An NPR Best Book of the Year

A 2025 National Endowment for the Arts Big Reads Selection

A National Geographic Best Travel Book

Winner of the CLMP Firecracker Award in Creative Nonfiction

Finalist for the Housatonic Book Award in Nonfiction

Honorable mention for the SEJ Rachel Carson Environment Book Award

The Quickening is a book of hope.--Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Under a White Sky

An astonishing, vital work about Antarctica, climate change, and community.

In 2019, fifty-seven scientists and crew set out onboard the Nathaniel B. Palmer. Their destination: the ominous Thwaites Glacier at Antarctica's western edge. Their goal: to learn as much as possible about this mysterious place, never before visited by humans. And with them is author Elizabeth Rush, who seeks, among other things, the elusive voice of the ice.

Rush shares her story of a groundbreaking voyage punctuated by both the sublime--the tangible consequences of our melting icecaps; the staggering waves of the Drake Passage; the torqued, unfamiliar contours of Thwaites--and the everyday moments of living and working in community. A ping-pong tournament at sea. Long hours in the lab. All the effort that goes into caring for the human and more-than-human worlds. Along the way, Rush takes readers on a personal journey around a more intimate question: What does it mean to create and celebrate life in a time of radical planetary change?

What emerges is a new kind of Antarctica story, one preoccupied not with flag planting and heroism but with the collective and challenging work of imagining a better future. With understanding the language of a continent where humans have only been present for two centuries. With the contributions and concerns of women, who were largely excluded from voyages until the last few decades, and of crew members of color, whose labor has often gone unrecognized. Urgent, brave, and vulnerable, The Quickening is an absorbing account of hope from one of our most celebrated and treasured contemporary authors.

FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE IN GENERAL NONFICTION

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL OUTDOOR BOOK AWARD

Hailed as deeply felt (New York Times), a revelation (Pacific Standard), and the book on climate change and sea levels that was missing (Chicago Tribune), Rising is both a highly original work of lyric reportage and a haunting meditation on how to let go of the places we love.

With every passing day, and every record-breaking hurricane, it grows clearer that climate change is neither imagined nor distant--and that rising seas are transforming the coastline of the United States in irrevocable ways. In Rising, Elizabeth Rush guides readers through some of the places where this change has been most dramatic, from the Gulf Coast to Miami, and from New York City to the Bay Area. For many of the plants, animals, and humans in these places, the options are stark: retreat or perish in place.

Weaving firsthand testimonials from those facing this choice--a Staten Islander who lost her father during Sandy, the remaining holdouts of a Native American community on a drowning Isle de Jean Charles, a neighborhood in Pensacola settled by escaped slaves hundreds of years ago--with profiles of wildlife biologists, activists, and other members of these vulnerable communities, Rising privileges the voices of those too often kept at the margins.

In a new afterword for the paperback edition, Rush highlights questions of storytelling, adaptability, and how to powerfully shift conversation around ongoing climate change--including the storms of 2017 and 2018: Hurricanes Harvey, Maria, Irma, Florence, and Michael.

An NPR Best Book of the Year
Winner of the CLMP Firecracker Award in Creative Nonfiction

The Quickening is a book of hope.--Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Under a White Sky

An astonishing, vital work about Antarctica, climate change, and community.

In 2019, fifty-seven scientists and crew set out onboard the Nathaniel B. Palmer. Their destination: the ominous Thwaites Glacier at Antarctica's western edge. Their goal: to learn as much as possible about this mysterious place, never before visited by humans. And with them is author Elizabeth Rush, who seeks, among other things, the elusive voice of the ice.

Rush shares her story of a groundbreaking voyage punctuated by both the sublime--the tangible consequences of our melting icecaps; the staggering waves of the Drake Passage; the torqued, unfamiliar contours of Thwaites--and the everyday moments of living and working in community. A ping-pong tournament at sea. Long hours in the lab. All the effort that goes into caring for the human and more-than-human worlds. Along the way, Rush takes readers on a personal journey around a more intimate question: What does it mean to create and celebrate life in a time of radical planetary change?

What emerges is a new kind of Antarctica story, one preoccupied not with flag planting and heroism but with the collective and challenging work of imagining a better future. With understanding the language of a continent where humans have only been present for two centuries. With the contributions and concerns of women, who were largely excluded from voyages until the last few decades, and of crew members of color, whose labor has often gone unrecognized. Urgent, brave, and vulnerable, The Quickening is an absorbing account of hope from one of our most celebrated and treasured contemporary authors.

This unique book presents a practical and realistic approach to implementing a school-wide, K-12 Genius Hour program--one that can succeed regardless of budgetary and infrastructure constraints.

Genius Hour is a movement in which students are allowed to spend a portion of their in-school time learning about a topic of their choosing--even subjects outside of the curriculum. When properly implemented, a Genius Hour program can create true passion for learning among unmotivated students, ignite interest in STEM as well as the arts, encourage collaboration, improve the relationship between educator and students, and help prepare students for real life outside of the educational system. But revamping a school library program to offer a Genius Hour program may seem like an insurmountable task--especially when working with a limited staff or budget.

This book provides specific direction and concrete advice that enables school librarians to lead a school-wide program for all grade levels, from kindergarten to 12th grade. It explains why Genius Hour is the perfect program complement to the learning commons environment; presents research and support that will empower librarians to make a convincing case to administration; explains how to enlist the participation of faculty; and provides step-by-step guidance to begin, successfully manage, and grow a campus-wide Genius Hour. Librarians will see why investing in creative teaching is worth the effort, despite their limited time and resources; understand how to help underperforming students make their distractions count in school; and look forward to playing a part in creating imaginative and independent thinkers, not test takers.