Energy scholar Vaclav Smil wrote in 2003, “Tug at any human use of energy and you will find its effects cascading throughout society.” Too often public discussions of energy-related issues become gridlocked in debates concerning cost, environmental degradation, and the plausibility (or implausibility) of innovative technologies. But the topic of energy is much broader and deeper than these debates typically reveal.

The literature of energy bears this out—and takes the notion further, revealing in vivid stories and images how energy permeates the fundamental nature of existence. Readings in this collection encompass a wide array of topics, from addiction to oil to life “off the grid,” from the power of the atom to the power of bicycle technology. Presenting a wide array of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and interviews—ranging from George Eliot's nineteenth-century novel Mill on the Floss to Sandra Steingraber's recent writing on the subject of fracking—this first-of-its-kind anthology aims to capture the interest of the general reader as well as to serve as a potential textbook for college-level writing classes or environmental studies classes that aspire to place the technical subject of energy into a broader cultural context.