To: openpermaculture <permaculture@openpermaculture.org>, Permaculture ibiblio <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: [permaculture] New Books, etc., at the Activist
Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2007 22:20:13 -0500
*Earth User's Guide to Permaculture: 2nd Edition*
*by Rosemary Morrow and Rob Allsop
* 2006. 264pp., $29
US Canada Elsewhere
$31.90 $33.35 $34.80
Completely revised and expanded, this popular primer tells how to design
a garden of any size from balcony bench to country acreage. With
chapters on seed saving, Pc at work, integrated pest management, water
usage, and design for disaster. The author's experience with women and
communities in crisis (Cambodia, Albania, Afghanistan, and Vietnam)
ensures a practical approach.
*Teaming with Microbes:
*A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web
by Jeff Lowenfels & Wayne Lewis, fwd by Elaine Ingham
$25, 2006, 196pp
US Canada Elsewhere
$27.50 $28.75 $31.00
This book is a welcome clarification of the hard science behind organic
methods of gardening. Anyone who reads "Teaming with Microbes" will
understand why soil is best understood from a biological rather than a
chemical perspective: It's alive! But, because biology is inherently
more compex than chemistry, it is often hard to grasp its everyday
implications. Teaming's authors have cracked that nut with simple
language and entertaining examples.
"Teaming with microbes" is extremely important for our times. It can
lead the way to a much broader movement to sustainable gardening
practices by winning over those who have been turned off by earlier
organic 'mumbo-jumbo.' Yes, it is easy to understand, but it will not
turn off those readers who bring a sophisticated scientific skepticism
to their reading. It will inspire them.
Review by John Gardner, "Urban Worms Organics"
*Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard Into a Garden & Your Neighborhood
into a Community
* by Heather Colburn Flores
2006, $25, 330pp.
US Canada Elsewhere
$27.50 $28.75 $31.00
For activist readers who believe activism is a political pursuit, [this
book] offers a different viewpoint, maintaining that growing food where
you live is a key method of becoming a food activist in the community.
Chapters advocate planting home and community gardens with an eye to
drawing important connections between the politics of a home or
community garden and the wider politics of usage, consumption, and
sustainability. Another rarity: chapters promote small, easy changes in
lifestyles to achieve a transition between personal choice and political
activism at the community level, providing keys to change any reader can
use. - Diane C. Donovan, California Bookwatch
*
Natural Remodeling for the Not-So-Green House:
Bringing Your Home Into Harmony with Nature
by Carol Venolia & Kelly Lerner
$25, 2006, 280pp
US Canada Elsewhere
$27.50 $28.75 $31.00
*You don't have to build from scratch to live in a house that's good for
you and the earth. This unique guide teaches the basics of ecological
renovation, planning your project, choosing materials, and making your
home more energy efficient. It presents simple ideas you can do right
away to more advanced moves you can make after careful planning. You'll
have the tools you need to create a beautiful green haven that's
uniquely your own.
Carol Venolia specializes in the field of eco-healthy building. Her
first book, Healing Environments, has enjoyed international success, and
her home designs have been featured in The Natural House Catalog, Earth
to Spirit, The Healthy House and Environ magazine. Carol currently
writes the "Design for Life" column for Natural Home & Garden magazine.
Kelly Lerner is an award-winning architect and innovator in the fields
of sustainable development, straw-bale construction, and earthen
plasters. She spearheaded an internationally recognized project
responsible for building more than 600 passive-solar-heated straw-bale
houses in China. Her designs have been featured in Landscape
Architecture Magazine, Metropolis Magazine, The Straw Bale House,
Serious Straw Bale, The New Straw Bale House, and Green by Design
*Building with Awareness: The Construction of a Hybrid Home
DVD & Guidebook
**by Ted Owens
*$42, 2006,152pp + DVD
US Canada Elsewhere
$46.20 $48.30 $50.40
The award winning DVD video, Building With Awareness: The Construction
of a Hybrid Home, now has a full-color book companion. Follow the
construction of one straw bale solar house, from start to finish. Learn
where to place windows for passive heating and cooling, how rubble
trench foundations can save on the cost of concrete, post-and-beam
framing for straw bale walls, how to notch and stack straw bales, how to
build interior thermal mass walls, how to generate electricity from the
sun, how to make and apply earth plasters, and much more.
*The Oil Depletion Protocol
By Richard Heinberg
$19, * 2006, 194 pp
US Canada Elsewhere
$21.50 $22.50 $25.00
A plan to buffer the shock of Peak OIl and reduce the threat of war and
civil chaos.
*Botany in a Day - The Patterns Method of Plant Identification
Thomas J. Elpel's Herbal Field Guide to Plant Families *5th Edition,
2004, 221pp., $25
US Canada Elsewhere
$27.50 $28.75 $31.00
Botany in a Day is changing the way people learn about plants! Tom's
book has gained a nationwide audience almost exclusively by
word-of-mouth. It is now used as a text and recommended by herbal and
wilderness schools across North America. Instead of presenting
individual plants, Botany in a Day unveils the patterns of
identification and uses among related plants, giving readers simple
tools to rapidly unlock the mysteries of the new species they encounter
throughout the continent.
Too often people try to learn plants one-at-a-time, without rhyme or
reason. Now you can cut years off the process of learning about plants
and their uses. Tom's book helps you beyond the piece-meal approach to
botany and herbalism towards a more "whole" approach. Within 1 1/2 hours
you can understand the big-picture of botany and herbalism. Learn how
related plants have similar features for identification. Discover how
they often have similar properties and similar uses.
Mycelium Running
by Paul Stamets 2005, 352pp.,$35
US Canada Elsewhere
$38.50 $40.25 $42.00
More mushrooms, less pollution! Yes, you heard right: growing more
mushrooms may be the best thing we can do to save the environment.
Microscopic cells called "mycelium"---the fruit of which are mushrooms
---recycle carbon, nitrogen, and other essential elements as they break
down plant and animal debris in the creation of rich new soil. What
fungi expert Paul Stamets has discovered is that mycelium also breaks
down hydrocarbons ---the base structure in many pollutants. So, for
instance, when soil contaminated with diesel oil is inoculated with
strains of oyster mushroom mycelia, the soil loses its toxicity in just
eight weeks. In MYCELIUM RUNNING, Stamets discusses this revolutionary
trend in mushroom cultivation and provides tips for choosing the
appropriate species of fungi for various environmental purposes.
*Forager's Harvest:
*A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants*
by Samuel Thayer
*2005, $23, 368pp
US Canada Elsewhere
$25.50 $26.50 $29.00
A fine, rich guide to wild foods of North America warmly written by a
master forager: uses, botany, habitat. Provides detailed instructions
and personal experiences of harvesting 332 delicious plants, including
butternut, wild rice, ostrich fern, hog peanut, cattail, and more.
"This is the story of the consumer revolution against globally
industrialized agriculture and corporate domination of food production,
processing, and distribution systems. Katz (Wild Fermentation: The
Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods) asserts that there
are alternatives to the dead, unhealthy, homogenized food commodities
this system provides. He visited farmers' markets, food cooperatives,
and communities in search of local initiatives that restore traditional
food production and distribution methods and revive local economies.
Katz found a broad movement of people and organizations involved in
preserving native varieties, practicing humane and sustainable treatment
of land and animals, supporting local producers and marketers, and using
food to improve health. Of particular note is the rapidly growing 'slow
food' movement, which rejects standardized fare and focuses instead on
cuisine that has served ethnic and cultural preferences in the past.
Each chapter cites references for further reading and organizations
involved in keeping the programs active. This work is sure to enlighten
readers and motivate many to join the revolution. Recommended."- Irwin
Weintraub for Library Journal, December 2006
The New* Creating an Oasis with Greywater:
Choosing, Building** &** **Using Greywater Systems **(5th edition)
* **by Art Ludwig **2006, $21, 144 pp.
US Canada Elsewhere
$17.50 $18.50 $21.00
Thoroughly revised primer detailing 20 systems that work and how they
might fail; parts, design diagrams, operating and maintenance tips.
Clear, logical, easy-to-read. The definitive guide.
*Now Available in DVD
The Global Gardener
with Bill Mollison*
120 minutes, VHS or DVD, 1991. $30.00
US / Canada Elsewhere
$34.00 $38.00
DVD $34 DVD $38
In 4 half-hour segments, Bill travels the globe viewing Permaculture
application in the tropics, arid deserts, cool temperate climates, and
cities. Acclaimed by millions! Excellent for introducing Permaculture to
the media-opiated masses. Buy a copy for yourself and another for your
local public library!!