Two great ways to win a green book!

Want a chance to get a great green-themed book for Earth Day? we have two offers you can't refuse:

1. On Earth Day, April 22, we will have a special raffle between all of our newsletter subscribers of three great green-themed books: "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Organic Living" by Eliza Sarasohn and Sonia Weiss, "Gardening Eden" by Michael Abbaté and "Of Parrots and People" by Mira Tweti.

The winners will be announced on our blog on April 23. If you're not subscribed yet to our monthly newsletter, it's very easy to do it - all you need to do is to add your email address on the box on the right side of the page saying 'Join Our Email List', click on the word 'join' and that's it.

2. Join our Facebook group - this month we have a green celebration on Facebook and we give away every day one great book of authors and publishers we work with. We have great books such as: Green Beginnings by Avrim and Vicki Topel, Sammy and Sue Go Green Too! by Suzanne Corso and The Barefoot Book of Earth Tales by Dawn Casey.

The link to our group: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/wall.php?id=4590684259

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
www.ecolibris.net

Tips from RecycleBank and Burt's Bees how to make every day an Earth Day

Earth Day is just around the corner (April 22), and if you're looking not only to celebrate it, but also to use it as a source of inspiration to make a difference on each and every day, we got some great advice for you from our friends at RecycleBank and Burt's Bees.

RecycleBank and Burt’s Bees have come up with 10 easy ways that you can do to make a difference today, tomorrow, and every day.

1. Recycle: This Earth Day, take a good hard look at your trash. We trust you’ll fish out some recyclables in the mix (probably from others), but also remember E-Waste like cell phones, MP3’s and laptops can all be recycled and repurposed.

2. Freecycle: The above is sure to stir up some goodies that can be useful to those around us: clothes, books, electronics, furniture, etc.

3. Reuse. Reuse. And did we mention Reuse? Products have life spans. Leave behind paper plates, plastic forks and any other disposables. Reusable serve ware, portable mugs for that latte and a water jug for that necessary potable will lessen landfills and just make life taste better!

4. Wallet Activism: Look for products made from recycled materials, natural ingredients and minimal / biodegradable packaging. By supporting eco-friendly companies your green supports the greater green.

5. Park It: Celebrate the beauty of spring with a walk when you could have driven. Carpool, take public transport, ride your bike. If you can’t do it every day, try once a week. When you do drive, make sure you pump up your tires so you can deflate your fill-ups.

6. Junk It: Putting the kibosh on junk mail and catalogues will save you time, save landfill space and save millions of trees (and probably make the post office happy too).

7. Bills. Bills. Bills. We won’t advise not paying ‘em, but we wholly support going paperless for your banking, bill paying and at the ATM.

8. Live Life Locally: Support your local farmers while enjoying fresh produce and organically grown goodies. You can even try going veggie once or twice a week.

9. Say Y-E-S to CFL’s: You’ll save time, money and energy…but you may have to give up on the “How many _____’s does it take to change a light bulb?” jokes because you’ll change them so infrequently.

10. Spread the Word: Tell your friends how easy it is to shave off some carbon here, save some resources there and conserve a little energy here. And then they can tell their friends. And then they can tell their friends…

Thank you to RecycleBank and Burt's Bees for their Earth Day tips. These companies also walk the talk and are committed to finding clean, green ways of existing on this planet. These simple steps above can help you protect the environment, each and every day.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
www.ecolibris.net

Reminder: Join Eco-Libris Facebook group and a tree will planted on your behalf!

We wanted to remind you of our Earth Day celebration on our Facebook group, which includes tree planting, giveaway of green books and an effort to increase our Facebook group to 1000 members by the end of the month!

We already added 179 new members to the group (right now we have 760 members) which is great, as for EVERY new member (until the 1000th member) we will plant a tree with our planting partners!

And we also have great green books to give away! We are giving away now every day one great book of authors and publishers we work with. Yesterday, for example, we gave away a great package of 7 books! Yes, the prize was a package including the 7 books released so far on the Little Green Books series, gift of the publisher, Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing. The package includes great children books, such as Little Panda, Little Monkey, I Can Save the Earth!, The Polar Bears' Home and more! You can read about them at http://www.simonlittlegreen.com.

We have more great books such as:

- Green Beginnings by Avrim and Vicki Topel
- Sammy and Sue Go Green Too! by Suzanne Corso
- The Acronym by Rebecca Lerwill
- The Blue Handbag by Fiona Robyn
- The Barefoot Book of Earth Tales by Dawn Casey
- Gardening Eden by Michael Abbaté

With your assistance by April 30, we'll succeed to increase our community to (at least) 1,000 members and plant hundreds of new trees!

The link to our group: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/wall.php?id=4590684259

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
www.ecolibris.net

Raincoast Books and Eco-Libris are collaborating in a green campaign: Buy a book, Plant a a tree

We are very excited to update you on our joint campaign with Raincoast Books, a leading Canadian book company, which is taking place this month for the second year in a row: 'Buy a Book, Plant a Tree'.

Here are the details:

Raincoast Books is best known in green circles as the Canadian publisher of the green editions of the latest Harry Potter books. Currently its provides full-service Canadian representation to a wide range of publishers from the US, the UK and Canada, had a wholesale division (BookExpress) that is dedicated to supplying bestselling frontlist and backlist titles to bookstores and retailers across Canada and owns Publishers Group Canada, which distributes titles from over 100 independently owned book publishing houses from all over the world.

Following our successful partnership last year, Raincoast Books signed up this year Canadian retailers who will be selling a wide range of environmentally themed books starting this month. These books come with Eco-Libris stickers stating that one tree will be planted for each one of them. Participating bookstores include independent bookstores located in British Colombia, Nova Scotia and Ontario (a full list can be found at http://raincoast.com/green).

This year we have 257 new trees that will be planted following this joint campaign! And all together our partnership with Raincoast Books has resulted so far in 4,776 new trees that are planted on behalf of Canadian readers with our planting partners in Central America and Africa.

This project is part of an ongoing effort by Raincoast to work towards being a greener company. Here's some more information about these efforts from the company's website: Raincoast has joined Markets Initiative (CDN) and Green Press Initiative (USA), organizations working with publishers, printers and paper mills to reduce the environmental impact of the publishing industry.

Until the closure of the publishing program in January 2008, Raincoast published fiction, non-fiction and children’s books. Over 95% of Raincoast’s text-based books are printed on ancient forest friendly paper. In June 2003, Raincoast printed the Canadian edition of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on 100% ancient-forest-free, chlorine-free, 100% post-consumer recyled paper. To date, Raincoast has saved over 75,185 old-growth trees.

Raincoast was awarded the 2003 Ethics in Action Award and the 2004 Ernst & Young Entrepreneurial Award.

We are very excited to be continue our joint work with Raincoast Books and look forward to many more years of promoting together green-themed books and the need to make a positive impact on the earth.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
www.ecolibris.net

Monday's green books series: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Organic Living

Today on our Monday's green books series we have another book from the Complete Idiot's Guide.

No, you don't have to be an idiot to enjoy this book - all you need is to want to learn more and to do it right, at least when it comes to organic living. What does organic living mean? the book we review today has the answers.

Our book for today is:

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Organic Living

Authors: Eliza Sarasohn and Sonia Weiss

Eliza Sarasohn is an editorial director for CE Media, oversees four eco-style city publications and websites. She is also the editor-in-chief of the online health and wellness network Lime.com. Thomas's work has appeared in Experience Life, Women's Adventure, LA Eating, Utne Reader, and other publications.

Sonia Weiss has written or co-authored 12 books in The Complete Idiot's Guide series. She is a long-time organic gardener and uses natural and organic ingredients to make many of her skin-care products.

Publisher: Alpha

Published on: February 2009

What it is about:
Wholesome tips for a healthier you. Everyone knows that we should be doing more to be good to our body— but moving toward an organic lifestyle can be overwhelming. This guide provides step-by-step information on everything from food to cleaning products to how to detoxify our bodies. It includes choosing quality natural products, exploring holistic alternatives to conventional medicine, and determining what to eat—and what not to eat.

Why you should get it:
1. It is a very useful resource even if you're already familiar with organic living and organic products. The book tries both to make some order in all the information available on this topic and to provide the reader a comprehensive review of the topic - from the history of organic movement (did you know the industrial revolution also changed the face of agriculture forever with the invention of motorized machinery and chemical fertilizers?) to organic furniture.

2. I found there great tips for greening up your life, from yummy food recipes that gives you creative ideas of how to use organic products to recipes for chemi-free lotions, shampoos and even minty toothpaste and deodorant!

3. The book helps you to better understand related definitions, many of them are quite complexed (I had no idea what solubilizers are until I found in the glossary these are substances used to dissolve other substanes in). Not only that there's a good glossary at the end of the book, but you can also find definitions throughout the book in a separate small window - very convenient and very helpful.

4. This book walks the talk and is printed on recycled paper! Way to go!


WANT TO WIN A COPY OF THIS BOOK?

All you have to do is to join our Earth Day celebration on our Facebook group. We're celebrating there Earth Day with tree planting, giveaway of green books and an effort to increase our group to 1000 members! Every day, until the end of the month, we will have a giveaway of a book of authors and publishers we work with, including a copy of 'The Complete Idiot's Guide to Organic Living '!

So if you're already a member, bring along more Facebook friends to the group. If you're not a member, join in and bring other friends with you.

If you're looking for other interesting green-themed books, you are invited to check out our green books page on our website's green resources section.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
www.ecolibris.net

Free paper cups - win-win or maybe a BIG lose-lose?

I read on Springwise about the latest innovation in the office's kitchen: paper coffee cups provided to corporate customers across the US for free. How come? they come with sponsors' messages on them.

Springwise thinks it's another example of "a win-win-win for everyone involved", but is it? maybe, if we just forget for a minute the environment.

Yes, Disposable paper cups affect the environment negatively. The manufacturer, FreePaperCups is writings on its website that by using them you "say goodbye to those Eco-Unfriendly styrofoam cups", which is true - they're better than Styrofoam cups.

BUT, as you can read on the thorough analysis on Sustainability is Sexy "besides creating a steady supply of waste, disposable cups also demand a large consumption of natural resources and emit high levels of climate-changing green house gases. Because so many disposable paper cups are used throughout the world, the actual environmental affect can be staggering."

And we're talking about trees here that are cut down to produce these cups and not just a few - Americans consume more than 16 billion paper cups every year, which in tree terms equals almost 6.5 million trees a year!

And there are better alternatives of course, even for the corporate office's kitchen. Reusable coffee cups reduce the impact disposable cups have on our environment. Sustainability is Sexy reports that "waste, natural resources, and damage done by green house gases are all decreased by reusable cups after only 24 uses."

So I don't think this is a win-win, if anything it's a lose-lose: the corporates that use it harm the environment and the brands that advertise on the cups and make them free are actually funding it.

Almost all companies that advertise on these paper cups are companies that have major green initiatives and claim that the environment is very important for them, like FedEx ("FedEx is committed to providing global connections while minimizing our environmental impact. We have integrated responsible environmental practices into our daily operations") or Dell ("Dell systems are "Green by Design"; we consider the environment in all aspects of the product lifecycle, from design and engineering to packaging and recycling")

Are these the same companies that pay for free paper cups for corporate America??

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
www.ecolibris.net

And we have a winner on 'Sammy and Sue Go Green Too!"

Thanks to all the participants in our giveaway of "Sammy & Sue Go Green Too!" following our review of this great new children's book written by Suzanne Corso. We got great replies to our question "how do you go green too with your kid?" and we have a winner!

The winner is Laureen who wrote the following:

"We do many things and constantly come up with ways to do more. We are very conscientious about our water use, not letting the faucet run at all, usually using cold water instead of warm (saving on electricity), flushing less often (unless necessary) ;), etc. We recycle together, walk whenever possible and always turn off lights when we do not absolutely need them. Thanks for this great giveaway!"

Congrats Laureen! You won a copy of the book, which is a gift of the publisher Beaufort Books. To those who didn't win (and all the rest) - I invite you to join our Facebook group, where we have every day a giveaway of green books, including couple copies of "Sammy and Sue Go Green Too!". Also if you want to meet the author of the “Sammy & Sue” book series, Suzanne Corso, and her daughter Samantha, you can do it at these upcoming readings of “Go Green Too!”. Check back dates of future events.

• GO GREENEXPO (April 17-20)
• Earth Week NYC - Grand Central Station (April 24)
• Barney’s New York (April 25)
• Ronald McDonald House (May 2)
• Book Expo America (May 28-30)
• NY Reads Together and the NYC Public Schools Reading Series (tbd)

You can find more details at http://www.sammyandsuellc.com

Yours,

Raz @ Eco-Libris
www.ecolibris.net