The final weeks of the year are a time of suspension, allowing, for those who can afford it, to slow down the pace, open up room for reflection, and go back to the essential questions. It is also the ideal time to give or treat yourself to books capable of broadening your gaze, questioning certainties, imagining possible futures.

Throughout the year, through the Reading Matter section, present both in RenewableLetter, our monthly newsletter, and in the bimonthly magazine Renewable Matter, we have narrated themes, territories and disciplines through books: essays, reports, narratives.

In order to invite this broadening and lengthening of our outlook, intended to be an antidote to short-term thinking, to quote Roman Krznaric and his The Good Ancestor (Penguin Group, 2020), we have put together fifteen publications, already reported during the year, that continue to offer valuable tools for reading the present and imagining more just, sustainable and desirable futures.

Noam Chomsky, C. J. Polychroniou, A Liveable Future is Possible

Confronted with wars, the climate crisis, the nuclear threat and the rise of fascism, this essay (Haymarket Books, 2024) offers a clear-headed analysis of today's world, explores the potential and risks of artificial intelligence and raises the urgency of conscious activism to transform the future into an opportunity for human freedom.

Charles Clover, Rewilding the Sea

Can we really stop the crisis affecting the ocean? In Rewilding the Sea - How to save our oceans (Penguin, 2023), environmental journalist Charles Clover proves that by stepping back and making room for nature, we can restore marine life, combat climate change and support local communities. A book that shows how saving our oceans is, after all, easier than we think.

Sybil Derrible, The Infrastructure Book. How Cities Work and Power Our Lives

Drinking a glass of water, turning on the stove, making a phone call, taking the train: our lives are totally dependent on infrastructure. Yet, almost no one has any idea how they actually work. The French-American engineer and educator Sybil Derrible has therefore decided to make up for this colossal shortcoming with an easily readable book (Prometheus, 2025), which explains, through case studies of sixteen cities around the world, how the systems that allow us to live comfortably without fearing that the water will no longer flow from the tap or the lights will not turn on are organised and managed. From MR59 Infrastructure.

Mark Kurlansky, Salt: A World History

The world is literally full of salt. And yet wars have been fought over salt, empires have fallen and risen, revolutions have sparked and trade routes that still criss-cross the planet today have been opened. Assembling a kaleidoscopic mosaic that brings together political, commercial, scientific, religious and culinary issues, Mark Kurlansky (Penguin Books, 2003) tells the story of human civilisation through the events of the one rock we eat, as essential to life as it is to the economy. From MR54 Materials.

Roman Krznaric, History for Tomorrow

What if history was not only a tool for knowledge, but also a source of inspiration to face the great challenges of the present? This book (W H Allen, 2025) explores a thousand years of events, ideas and revolutions to provide us with radical inspirations to face the great unknowns of the 21st century: from the climate crisis to the risks of artificial intelligence, from hyper-consumerism to growing inequality. With the knowledge that change is still possible.

Mary Roach, Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law

From orchard-ravaging caterpillars sued in a 17th-century courthouse to seagulls vandalising the Vatican, from dangerous cohabitation with bears and leopards to territorial disputes with moles and elephants. What happens when wild nature breaks human law? With irony and scientific accuracy, journalist Mary Roach (Norton & Co Inc., 2021) investigates the topic of human/animal conflict, meeting forensic investigators, ethologists, conservationists, bear managers, monkey imitators. And discovering that the “problem”– but also, potentially, the solution – is almost always humans. From MR58 Animals.

Raghuram Rajan, Rohit Lamba, Breaking the Mould. Reimagining India’s Economic Future

India is at a crossroads. It has bypassed the United Kingdom as the world's fifth largest economy, but its growth is not yet enough to create all the jobs, especially skilled ones, that the most populous nation on the planet would need. If it is true that the country's development path has skipped the intermediate stages by leaps and bounds, for the near future – write former Indian Central Bank governor Rajan and economist Lamba (Penguin Business, 2023) – it is more necessary than ever to invest in human resources and re-imagine a new economy centred on innovative products. From MR56 Global South.

Andrew J. Scott, The Longevity Imperative. How to Build a Healthier and More Productive Society to Support Our Longer Lives

The scientific innovations of the last century have prolonged life expectancy worldwide. While it is increasingly likely that reaching 100 years of age will be the norm, the question is how. Economist Andrew J. Scott (Basic Books, 2024), one of the world's leading experts on longevity, explains how to best exploit the marvellous opportunity of a longer life, between individual choices (organisation of finances and work, management of health and relationships) and system changes (social, health, pension policies). An “evergreen” strategy for a new world that is older and, perhaps, a little wiser. From MR57 Human Tech.

Peter Walker, How Cycling Can Save The World

In countries where cycling is a popular mode of transport, people are healthier and happier, the roads are safer and less noisy, the air is cleaner and even the economy is more prosperous. Cycling has no downside, except one: the danger to cyclists from car traffic. In a book (Penguin Books, 2017) now become a manifesto, British journalist Peter Walker reflects on the problems caused by car culture and how the pedal revolution could really change the world. For the better. From MR55 Transport.

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