The book itself is in great condition, but there are stickers all over it, something I am not a fan of.

If you want to see the consequences of global warming in a story format, this is an excellent beginning -- also helps 350.org

And then we had to write an essay on it....

This collection of short stories, each addressing climate change in some way, is depressing, as another reviewer said. I can't imagine what that reader was hoping for, but yes, the devastation of our environment and our relationship with the natural world is a bit of a bummer, yes.That said, these stories ranged from the utterly bleak ( T.C. Boyle's The Siskiyou was very disturbing) to the absolutely haunting (Lydia Millet's Zoogoing- I've read it 3 times, and it is still echoing in my mind) to looks at what water deals taking place now might mean for the American Southwest (in Paolo Bacigalupi's stunning The Tamarisk Hunter).These stories all have a common theme, but the incredible slate of authors each use their own inimitable voices, and the chorus of them together is powerful.Wonderful.

Although some of the money from this book is going to fight climate change, there is not a single story about climate change being stopped. I suppose that would be too implausible. Instead the stories are arranged to form a bleak narrative in which we first fail to prevent climate catastrophe, and then we suffer from it, and then (with a few exceptions) we fail to recover.I thought there were a lot of boring bits and preachy bits, but also some great stuff. My favorites are the four in the middle of the book: "Hermie" is a gut punch of a story about a hermit crab who was a boy's imaginary friend, and reappears years later to seek his help. "Diary of an Interesting Year" is a very well written story of a woman surviving horrible times. "Newromancer" is the most alive story in the book, about young people having forbidden fun under a decrepit police state that justifies itself with ecology. And "The Siphoners" combines a story of the future with an ancient folk tale, both about the culling of old people. "Arzestula" is uneven, but I appreciate its optimism, and it should have gone at the end of the book.

I went on a five-day backpacking trip, so I finally bought a Kindle. This has been my only book purchase so far. The first story was OK; T.C. Boyle has never written a bad story. The next three were so-so. Then I got to David Mitchell. Ah, I said. This will be good! It was...but after page five, text went missing. Whether one page or five pages were missing is hard to tell with this guy. Amazon gave me my money back. Y'know, we neo-Luddites have this superstition that we have some sort of magnetic field that screws with electronics. Anybody else missing pages?

All the stories have to do with nature or the environment in some way. Some are set in the "now" and some in the future and deal with our relationship to it or how we coexist in it after its gone to rot. Not all stories are created equal as I preferred some over others but that may simply be a matter of preference.

Found the stories very dull and I was extremely disappointed. The book was also delivered in a poorer condition than expected as it was rated as in a 'very good' condition

An informative and sensitive treatment of climate change written by some of the best authors around currently. I enjoyed it immensely.

Must read

Except for wondering if I had ordered this book from the library and wondering if I should take it back - I am delighted to discover its mine! In good nick/condition - and a book ive long wanted to own.