2025-26 Book in Common

On behalf of the BookinCommon Selection Committee, we are excited to announce that the BookinCommon for 2025-26 is California Against the Sea: Visions for Our Vanishing Coastline, by Rosanna Xia (2023).

Publisher Description

Along California’s 1,200-mile coastline, the overheated Pacific Ocean is rising and pressing in, imperiling both wildlife and the maritime towns and cities that 27 million people call home. In the award-winning California Against the Sea, Los Angeles Times coastal reporter Rosanna Xia asks: as climate chaos threatens the places we love so fiercely, will we finally grasp our collective capacity for change? Xia, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, investigates the impacts of engineered landscapes, the market pressures of development, and the ecological activism and political scrimmages that have carved our contemporary coastline—and foretell even greater changes to our shores. From the beaches of the Mexican border up to the sheer-cliffed North Coast, the voices of Indigenous leaders, community activists, small-town mayors, urban engineers, and tenacious environmental scientists commingle. Together, they chronicle the challenges and urgency of forging a climate-wise future. Xia’s investigation takes us to Imperial Beach, Los Angeles, Pacifica, Marin City, San Francisco, and beyond, weighing the rivaling arguments, agreements, compromises, and visions governing the State of California’s commitment to a coast for all. Through graceful reportage, she charts how the decisions we make today will determine where we go tomorrow: headlong into natural disaster, or toward an equitable refashioning of coastal stewardship. Ed Yong, author of An Immense World, calls the book “viscerally urgent, thoroughly reported, and compellingly written—a must-read for our uncertain times.” 

Why this book

In response to a ballot measure in this semester’s Associated Students election, 90% of students voted to encourage the campus to make “sustainability” one of the highest priorities at Chico State, and the selection of California Against the Sea speaks directly to this sentiment shared by students, staff, faculty, administrators, and community members who provided passionate feedback to the BookinCommonSelection Committee. The committee believes that this book will be accessible and engaging to our campus communities and our larger region, will have broad appeal across disciplines, and will support our commitment to thinking critically about our role in creating resilient and sustainable systems. Lizzie Johns, author of Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire, believes that California Against the Sea should be “required reading for Californians – and all Americans… Xia has written an essential book that shows us what we stand to lose.”

Student focus group readers noted that “Xia’s storytelling is immersive and urgent, making complex environmental issues feel personal and immediate. Her use of real people’s stories draws the reader in, making this a very compelling and emotional read.” Students also focused on the urgency of this book, noting that “climate change is a pressing public concern for many students, irrespective of their field of study and this engaging book connects it directly to California communities. Since active community and campus engagement is heavily implemented at Chico State and Butte College, a large population of students will find the issue being addressed inthis book meaningful. Xia highlights the human impact, making the issue feel immediate and relevant.”

In addition to a student focus group, a public survey also revealed significant support for adopting California Against the Sea as the Book inCommon for 2025-2026.  Here is a sample of responses:

• We are surrounded by the effects of climate change in California. This is the reality for our students' future, and we need to confront these issues head on.
• …written beautifully and can be used in so many ways in courses, especially as a model for doing research and writing about it. This text also could amplify our goals as a sustainable campus and allow us to talk about other vanishing areas, such as parks or forests. Could easily be paired with creative non-fiction, poetry, etc.
• …the overall arc of the book bends towards agency - if not hope - and it encourages ethical problem solving (environmental justice) that could inspire extremely constructive conversations about climate change in California. There are no sea walls in Chico - although we too have our Lindo Channel - but SO many of our students come from parts of California directly addressed in Xia's chapters. Also, by not being a coastal city, Chico has the geographic/mental space and distance to grapple with these problems in a way that the residents of Pacifica simply can't. Additionally, the conversations about city planning to cope with rising sea levels are grimly relatable to city planning to cope with fire risk. 
• It is deeply important to talk about climate change and its impacts. California Against the Sea is brilliant in how it ties the social dilemmas of towns across the California coast to the ever more pressing problem of sea level rise. What I feel really makes this book the best candidate for the BookinCommon is the author’s ability to effectively share difficult scientific (and engineering) information with the reader while still making the topics feel personal and worth investing time in. A lot of scientific books that follow the same topics struggle to keep the reader invested, however as a science journalist, Xia is able to speak to the community in pressing yet simple terms. Climate change is very real, and if Chico State cares about it, it is important to take the time to get students involved and invested by choosing California Against the Sea as the next BookinCommon.

In light of current challenges to California’s Coastal Commission, and the Supreme Court’s recent ruling against the Environmental Protection Agency’s interpretation of the Clean Water Act, this book has only gained in urgency.  Additionally, the committee believes that this book will call upon us to not only think about the main issues facing the coastline but also challenge us to think about the environmental concerns (and human interventions) in our region.  Finally, we haven’t had a BookinCommon focused on environmental issues including climate change since 2019-2020 (Lauren E. Oakes’ In Search of the Canary Tree), and California Against the Sea would provide a vital anchor for our campuses to have urgent conversations.