Welcome to Litsy!

What are some books you like that explore positive visions of the future? Ecotopia was just okay, with a lot of dated perspectives on gender, sexuality, and race. I‘m interested in the concept though, using fiction to imagine positive or utopian futures (that don‘t always just devolve into dystopias). I‘m hearing more about the emerging genres of “solarpunk” or “hopepunk” and am looking for recommendations if anyone has any! 🤓📚💚

I am posting one book per day from my extensive to-be-read collection. No description or reason for wanting to read the book. Some are old and some will be new. Don't judge me - I have a lot of books.
Day 186

#tbrmountain #bookbuyingdiet

A lot about this was really interesting, didn't have a strong narrative but focused on the social aspects of an eco 'utopia,' from a late 1970s perspective of a 1999 future. Made me think a bit of Huxley's 'The Island.' Would be really interesting to see this remade with a new approach, although a lot of recent solarpunk stories have broached the themes of accessibility, race and school/prison functions that didn't sit right.

This book about the west coast‘s succession from the US, after some environmental turmoil and how the two countries developed separately thereafter, is written as a travel journal by a reporter being the first to visit Ecotopia after 20 years. Although dated, as a lot of early sci-fi is now, I found this one very interesting and prescient in some things. I would probably recommend this to people who enjoyed Charlotte Gilman‘s Herland trilogy.
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Sounds like it could be right out of our politic debates this year.

Some of this reads so dated now...but then some seem almost prophetic!

I‘d say he‘s tagged our huge Defense Industry correctly, even from the 70‘s... this one seems even more true today! 🙄

The 20 hr work week!

I think I could get used to that. 🤔

Every time I read one of these older (70‘s) environment “classics”, I still find myself blown away by how much we‘ve really known for 50 years now, but haven‘t been able to change much... whether it was big tobacco and oil then, or climate change, fracking, or tobacco again now; or a food industry that has effected massive foodstuffs based on high caloric/fast foods that taste good and create “heavy users” but aren‘t good for you.

For an environmental Ecotopia book written in the 70‘s about a fictional west coast that seceded from the US to become an environmentally stable balanced society, and a reporter from the remaining US visiting 20 years later....this line about standard gun toting in the rest of the US seems scarily prescient. 🤨

Honestly I bought this for the cover, it's fabulous. The book though, pretty bad. At first I thought this would be a interesting time capsule of what an ecological utopia circa 1975, when this was first published, would look like. But wow, the author is I imagine as far left leaning as you can be and the equality as seen by this middle aged white author looks pretty sexist, racist, oblivious to LGBTQIA, and disabilities.

My first time visiting Powell‘s in Portland, OR did not disappoint!

This one is a distant TBR for me in one of the boxes under the bed, but it's the first thing I thought of for #earthsong #LyricalApril