Birds, bats, freshwater mussels and a small catfish. They all slipped away in 2023, among the 21 species declared extinct by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Grief is a rational response. So are the questions novelist and conservationist Lydia Millet articulates in her new book, “We Loved It All.” A blend of memoir and ecological truth-telling, Millet’s first nonfiction work examines what the vanishing will mean for the coming generations and for our sense of self.

“No one wants to tell our children how glorious it was before you were around,” she writes.

Millet joins host Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas to talk about how she carries hope, even as she mourns the destruction in the natural world.

Guest:

• Lydia Millet is a novelist and conservationist. Her new book is, “We Loved It All: A Memory of Life.”

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