Life on a Little-Known Planet
  • Published: 17 February 2026
  • ISBN: 9781847929051
  • Imprint: Bodley Head
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $55.00

Life on a Little-Known Planet

Dispatches from a Changing World

  • Elizabeth Kolbert
Formats & editions
Hardback
17 Feb 2026
EBook
6 Nov 2025
Audiobook
6 Nov 2025
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Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Kolbert brings together her most urgent reporting and inspiring lessons from the frontline of the climate catastrophe – the defining challenge of our age

‘To be a well-informed citizen of Planet Earth, you need to read Elizabeth Kolbert’ Rolling Stone

Urgent lessons from the frontline of the climate catastrophe – from one of our most important writers on the environment and natural world, author of the seminal The Sixth Extinction and Pulitzer Prize-winner Elizabeth Kolbert.

In Life on a Little-Known Planet, we join Kolbert on the road as she travels across the globe to the places most dramatically affected by global warming, such as Greenland’s rapidly melting ice sheets and Utah’s shrinking lakes. On the way, we encounter newly discovered species and the last living members of others. We learn how to bring animals back from the brink of extinction, and see the power of rewilding up close.

We also meet countless brilliant and dedicated individuals who are steering us towards a better future: scientists harnessing AI to talk to whales; activists lobbying for the rights of nature; and ordinary people making extraordinary changes, like the Samsø islanders leading a completely carbon-neutral life.

Climate change is one of the defining challenges of our age. The natural world is changing profoundly, and the threats to our planet will only grow more serious. Now is the time to deepen our understanding of this incredible world we are in danger of losing – to act, while we still can.
  • Published: 17 February 2026
  • ISBN: 9781847929051
  • Imprint: Bodley Head
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $55.00
Categories:

Praise for Life on a Little-Known Planet

PRAISE FOR ELIZABETH KOLBERT'S PREVIOUS BOOKS One of the great science journalists, Kolbert has for many years been an essential voice, a reporter from the front lines of the environmental crisis ... Important, necessary, urgent and phenomenally interesting

Helen Macdonald, New York Times

A terrific look at humanity's impact on the Earth

Bill Gates

A wonderful book

Barack Obama

A meticulously researched and deftly crafted work of journalism that explores some of the biggest challenges of our age

Guardian

[Kolbert is] the premier chronicler of humanity's thoughtless destruction of our habitat

Washington Post

No one rivals Kolbert’s ability to write deeply, empathetically and engagingly about mankind’s relationship with the physical world ... She brings curiosity and persistence to the most important issues facing humankind

Chris Goodall, author of What We Need to Do Now

There is surely no better way to understand our changing world than through the uniquely engaging perspectives provided by Elizabeth Kolbert. Joining her on this round-the-world voyage to some of the most incredible places on Earth is a treat ... Immensely sobering yet also inspiring

Chris Fitch, author of Wild Cities

To be a well-informed citizen of Planet Earth, you need to read Elizabeth Kolbert … It’s a tribute to Kolbert’s skills as a storyteller that she transforms the quest to deal with the climate crisis into a darkly comic take of human hubris and imagination that could either end in flames or in a new vision of paradise

Rolling Stone

Our finest journalist on climate change

Chicago Tribune

Kolbert’s beat is examining the impact of humans on the environment, and she does it better than basically everyone

Lit Hub

What’s exceptional about Kolbert’s writing is the combination of scientific rigour and wry humour that keeps you turning the pages

National Geographic

Kolbert [has a] sculptor-like skill for making climate change feel tangible, happening before our eyes and beneath our fingers

Wired