If you missed that much-ballyhooed series of articles on global warming in The New Yorker, opening with “The Climate of Man,” now's your chance to read the critically acclaimed compilation in book form: Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature and Climate Change.

Eco-reporter nonpareil Elizabeth Kolbert traveled to the ends of the earth – literally – to bring you the story of climate change from a human perspective. “Brief, gripping, well-written… [it] will scare you out of your wits,” says a recent review in the Seattle Times.

While you're at it, you should also pick up a copy of Tim Flannery's The Weather Makers, which has been a sensation throughout Europe and Australia – publicly endorsed by Prime Minister Tony Blair, among other people of note – and has recently made it to U.S. bookshelves.

Here's a summary of what you'll experience in both Kolbert and Flannery's volumes, courtesy of the Seattle Times review: “houses listing as permafrost melts, massive fires in record-breaking summer heat, forced abandonment of low-lying native villages…bleached and dying coral reefs in the tropics, beetles and budworms ravaging boreal conifer forests, the extinction of Costa Rica’s golden toad and a looming water crisis in Australia — all the direct result of warming temperatures.”

Not exactly feel-good reading, but at least the topic is finally turning heads.

Image credit: The Seattle Times / Sebastian Copeland