Here are some of the books it is thought may have influenced the founders of the God’s Gardeners in their youth, before they discarded electronic modes of communication and severely limited their use of paper products.

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The Case for God by Karen Armstrong
Examines how the changing world has altered religion through the ages, and why it has not disappeared.

Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew
All the how-to information you need to successfully square-foot garden – for all those with postage-sized city backyards.

No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal who Attempts to Save the Planet and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process by Colin Beavan
A year of attempting to live without a footprint in downtown Manhattan.

The Secret Life of Compost: A “How-To” & “Why” Guide to Composting – Lawn, Garden, Feedlot or Farm by Malcolm Beck
Gives us the understanding and direction to initiate the regeneration of the most precious life form known – soil.

Ragnar’s Urban Survival: A Hard-Times Guide to Staying Alive in the City by Ragnar Benson

S.A.S. Urban Survival Handbook: How to Protect Yourself Against Terrorism, Natural Disasters, Fires, Home Invasions and Everyday Health and Safety Hazards by John “Lofty” Wiseman
Two guides to surviving in an urban environment in the wake of disaster: how to find water, trap food, and protect yourself.

The Last of the Curlews by Fred Bodsworth
Classic novel about the last of a species.

Trauma Farm: A Rebel History of Rural by Brian Brett
Witty barnyard tales with deep insights into the symbiosis among animals, plants, and human beings.

The Speckled Monster: A Historical Tale of Battling Smallpox by Jennifer Lee Carrell
Two courageous people in early 18th-century England and America who fought for the early form of vaccination.

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
Landmark work with the first shattering look at the ecological degradation caused by pesticides and weed killers. The grandmother of today’s environmental awareness.

Acquainted With The Night: Excursions Through the World After Dark by Christopher Dewdney
The science, religion, and art of night. Charts the nocturnal phases of life- planetary, human, and animal.

The Art Instinct by Denis Dutton
Dutton argues that humankind’s universal art-making is not simply socially constructed– art and religion are both evolutionary adaptations.

The Unexpected Universe by Loren Eiseley
Granddaddy of whole-universe thinking.

Locavore by Sarah Elton
Elton, the food columnist for CBC Radio’s Here&Now, looks at the local food movement in Canada, pros and cons.

The Weather Makers: The History & Future Impact of Climate Change; A Gap in Nature; Astonishing Animals; The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History of North America and its People by Tim Flannery
Australian eco-genius helps us get a grip.

Stalking the Wild Asparagus by Euell Gibbons
The classic of wild foods.

The Bedside Book of Beasts: A Wildlife Miscellany by Graeme Gibson
Gathered from all eras and cultures, works of art and literature that capture the power, grace, and inventiveness of predators and their natural prey.

The Bedside Book of Birds by Graeme Gibson
Writings and images that celebrate the many ways people have engaged with birds over the centuries.

The Lost and Left Behind: Stories from the Age of Extinctions by Terry Glavin
We’re losing not only animal and plant species, but the vast legacy of languages, and with it ways of living and knowing. Endangered species, but hope in unlikely places.

Vulture: Nature’s ghastly gourmet by Wayne Grady
A fascinating and authoritative look at the important but gucky role vultures play in the ecosystems they inhabit.

The Green Bible: Understanding the Bible’s Powerful Message for the Earth
The first bible of its kind includes inspirational essays from key world leaders; essential for anyone interested in a biblical basis for humane and sustainable living.

Healing the Landscape – Celebrating Sudbury’s Reclamation Story.
A photographic history of re-vegetation and restoration in the once devastated Sudbury area, and of the community members that worked to achieve it.

Grass, Sky, Song by Trevor Herriot
Herriot draws on twenty years of experience as an observer of nature to reveal the spirit of the grassland world and the uniqueness of its birds, discoving why birds are disappearing and what can be done to save them.

Ravens in Winter by Bernd Heinrich
A charming in-depth study of these very smart and sociable birds.

Balcony and Roof Gardens: Creative Ideas for Small-Scale Gardening by Jenny Hendy
This insightful work guides you through the process of establishing, maintaining, and enjoying small-plot up-in-the-air gardens.

A Diet of Souls – Film. Directed by John Houston
Explores the profound spirituality of the ancient covenant between the Inuit and the animals they hunt- and the difficulty of preserving this way of life today.

Mean and Lowly Things: Snakes, Science, and Survival in the Congo by Kate Jackson
An intriguing blend of science and human interest detailing the author’s Republic of Congo experiences collecting snakes, frogs and toads.

Systems of Survival: A Dialogue of the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics by Jane Jacobs
Why government should not run business, and vice versa.

The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time by John Kelly
A vividly detailed account of Europe’s fourteenth-century plague and its aftermath.

Bushcraft: Outdoor Skills and Wilderness Survival by Mors Kochanski
Kochanski, an Albertan, offers clear instructions and methods for wilderness survival. Complete with diagrams and images.

The Flu Pandemic and You: A Canadian Guide by Dr. Vincent Lam and Dr. Colin Lee
A frank and clear book about how to prepare for the next influenza pandemic, and how to understand the broader context in which the threat exists – an essential survival guide.

The John Livingston Reader by John A. Livingston
Several of the prophetic ecologist’s most important texts, which decry man’s impact on the natural environment and predict a worsening of the situation.

Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv
Describes Nature Deficit Disorder, the effect it has on children deprived of nature, and how to counteract this effect.

Revenge of Gaia: Earth’s Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity by James Lovelock
Expounding on his theory that Earth functions as a single living super-organism, Lovelock argues that global warming presents a threat to humanity.

The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning by James Lovelock
Lovelock warns that the environmental problems we will face in the twenty-first century are even more terrifying than previously realized, and that only the Gaia theory can help us understand the crisis fully.

Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs: Biological & Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World by Adrienne Mayor
The origins of biological warfare, drawing extraordinary connections between ancient and modern worlds.

Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age by Bill McKibben
Shines a revealing spotlight on humanity’s headlong rush into technology and the ethical slippery slope on which we will find ourselves.

Plagues and Peoples by William H. McNeill
Considers the influence of infectious diseases on the course of history, paying special attention to the Black Death of the 13th and 14th centuries, which killed millions across Europe and Asia.

God, A Biography by Jack Miles
Combining literary criticism and religious inquiry, Miles examines God as a literary character and the Bible as one of the greatest but most complex books of all time.

Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning by George Monbiot
Explores our current reliance on fossil fuels, the burning of which, he suggests, is about to pass a point of no return. An urgent call for drastic action.

People of the Deer by Farley Mowat
Mowat recalls his time spent with the Ihalmiut people in Northern Canada, whose population over a forty-year span during the late nineteenth century nearly became extinct.

Never Cry Wolf:  predator classic.

The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions by David Quammen
Applies the lessons of biogeography to modern ecosystem decay, offering insight into the origin and extinction of species, our relationship to nature, and the future of our world.

Rodale Organic Gardening Basics- Vol. 8: Compost. 
How to make compost and how to use compost to produce healthy soil and plants, without using chemicals.

A World for Butterflies: Their Lives, Habitats and Future by Phillip J. Schappert
Examines the most highly visible and endangered members of the insect world. A plea for the continued existence of these beautiful creatures.

The Return of the Black Death: The World’s Greatest Serial Killer by Susan Scott and Duncan Christopher
Contrary to popular belief, the disease may not have been bubonic plague, and may have been spread by human contact. Perhaps the plague (or a variant) is lying dormant, waiting to strike again in the very near future.

Silence of the Songbirds by Bridget Stutchbury
Follows the migratory paths of a number of endangered songbirds, identifying as she does so the most virulent threats to their continued existence, especially pesticide-sprayed sun-grown coffee.

Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants by Douglas W. Tallamy
A guide for gardeners and planters, urging them to revert to and support an area’s native plants in order to help sustain local wildlife, and in turn, our own human existence.

The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
Using New York as a template, Weisman speculates how long our presence will take to vanish should we be become extinct.

The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth by E. O. Wilson
Wilson argues that both secular humanists and believers in God acknowledge the glory of nature and can work together to save it.

The Future of Life by E. O. Wilson
Combines lyrical descriptions with dire warnings and remarkable stories of plant and animal life on the edge of extinction. How many species are we really losing?  Is environmentalism truly contrary to economic development?  How can we save the planet?

The Evolution of God by Robert Wright
Wright provides a history of the shifting perspectives of monotheistic faiths, arguing that, despite undeniable differences, there is a common pattern.

Rats, Lice, and History by Hans Zinsser
A darkly humourous classic that examines disease transmission, the transmitters, and the scientists who sought to understand and halt the spread of pandemics.

On Guerrilla Gardening by Richard Reynolds

The Confessions of Edward Day by Valerie Martin

Brodeck by Phillipe Claudel

Gifts of War by Mackenzie Ford

What On Earth Evolved? by Christopher Lloyd