What Climate Fiction Should Accomplish
Books BriefingWhat Climate Fiction Should AccomplishCan a novel capture the shock of planetary instability?By Emma SarappoSteve Russell / Toronto Star / GettyJuly 24, 2026, 1:45 PM ET ShareSave This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books. The thermometer reached triple digits, and so did the air-quality index, which my phone told me meant “very unhealthy.” If I lived somewhere else—in Delhi, maybe, or Kinshasa, or Los Angeles—where high temperatures and murky skies were more common, I might have been less surprised. But climate change means that such conditions are no longer confined to specific regions of the globe, and people everywhere are beginning to contend with once-rare events becoming almost routine.
- ▪Books BriefingWhat Climate Fiction Should AccomplishCan a novel capture the shock of planetary instability?By Emma SarappoSteve Russell / Toronto Star / GettyJuly 24, 2026, 1:45 PM ET ShareSave This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our
- ▪The thermometer reached triple digits, and so did the air-quality index, which my phone told me meant “very unhealthy.” If I lived somewhere else—in Delhi, maybe, or Kinshasa, or Los Angeles—where high temperatures and murky skies were more
- ▪But climate change means that such conditions are no longer confined to specific regions of the globe, and people everywhere are beginning to contend with once-rare events becoming almost routine.
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Books BriefingWhat Climate Fiction Should AccomplishCan a novel capture the shock of planetary instability?By Emma SarappoSteve Russell / Toronto Star / GettyJuly 24, 2026, 1:45 PM ET ShareSave This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books. Sign up for it here.Last week, I woke up in Washington, D.C., to a simmering, suffocating haze. The thermometer reached triple digits, and so did the air-quality index, which my phone told me meant “very unhealthy.” If I lived somewhere else—in Delhi, maybe, or Kinshasa, or Los Angeles—where high temperatures and murky skies were more common, I might have been less surprised.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at The Atlantic.
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