10 ideas on how to green your book gift this holiday season

A book is always a great gift. If you look for an affordable and unique gift to buy this holiday season for family and friends, a book is always a great choice (an interesting one of course..). If you also want to make it a green gift, we have some ideas for you how to make your gift more sustainable.

Here are 10 ideas how to green your book gift this holiday season:

1. Buy from your local independent bookstore (if you can't walk or bike there, purchase online)

2. Another option: Buy books at Better World Books, a unique social enterprise and a certified B Corporation!

3. If you choose to go to a bookstore, use a reusable shopping bag, or even buy one there and add it to your book. Also, look for bookstores where you can print books instantly using their Espresso Book Machine

4. Buy from publishers who have established environmental policies.

5. If you're an avid reader or you're buying for one, buy an e-reader or ebooks if you or the person you're buying for already has one (one e-reader is usually enough..)

6. Buy children's books from passionate green publishers

7. Buy books on a green topic.

8. Buy an audiobook (if you can download it it's even better!)

9. Buy from authors and publishers that work with Eco-Libris to green their books.

10. Plant trees for your books with Eco-Libris and add our stickers and a beautiful holiday gift card made of recycled paper.

Have fun!

Image Credit: wilbertss, Flickr Creative Commons

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Plant a Tree for Every Book You Read!

How to live a low-carbon life - Holiday green gift guide for book lovers - part 9

Today it's rainy and cold (at least in Newark, DE), just the perfect weather to cuddle with a good green book and also to recommend on one :-).

I'm happy to present you with part 9 of Eco-Libris blog's holiday green gift guide, the guide that will help you find the best green books to give as gifts this holiday season. Today we have the pleasure to bring you a recommendation of Adam Vaughan of SmartPlanet.com on a great new book that is will guide you how to reduce your carbon footprint.

Adam Vaughan is a green consumer journalist who edits SmartPlanet.com and blogs at thegreenguy.co.uk.

Adam's recommendation for this holiday's gift is:

How to Live a Low-Carbon Life: The Individuals Guide to Stopping Climate Change

Author: Chris Goodball

Publisher: Earthscan Publications Ltd.

Published in: 2007

What it is about: A handbook for cutting your carbon footprint and bills -written by a former director at consumer champion Which?. All the green choices consider the accompanying cost, so in the case of a hybrid Prius, Goodall concludes that its £18K price means you’re paying £350 per tonne of CO2 the car saves. Which he thinks is too much.

When it comes to motoring he also does the maths and concludes car clubs like Streetcar and Zipcar are better news than hydrogen cars and biofuel vehicles. This book has bags of authority, and nicely couples personal anecdotes (his allotment) with table after table of hard-headed maths, saving you doing the tedious sums yourself.

The occasional slip into academic language (“replacing labour with energy is one of the primary engines of economic growth”) will turn off some readers, but for most people this’ll make for a rewarding and inspiring read.

Why it's a great gift: Because it’s ideal for anyone at the early stage of greening up their life when you want the facts, and you want a cash-saving incentive to help you get motivated. Goodall’s book has a sufficient depth of detail to help your giftee make decisions and shopping choices to cut their carbon emissions, instead of general and ultimately unhelpful advice like “drive less”, “use less energy” or “shop greener.”

Thank you Adam for a great recommendation! If you want to learn more on the book's topic, please check out Chris Goodall's lowcarbonlife.net, a website with the single purpose of helping individuals in the UK and elsewhere to do something about greenhouse gas emissions. You can also read on a student that spent a week following Chris Goodall’s advice.

And just a reminder, here are the other recommendations we had so far on our guide:
Part 1 - The Man who Planted Trees by Jean Giono
Part 2 - Home Work : Handbuilt Shelter by Lloyd Kahn
Part 3 - The Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau
Part 4 - The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle
Part 5 - Deep Economy by Bill McKibben
Part 6 - The Armchair Environmentalist by Karen Christensen
Part 7 - Worldchanging - A user's guide for the 21st century by Alex Steffen (Editor), Al Gore (Foreword), Bruce Sterling (Introduction)
Part 8 - How to live off-grid by Nick Rosen

The whole guide can be found here - http://www.ecolibris.net/holiday_guide.asp.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: a great green gift for the holidays!

Now you can find on our website two special offers for the holidays - holiday greeting cards and holiday certificate gifts.

How to live off-grid - Holiday green gift guide for book lovers: part 8

Today, stuffed with too much donuts and latkes (Hanukkah is here!), I'm happy to present you with part 8 of Eco-Libris blog's holiday green gift guide, the guide that will help you find the best green books to give as gifts this holiday season.

Today we have the pleasure to bring you a recommendation of Tracy Stokes of EcoStreet on a great new book that will take you off the grid.

Tracy is a green blogger (she co-founded EcoStreet) and an online activist who lives in suburban Surrey. She lives life to the full as a stay-at-home-mother, organic food gardener, vegetarian cook, permaculture and green living enthusiast. If you should chance to meet Tracy, you'd be amazed at how fast she can turn a conversation round to recycling.

Tracy Stoke's recommendation for this holiday's gift is:

How to Live Off-grid: Journeys Outside the System

Author: Nick Rosen

Publisher: Doubleday

Published in: 2007

What it is about: In "How to live off-grid", Nick Rosen goes into every detail of off-grid living. He provides not only the inspiration to get off the beaten track and find your own space, but also countless resources to help you do just what he suggests.

To gather the information to write this book, Nick took to the road with his wife and baby daughter in a converted care bus fuelled by vegetable oil and sun. They toured the UK meeting with off-gridders of all sorts. Yurt-dwellers, communards, utopians and rural squatters were all on Nick's path, all living happy and comfortable lives completely off-grid. Their stories are fascinating, inspiring and sometimes quite far-out. But they all have some lessons to pass on to those of us who until now have only dream about being self-sufficient.

Why it's a great gift: It's a great bit of escapism from the excesses of the holidays.

Thank you Tracy for a great recommendation! If you want to learn more on life off-grid, check out this site - http://www.off-grid.net/. You can also find there some extracts from this book.

If you choose to give your friends or family this book as a gift on the holidays, you are more than welcome to balance it out with Eco-Libris, add its sticker to the book and make it the perfect green gift for the holidays.

And just a reminder, here are the other recommendations we had so far on our guide:
Part 1 - The Man who Planted Trees by Jean Giono
Part 2 - Home Work : Handbuilt Shelter by Lloyd Kahn
Part 3 - The Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau
Part 4 - The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle
Part 5 - Deep Economy by Bill McKibben
Part 6 - The Armchair Environmentalist by Karen Christensen

Part 7 - Worldchanging - A user's guide for the 21st century by Alex Steffen (Editor), Al Gore (Foreword), Bruce Sterling (Introduction)

The whole guide can be found here - http://www.ecolibris.net/holiday_guide.asp.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: a great green gift for the holidays!

Now you can find on our website two special offers for the holidays - holiday greeting cards and holiday certificate gifts.

The Armchair Environmentalist - Holiday green gift guide for book lovers: part 6

The holiday season started already (next holiday on my list: Hanukah!), and I hope it's going to be great and green to all of you. I am happy to present you with part 6 of Eco-Libris blog's holiday green gift guide, the guide that will help you find the best green books to give as gifts this holiday season.

Today we bring you a recommendation of Megan Kuhlmann of greenissexy.org on a great green book that you can carry with you everywhere you go.

Megan lives and works in Los Angeles, California. When she’s not unplugging her unused appliances or extolling the virtues of chemical-free cleansers, Megan can often be found handing out recyclable toothbrushes and explaining cold-water washing to fellow folders at the Laundromat. In addition to pollution, Megan also dislikes olives, puns, and sleeping in socks. Alternately, Megan loves tree-huggers, karaoke, and a well-crafted sentence.

Megan Kuhlmann's recommendation for this holiday's gift is:

The Armchair Environmentalist

Author: Karen Christensen

Publisher: M Q Publications

Published in: 2004

What it is about: The Armchair Environmentalist is “a three minute-a-day action plan to save the world.” It focuses on what individuals can do to reduce their use of energy and water and create a healthier environment at home and at work.

The Armchair Environmentalist is an easy read and chocked full of cute pictures and graphics. Printed on 100% recycled paper, this little book can fit easily into a briefcase or handbag, making it that much easier to take the info "to go".

A year or so ago, my friend Rachel loaned me her copy of this sweet little book and I instantly loved it. Discussing The Armchair Environmentalist and armchair environmentalism in general led us to launch greenissexy.org. The idea that in just a few minutes a day one person can make lots of tiny choices that positively impact the environment is what our site this book are all about.

Why it's a great gift: Green is sexy! Being eco-conscious is so popular these days, but a lot of people still think that being green means wearing hemp shoes, driving a hybrid and laying bamboo floors.

The Armchair Environmentalist is an entertaining, colorful way to show friends and family that being green is more about unplugging your cell phone charger and washing your clothes in cold water than installing a wind turbine in your backyard. This cheeky, chubby book makes a great stocking stuffer and is a fabulous intro-to-eco primer.

Thank you Megan for a great recommendation!

And just a reminder, here are the other recommendations we had so far on our guide:

Part 1 - The Man who Planted Trees by Jean Giono
Part 2 - Home Work : Handbuilt Shelter by Lloyd Kahn
Part 3 - The Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau
Part 4 - The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle
Part 5 - Deep Economy by Bill McKibben

The whole guide can be found here - http://www.ecolibris.net/holiday_guide.asp.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: a great green gift for the holidays!

Now you can find on our website two special offers for the holidays - holiday greeting cards and holiday certificate gifts.