I delayed reading this for months, thinking it was going to be another semi-boring mainstream tale of environmental activists. The first page quickly shattered that misconception. Some readers will be offended, but I was pleasantly surprised to see it was from a major publisher.

I always enjoy books which question our modern civilization and how we live. This one is a mix of personal stories and broader histories; I found the personal aspects more interesting. The author and I have similar thoughts about our society, but have made different choices on how to live, at least in part because we’re from different generations which was a fascinating topic to consider.

Many topics are touched on among the mini-bios of the people she writes about, including rewilding, invasive plants, wildfires, infighting over minor differences, ALF and ELF.

I was particularly intrigued by mention of some books which had been important to her, and which I’d also read earlier. We had similar reactions to Tom Brown Jr’s books—initial love and later disillusionment. The novel Ishmael had a major effect on her, which I recall it having on many people. In my case, I’d already become familiar with its deep ecology type ideas in earlier, more serious publications, so while I appreciated the novel spreading the ideas, to me it seemed more like reading an elementary school version of those ideas.

I found Believers much more interesting than most books published these days, and an important topic which is still too much ignored. Thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for the advance copy to review.

Thanks to Netgalley and FSG for the ebook. The author took an early interest in solving the problems of the planet. She moved on to other areas of a writing life, but the cause was always close to her heart and with this book she spends time and interviews the specialists on the margins who are still fighting. It’s a very enlightening book of essays where you’ll meet people who are not always so easy to get along with, but each is fighting, in their own way, to save the planet.

Lisa Wells delivers a inquisitory account of her study of our planet and its deforestation, overpopulation and other piquant questions. Well put together, asking so many questions that so many of us ponder, and offers the possibility of our survival.

This is a powerful book. One that is not about bemoaning the state of the Earth today, but instead on how we can heal, ourselves and the land. Lisa Wells introduces us to several people who are living wildly, living to restore nature and some with unusual ways. We are first introduced to Finisia Medrona who replants prairies and deserts with edible foods, who now has a group of followers. Her group of “Prairie Faeries” or landtenders on occasion plant a hillside of edibles in the shape of letters such as “This is food.” Finisia’s dedication to replanting is tied with religious overtones while spouting a foul mouth being quite cantankerous to outsides and those who live a “typical” western lifestyle. She’s lived an itinerant lifestyle, for years living in a cave or traveled by covered wagon.

Starting the book with an outlier, it is a sharp awakening that there are other ways to live, or how to interact with the environment. Much of the book is infused with religion, talk of healing ourselves from the trauma that has happened (something is wrong when we have so many people addicted to various vices), and restoring nature.

Wells interweaves her own personal story as well, leaving high school in Portland and along with her friends, joins a wilderness survival school. Wells interlaces the people that shaped her life, important books such as Daniel Quinn’s book Ishmael, and her friends. We are also introduced to many others, people who have done something radically different and have results that prove that the ecosystem can be restored, and at an amazingly fast pace.

This book is about people who believe that we can move beyond this current climate crisis, we have the ability to heal what is broken. Wells shows us people who are doing just that.

‘How, then, shall we live’ is asked many times. Some answers are here. It is a hopeful book, albeit not an easy read at times. It can be eye-opening or maybe, world changing.

Believers is a selection of somewhat dense essays and an impassioned call to action for those who care about our environment and our future. Like many of us, Lisa Wells has spent years overwhelmed by news of apocalyptic-scale climate change and a coming sixth extinction. She did not need to be convinced of the stakes. But what can be done? Wells embarked on a pilgrimage, seeking answers in dedicated communities—outcasts and visionaries—on the margins of society. With so much focus now on our doomed future should we continue to live in the same selfish, unrestrained way we do at present, Wells approaches things using a different strategy and in a more optimistic manner by traversing the land conversing with those who seek to connect and restore nature as much as humanly possible.

What is interesting is they each have their own ideas about how to save the natural world. Some of those she interviewed are known to be confrontational and awkward, but Wells felt it necessary to include their important contributions towards making the world a better place, and rightly so. Among those she explores is Matthew Trumm who cofounded the Camp Fire Restoration Project in 2019, alongside John D. Liu, a land restoration expert and documentarian, after suffering due to 2018’s Camp Fire in Paradise, California. In New Mexico, she spent time among Taos Initiative for Life Together whose objective is to abandon reliance on fossil fuels by growing their own food, sourcing their own water and bartering services within the community in order to generate no waste and repair the local ecosystem.

Effectively blending reportage, memoir, history, psychology and philosophy, Wells opens up seemingly intractable questions about the damage we have done and how we might reckon with our inheritance. Believers demands (radical) transformation: if the Earth is our home, if our home is being destroyed– how then shall we live? A fascinating, accessible (yet verging on academic) and impeccably researched/detailed meditation on how we can tip the balance back in our favour when it comes to our ecosystems, biodiversity, sustainability and in particular climate change and its environmental impact. Unexpectedly poetic in places, touching and powerful while maintaining an air of both hope and resilience, it is a richly informative, thought-provoking book. Recommended.