Water Reading List - Water@UW-Madison

Interested in broadening your awareness of water issues? Check out any of these great books! If you have a suggestion for a title to add, let us know at: water@mailplus.wisc.edu

Our Favorites

Our Favorites
Not sure where to start? Try one of our favorites.

**The Death and Life of the Great Lakes** by Dan Egan

**Let There Be Water: Israel’s Solution for a Water-Starved World** by Seth Seigel

**Water 4.0: The Past, Present, and Future of the World’s Most Vital Resource** by David Sedlak

**The Blue Death: Disease, Disaster, and the Water We Drink** by Robert Morris

**Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization** by Steven Solomon

**Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water** by Marc Reisner

**The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water** by Charles Fishman

Adventure, Fun, and Fiction

Fun and Fiction
Inspiring, amusing, and fictional stories about water, nature, and the environment.

**Paddle to the Amazon: The Ultimate 12,000-Mile Canoe Adventure** by Don Starkell

**Where the Crawdads Sing** by Delia Owens

Science and Technology

Science and Technology
Fascinating overviews of the development of water-related technologies and scientific knowledge.

**Pillar of Sand: Can the Irrigation Miracle Last?** by Sandra Postel

**Rivers for Life: Managing Water for People and Nature** by Sandra Postel and Brian Richter

Environmental Health

Environmental Health
Tales of scientists as detectives, tracking down sources of illness in the water.

**Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation** by Dan Fagin

**The Poisoned City: Flint’s Water and the American Urban Tragedy** by Anna Clark

**What the Eyes Don’t See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City** by Mona Hanna-Attisha

**Living Downstream** by Sandra Steingraber

On Location

On Location
Stories that take a deep dive into water issues or a water crisis at a single locale.

**The Great Lakes Water Wars** by Peter Annin

**Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America** by John M. Barry

**The Johnstown Flood** by David McCullough

**Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West** by Donald Worster

**Overtapped Oasis: Reform or Revolution for Western Water** by Marc Reisner

**Turning the Tide: Saving the Chesapeake Bay** by Tom Horton

In America

In America
Overviews of water challenges facing the States.

**Blue Revolution: Unmaking America’s Water Crisis** by Cynthia Barnett

**Water Follies: Groundwater Pumping and the Fate of America’s Fresh Waters** by Robert Glennon

**Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What to Do About It** by Robert Glennon

**Not a Drop to Drink: America’s Water Crisis (And What You Can Do)** by Ken Midkiff

Global Water

Global Water
Sources of water conflict and crisis at the global scale and alternate ways of thinking about it.

**Water Wars: Drought, Flood, Folly, and the Politics of Thirst** by Diane Raines Ward

**Blue Gold** by Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke

**Replenish: The Virtuous Cycle of Water and Prosperity** by Sandra Postel

**When the Rivers Run Dry: The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-First Century** by Fred Pearce

**Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit** by Vandana Shiva

**Last Oasis: Facing Water Scarcity** by Sandra Postel

**Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water** by Maude Barlow

**Thinking with Water** ed. Cecilia Chen

**Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource** by Marq De Villiers

For a deeper dive into water literature, see also the library resources at the Wisconsin Water Library and the UW-Madison Limnology Library.