CURWOOD: It’s Living on Earth. I’m Steve Curwood. If you’re thinking of some gifts to buy for friends and family this holiday season, you might want to take a listen to Bruce Barcott. He’s a contributing editor of Outside magazine and he’s got some suggestions if you’d like to give those folks some brain food, otherwise known as books. Here’s Bruce Barcott’s list of favorite environmental books for 2007.

BARCOTT: Last year, bookstores were full of titles that documented global warming. This year, we moved on to books that told us what to do about it. The best of the bunch was “Break Through,” by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus. Three years ago the authors raised a ruckus with their provocative essay, “The Death of Environmentalism.”

The year’s best book of natural history is paleontologist Michael Novacek’s “Terra.” Novacek lays out the story of life on Earth, from the first single-celled organisms to those strange hominids known as you and me. Novacek’s specialty is evolution and extinction, and his book makes it clear that habitat loss and global warming are bringing about the kind of mass extinction that hasn’t been seen since a killer asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs.

Dangerous, but also glorious. For me, 2007 will be the year that Richard Preston inspired me to quit hugging trees and start climbing them.

CURWOOD: Bruce Barcott climbs trees in Boulder, Colorado and reviews books for Outside magazine and The New York Times Book Review. His own book, "The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw," will be published by Random House early next year.