Climate Week community read: “The Mighty Red”
August 25, 2025
This fall, as part of Climate Week, the entire university community is invited to read “The Mighty Red,” a novel by Louise Erdrich. The novel tells a story of ordinary people who dream, grow up, fall in love, struggle, endure tragedy alongside the impact of crises in our own time — climate change, the depletion of natural resources, and the economic meltdown of 2008.
"The Mighty Red" ebook and "The Mighty Red" audiobook are available to students, faculty, and staff at all three U-M campuses via the library’s Overdrive collection.
"Our goal for Climate Week is to celebrate and accelerate the university's work. Stories like "The Mighty Red" give us space to reflect on the needs of this moment, our relationship to the land and each other, and what resilience can look like for each of us — individually and as a collective," said Shalanda Baker, vice provost for sustainability and climate action.
This year’s community read, sponsored by the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA) and the U-M Library, offers everyone at U-M a platform for conversations that can deepen our understanding of how the climate crisis affects our lives.
LSA Sustainability will be hosting multiple book clubs for readers of "The Mighty Red" this fall. Look for details on the LSA Sustainability website.
