It’s so easy, reading green

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

NPR has three green-reading recommendations from Washington Post environmental reporter Juliet Eilperin, books that ‘remind us what’s at stake when we chip away at the landscape.’ Her choices: the 900-page anthology ‘American Earth,’ edited by Bill McKibben, and two more slender volumes, ‘Where The Wild Things Were: Life, Death and Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators,’ by William Stolzenburg, and ‘The Carbon Age: How Life’s Core Element Has Become Civilization’s Greatest Threat,’ by Eric Roston.

Going local, LAist points out three green books by Angelenos. While ‘Vintage LA’ is a bit of a stretch — is my thrift-store habit really ‘green’? — the other books are both green and practical. Sophie Uliano’s ‘Gorgeously Green’ focuses on green beauty and girly lifestyle, and ‘The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City,’ by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen, does just what it says. The authors of ‘The Urban Homestead’ continue to blog about their experiences, so when you’re done planting your balcony garden, you can catch up on the latest in backyard chicken-tending and rocket stoves.

Also online is the large and lovely worldchanging.org, which hopes to present ‘the most important and innovative new tools, models and ideas for building a bright green future.’ Its book — Worldchanging: A User’s Guide for the 21st Century — has 600 pages of those ideas. McKibben called it ‘the Whole Earth Catalog retooled for the iPod generation.’

Carolyn Kellogg

Photo of Paris’ le Jardin de Tuilleries by Brian Pennington via Flickr