Marris is a freelance writer based in Columbia, Mo., who writes about the environment, evolution, energy, agriculture, food, language, books, and film. Rambunctious Garden is her first book. As humans change every centimeter of Earth, from what species live where to its very climate, strategies for saving nature must change. Marris’s book explains why, and more importantly, how. She argues convincingly that it is time to look forward and create the “rambunctious garden,” a hybrid of wild nature and human management. In this optimistic book, readers meet leading scientists and environmentalists; visit imaginary Edens, designer ecosystems, and Pleistocene parks. Marris describes innovative conservation approaches, including re-wilding, assisted migration, and the embrace of so-called novel ecosystems. Rambunctious Garden is short on gloom and long on interesting theories and fascinating narratives, all of which bring home the idea that we must give up our romantic notions of pristine wilderness and replace them with the concept of a global, half-wild rambunctious garden planet, tended by us.