Green Byte V18: Recommended Green Reading - Summer Version
July 30th, 2008 | General, Green Byte, News
I won’t even try to summarize this list - GRIST does a great job all on its own, so I’ll just list their top 5 here. See the link below for the entire list. They’ve also got a great RSS feed if you’re interested!
Cover the Waterfront - 15 green books you can actually read at the beach
by Michelle NiijhuisSo maybe you’ll finally have a chance to catch up on some reading this summer. But so many of those books about the environments seem kind of…well, homework-y. What’s a vacationing enviro to do? Turn to Grist for advice, of course! Here are 15 recent page-turners just perfect for stuffing in your beach hemp tote.
1. The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring
Richard Preston, Random House, 2007Think nature writing is boring? The Wild Trees is about as boring as a car chase. Master storyteller Richard Preston follows a motley group of professional and amateur botanists into the canopies of the tallest tree in the world, where they explore a sky-high ecosystem almost entirely unknown to humans. A great tale of science and adventure — and a love story to boot.
2. Farewell, My Subaru: An Epic Adventure in Local Living
Doug Fine, Villard, 2008A breezy journal of Doug Fine’s attempts to live a low-carbon life in rural New Mexico, despite his lack of gardening and electrical skills. After a year of wrestling with weather, goats, and tax assessors on the Funky Butte Ranch, Fine concludes that “…the greatest impact we can have on crafting a sustainable future is not just by buying ‘green products,’ but rather by actively understanding that every part of life can and should be infused with carbon reduction.”
3. The Zookeeper’s Wife: A War Story
Diane Ackerman, W.W. Norton, 2007During World War II, Antonia Zabinski, the wife of Polish zookeeper, rescued Resistance fighters and Jews by hiding them in her Warsaw villa — and in the empty zoo cages surrounding it. In this real-life historical drama, Diane Ackerman shows how Antonia’s love for the animal world inspired heroism, even as Nazi romanticism about nature led to grossly different acts.
4. Winter Study
Nevada Barr, Putnam Adult, 2008The 14th installment in Nevada Barr’s reliably entertaining National Park Service mystery series is one of her darkest and scariest yet. Winter Study takes our heroine, park ranger Anna Pigeon, to a wolf study at Isle Royale National Park in Lake Superior, where she contends with all sorts of mayhem, from interagency rivalry to bitter cold to a canine — or human — with murderous intent.
5. World Made By Hand
James Kunstler, Atlantic Monthly, 2008An absorbing and disturbing novel about the near future. After a constellation of plagues — war, disease, declining oil supplies, climate change — fracture U.S. society into isolated outposts, former insurance salesmen and software executives are forced to grow their own food, build their own houses, and defend their communities against violence and fanaticism. As dark as Kunstler’s world gets, hints of rural romanticism keep the reader guessing.
Try our locally owned bookstore Sundance Bookstore for these and other environmental books.
Amazon.com, of course, has its own list Enviro Books. Take a look! Amazon.com/Environmental
–Stacey Crowley, Director of Master Planning and Environmental Initiatives - scrowley@kileyranch.net
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