Participants are invited to choose one of the four following contemporary cli-fi novels to read before the meeting: Mother Sea by Lorraine Wilson In an island community facing extinction, can hope rise stronger than grief? Sisi de Mathilde lives on a remote island in the Indian Ocean. With the seas rising, the birth rate plummeting and her community under threat, she works as a scientist, reporting on the rapidly changing local climate conditions to help protect her island home. But her life is thrown into turmoil when she finds herself newly widowed and unexpectedly pregnant. When a group of outsiders arrive and try to persuade her community to abandon the island, Sisi is caught between the sacred ‘old ways’ of her ancestors and the possibilities offered by the outside world. As tensions rise and the islanders turn on one another, Sisi must fight to save her home, her people and her unborn child. The High House by Jessie Greengrass Perched on a hill above a village by the sea, the high house has a mill, a vegetable garden and a barn full of supplies. Caro and her younger half-brother, Pauly, arrive there one day to find it cared for by Grandy and his granddaughter, Sally. Not quite a family, they learn to live together, and care for one another. But there are limits even to what the ailing Grandy knows about how to survive, and, if the storm comes, it might not be enough. How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu Dr. Cliff Miyashiro arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue his recently deceased daughter’s research, only to discover a virus, newly unearthed from melting permafrost. The plague unleashed reshapes life on earth for generations. Yet even while struggling to counter this destructive force, humanity stubbornly persists in myriad moving and ever inventive ways. Among those adjusting to this new normal are an aspiring comedian, employed by a theme park designed for terminally ill children, who falls in love with a mother trying desperately to keep her son alive; a scientist who, having failed to save his own son from the plague, gets a second chance at fatherhood when one of his test subjects-a pig-develops human speech; a man who, after recovering from his own coma, plans a block party for his neighbours who have also woken up to find that they alone have survived their families; and a widowed painter and her teenaged granddaughter who must set off on cosmic quest to locate a new home planet. From funerary skyscrapers to hotels for the dead, How High We Go in the Dark follows a cast of intricately linked characters spanning hundreds of years as humanity endeavours to restore the delicate balance of the world. This is a story of unshakable hope that crosses literary lines to give us a world rebuilding itself through an endless capacity for love, resilience and reinvention. How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue Set in the fictional African village of Kosawa, this is the story of a people living in fear amidst environmental degradation wrought by an American oil company. Pipeline spills have rendered farmlands infertile. Children are dying from drinking toxic water. Promises of clean-up and financial reparations are made – and broken. Left with few choices, the people of Kosawa decide to fight back. But it will come at a steep price – one which generation after generation will have to pay. How Beautiful We Were is a masterful exploration of what happens when the reckless drive for profit, coupled with the ghost of colonialism, comes up against one community’s determination to hold onto its ancestral land and a young woman’s willingness to sacrifice everything for the sake of her people’s freedom. Some copies of the novels are available from the library. Refreshments will be available on the night. In partnership with the Aberfeldy Climate Café.