The Water Shelf Podcast is where authors, reviewers, academics, and aficionados discuss water books, past and present. For water book news and reviews and to sign up for our newsletter, please visit the Water Shelf website at mavensnotebook.com/watershelf. The Water Shelf is a production of Maven's Notebook, California's water news central – subscribe to weekly or daily emails at mavensnotebook.com.
"The Water Recycling Revolution" by Bill and Rosemarie Alley
The dynamic writing team Bill and Rosemarie Alley (http://www.alleyandalley.com/the-books.html) discuss their latest book, The Water Recycling Revolution: Tapping into the Future (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022) (https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/water-recycling-revolution-9798881808709/). What's revolutionary about recycled water? How did we get over the "yuck factor"? What are recycled water developers currently getting right and wrong? Find out here!
Dr. William M. Alley is Director of Science and Technology for the National Ground Water Association. Rosemarie Alley writes fiction, poetry, and nonfiction and is a literacy specialist.
6 Feb 2026
"Legal Geographies of Water" by Cristy Clark
Cristy Clark (https://cristyclark.com/) explores the "pluriverse of water realities" in her new book, Legal Geographies of Water: The Spaces, Places and Narratives of Human-Water Relations (Earthscan Routledge, 2025) (https://www.routledge.com/Legal-Geographies-of-Water-The-Spaces-Places-and-Narratives-of-Human-Water-Relations/Clark/p/book/9781032225968). Enjoy our lively conversation about how legal geography can both explain and improve human-water relations, what the human right to water actually means, and how Marvel Multiverse films may actually help us understand the "ontologies of living waters."
Dr. Cristy Clark is an Associate Professor at the Canberra Law School.
11 Jan 2026
“Body in a Barrel" by Aaron Mead
Season 3 of the Water Shelf Podcast begins with a bang! Aaron Mead (https://www.ameadwriter.com/), author of Body in a Barrel: A Las Vegas Mafia Crime Novella (https://www.amazon.com/Body-Barrel-Vegas-Mafia-Novella/dp/B0FNT2TY38), talks with me about his fictional treatment of Lake Mead’s slow, climate-change-induced unveiling of long-immersed depths. Building on his written Water Shelf interview (https://mavensnotebook.com/2025/12/26/author-interview-aaron-mead-body-in-a-barrel-a-las-vegas-mafia-crime-novella/), Mr. Mead discusses his water industry and theological studies roots, two layers that contributed complexity as well as publication challenges for his path-breaking work.
Mr. Mead is a Senior Engineer with Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
1 Sept 2025
"Living with Water Scarcity" by David Zetland
David Zetland (https://www.kysq.org/bio.html) gives a powerhouse interview on his many decades of writing on water, the commons, and climate change. He discusses his recently reissued book Living with Water Scarcity (2014/2023) (https://www.kysq.org/lwws/) which does a wonderful job explaining water economics to the general reader. We also get into why water managers fail and, in his opinion, why academic publishing has lost its luster.
Professor Zetland is a senior university lecturer in political-economy at Leiden University College in the Netherlands. In addition to Living, he has published The End of Abundance (2011) (https://www.kysq.org/teoa/), The Best of Aguanomics (2018) (https://kysq.org/bestof/index.html), and The Little Book of The Commons (2022) (https://www.kysq.org/lbc/)- all freely available for download at kysq.org (https://kysq.org/).
Note to listeners: The interview recording contains minor sound quality issues, probably due to the long-distance conversation.
12 Jul 2025
"Replumbing the City" by Sayd Randle
In this episode, Sayd Randle (https://www.saydrandle.com/) joins us from Kathmandu, Nepal, to talk about her fascinating new book, Replumbing the City: Water Management as Climate Adaptation in Los Angeles (University of California Press, 2025) (https://www.ucpress.edu/books/replumbing-the-city/paper). We discuss her ethnographic approach to water and the challenges and opportunities of localizing urban water supplies. She also gives us a peek at what she's now working on halfway around the world.
Dr. Randle is Assistant Professor of Urban Studies at Singapore Management University.
19 Apr 2025
"Too Good to Be True" by Paul Brown
Paul Brown (https://www.urbanh2oplanner.com/resume) joins the Water Shelf Podcast to discuss his unique, trailblazing, and entertaining book, Too Good to Be True: Scottsdale and Privatization in the 1980s (2020) (https://www.amazon.com/Too-Good-True-Scottsdale-Privatization/dp/B085KN38FB/ref=monarch_sidesheet). His detailed account of a water treatment plant public-private partnership evokes both a specific time and place and larger themes of professional development and learning from your mistakes.
Mr. Brown is President of Paul Redvers Brown Inc., having previously served for 37 years at CDM Smith, including as Executive Vice President and Board Member. He is a Fellow of the International Water Association, a member of the Urban Water Institute's Board of Directors, and previously served on the Boards of Kennedy/Jenks Consultants, the International Society of Sustainability Professionals, and the Council for Watershed Health.
18 Feb 2025
"Water: A Biography" by Giulio Boccaletti
Giulio Boccaletti (https://www.giulioboccaletti.com/) provides a master class on water, politics, and social organization in this fascinating discussion of his book Water: A Biography (Pantheon Books, 2021) (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/602733/water-by-giulio-boccaletti/). His "story of people and water" traces the historical dialectic between the practical realities of water management and the development of political ideologies, and he argues for republicanism over authoritarianism in addressing climate change.
Dr. Boccaletti is the Scientific Director of the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change Foundation, Honorary Research Associate at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford, and Executive Producer of the upcoming PBS/BBC Studios series “The Future of Nature.”
21 Jan 2025
"Water Management" by Shimon Anisfeld
Shimi Anisfeld kicks off Season 2 of the Water Shelf Podcast by introducing his fascinating book Water Management: Prioritizing Justice and Sustainability (Island Press, 2024) (https://islandpress.org/books/water-management) - an impressively comprehensive and immensely readable university textbook on this important topic supplemented by a free companion website (https://watermanagement.yale.edu/).
Dr. Shimon Anisfeld (https://environment.yale.edu/directory/faculty/shimon-anisfeld) is Senior Lecturer II and Research Scientist in Water Resources and Environmental Chemistry at Yale University.
23 Aug 2024
"Liquid Asset" by Buzz Thompson
Buzz Thompson joins the Water Shelf Podcast to talk about his innovative and extraordinary new book, Liquid Asset: How Business and Government Can Partner to Solve the Freshwater Crisis (Stanford University Press, 2004) (https://www-sup.stanford.edu/books/title/?id=35076).
Barton H. “Buzz” Thompson, Jr. (https://fse.fsi.stanford.edu/people/barton_h_thompson) is the Robert E. Paradise Professor of Natural Resources Law at the Stanford Law School. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, where he directs the Water in the West program, and is a Professor of Environmental Behavioral Sciences in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. Buzz is a practicing attorney specializing in water resources, was a former law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist and a Supreme Court-appointed Special Master, and has authored or co-authored numerous books on environmental law and policy.
Why does someone with so many accolades and accomplishments go by "Buzz"? Listen to the podcast and find out!
3 Aug 2024
"Water for All" by David Sedlak
I have the great pleasure to speak with Dr. David Sedlak about his remarkable new book, Water for All: Global Solutions for a Changing Climate (Yale University Press, 2023) (https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300256932/water-for-all/).
Dr. Sedlak is the Plato Malozemoff Professor of Environmental Engineering at University of California Berkeley. He is Director of the Berkeley Water Center, Deputy Director of the National Science Foundation's Engineering Research Center for Reinventing the Nation's Urban Water Infrastructure (ReNUWIt), and Master Cartographer for the National Alliance for Water Innovation.
9 Apr 2024
"Water Always Wins" by Erica Gies
Erica Gies (https://ericagies.com/) visits the Water Shelf podcast to talk about her fantastic and internationally distributed recent book, Water Always Wins: Thriving in an Age of Drought and Deluge (University of Chicago Press, 2022) (https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/W/bo161589950.html).
Ms. Gies is an independent journalist covering science and the environment from Victoria, British Columbia, and San Francisco, California. Her work appears in the New York Times, Scientific American, Nature, Ensia, The Economist, bioGraphic, National Geographic, and other outlets.
15 Mar 2024
"The Profits of Distrust" by Manny Teodoro, Samantha Zuhlke, and David Switzer
In this episode, I talk with eminent scholars Drs. Manuel Teodoro (https://mannyteodoro.com/?page_id=3212), Samantha Zuhlke (https://samanthazuhlke.com/), and David Switzer (https://davidswitzerphd.com/) about their recent book of immense importance to the water industry entitled The Profits of Distrust: Citizen-Consumers, Drinking Water, and the Crisis of Confidence in American Government (Cambridge University Press, 2022) (https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/the-profits-of-distrust/88ADD76F1F3B93EABBE115DCEF6816B3).
Dr. Teodoro is the Robert F. & Sylvia T. Wagner Distinguished Professor in the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Zuhlke is assistant professor in the School of Planning and Public Affairs at the University of Iowa. Dr. Switzer is assistant professor at the Truman School of Public Affairs at the University of Missouri.
9 Mar 2024
"The Three Ages of Water" by Peter Gleick
On this inaugural episode of the Water Shelf Podcast, I interview Dr. Peter Gleick (https://www.gleick.com/) about his recently published and highly acclaimed book The Three Ages of Water: Prehistoric Past, Imperiled Present, and a Hope for the Future (PublicAffairs, 2023) (https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/peter-gleick/the-three-ages-of-water/9781541702271/?lens=publicaffairs).
Dr. Peter Gleick is renowned nationally and internationally for his more than four decades of water science and policy work, and is perhaps the world’s most widely known and cited water expert. Dr. Gleick is Senior Fellow, Co-Founder, and President Emeritus at the Pacific Institute (https://pacinst.org/) which creates and advances solutions to the world’s most pressing water challenges.
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