environment

How to Give Up Plastic: A Guide to Changing the World, One Plastic Bottle at a Time by Will McCallum is a scary, eye-opening, informative book that outlines the world’s use of plastics (which is in almost everything - including our clothing), the impact plastics are having on the environment, and suggestions to reduce the amount of plastic we use each day. Will McCallum is at the heart of the anti-plastics movement for the past three years and is Head of Oceans at Greenpeace UK. In his book, the author mostly focuses on single-use plastics which mainly include items like plastic bags, straws

In The Curious Nature Guide, author Clare Walker Leslie uses beautiful photographs and exquisite illustrations to entice us to rediscover the wonders that surround us in the natural world. Filled with easy-to-follow prompts and exercises, Walker inspires readers to reduce stress by spending time in nature.  Her book includes simple suggestions for reconnecting with the outside world.  

A quote from a postcard in the book serves as motivation; “There is no Wi-Fi in the forest, but I promise you will find a better connection.” After reading this book, I’m inspired to notice (and journal about)

This volume completes Atwood's trilogy that began with Oryx and Crake and continued in The Year of the Flood. In the not-too-distant future, most of humanity has been wiped out by a man-made global pandemic, known by God's Gardeners, a new environmental religious sect, as the waterless flood. But as the trilogy's main characters have discovered, there are more survivors than they originally imagined, and they're not all friendly and supportive. In this installment, the main characters of the previous two novels have converged together with other human survivors and the Crakers (the new human

After reading The Big Tiny, I am certain I could live happily, just like Dee Williams, in a tiny house. I’m equally certain someone else will have to build it for me.

One day she “had been a normal, middle-class, middle-of-the-road woman with a mortgage and a job and friends, who went running and climbing and paddling, racing in a thousand different directions at a thousand miles per hour.” Then suddenly she was a woman with ventricular tachycardia with torsades, an uncertain future, and follow up appointments with her cardiologist. It was at one such appointment that Williams’ doctor was

Overbooked is about the power of travel, as the world’s business travel and tourism has a great impact, both good and bad, on tourists and their destinations. Becker, an investigative journalist by profession, puts together great stories and statistics. For example, in the city of Venice tourism has pushed out locals and hollowed out society. Venice’s remaining 60,000 natives welcome over 20 million tourists each year. In Cambodia, to make space for beach resorts and casinos, farmers were expulsed from land their families had occupied for centuries. And then there is Dubai:  the surreal city

Witness to the murder of Marshall and Sylvia Hotle, April needs to find a phone.

Joe Pickett needs to get back to Saddlestring, Wyoming and his family.

Sheridan, Joe’s daughter, needs to find April. But April is dead.

While Joe is working in exile as a game warden in remote Wyoming, Sheridan receives a text from someone claiming to be her step-sister April. As evidence mounts that the texts are coming from the locations of violent crimes Joe and Sheridan track April across Wyoming. Or are they tracking a killer?

Witness to the murder of Marshall and Sylvia Hotle, April needs to find a phone. Joe Pickett needs to get back to Saddlestring, Wyoming and his family. Sheridan, Joe’s daughter, needs to find April. But April is dead. While Joe is working in exile as a game warden in remote Wyoming, Sheridan receives a text from someone claiming to be her step-sister April. As evidence mounts that the texts are coming from the locations of violent crimes Joe and Sheridan track April across Wyoming. Or are they tracking a killer?

Carl Hiaasen's children's book, Scat is written in the traditional Hiaasen flavor which blends humor, suspense, action adventure and heroism all thrown together in the Florida swampland. All of us, at one time or another, have encountered scary teachers and found ourselves in unfair situations. Bunny Starch, the biology teacher, struck fear in the hearts of every student until one day on a biology field trip to the Black Vine Swamp, she mysteriously disappeared. Nick and Marta, two of Bunny's students, set out to solve the mystery. Ed Asner narrates this 9 hour and 18 minute CD Audio. Both