Elizabeth Kolbert is one of my favorite nonfiction authors. She has such a knack for writing in a clear, compelling way that makes you think and marvel and ask questions you've never considered before. In her previous book, The Sixth Extinction, she catalogs all the ways in which humans have drastically changed the natural world, ushering the new age of the Anthropocene. Under a White Sky is an exploration of the ways scientists around the world are trying to undo those changes. There are people engineering unique solutions to combat a variety of environmental threats: invasive carp in the Chicago River and cane toads in Australia, Louisiana's rapidly disappearing Mississippi River delta, rare species that now depend entirely on human conservation for their continued survival, and, perhaps most pressingly, the problem of rising carbon emissions and global climate change.

That there are brilliant minds working innovatively to solve these problems inspires optimism. But these sobering portraits really highlight the extreme human measures it takes to keep at bay the problems caused by humans interfering with nature in the first place. We've already transformed the planet; how much more will it be transformed by these interventions, and in what ways?