Audiobook of the week: Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell

With all the fascination around the British royal wedding, I wondered how many know which state in America is the only one that actually has a palace? The answer is Hawaii. Besides the people of Hawaii, President Obama and history buffs I am not sure how many know the answer.

I at least didn't know it until listening to 'Unfamiliar Fishes', Sarah Vowell's fascinating journey into the history of Hawaii (Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio). This is also our recommended audiobook this week!

What is Unfamiliar Fishes about?
Many think of 1776 as the most defining year of American history, the year we became a nation devoted to the pursuit of happiness through self-government. In Unfamiliar Fishes, Sarah Vowell argues that 1898 might be a year just as crucial to our nation's identity, when, in an orgy of imperialism, the United States annexed Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam, and invaded Cuba, and then the Philippines, becoming a meddling, self-serving, militaristic international superpower practically overnight.

Of all the countries the United States invaded or colonized in 1898, Vowell considers the story of the Americanization of Hawaii to be the most intriguing. From the arrival of the New England missionaries in 1820, who came to Christianize the local heathen, to the coup d'État led by the missionaries' sons in 1893, overthrowing the Hawaiian queen, the events leading up to American annexation feature a cast of beguiling if often appalling or tragic characters. Whalers who will fire cannons at the Bible-thumpers denying them their god-given right to whores. An incestuous princess pulled between her new god and her brother-husband. Sugar barons, con men, Theodore Roosevelt, and the last Hawaiian queen, a songwriter whose sentimental ode "Aloha 'Oe" serenaded the first Hawaii-born president of the United States during his 2009 inaugural parade.

With Vowell's trademark wry insights and reporting, she lights out to discover the odd, emblematic, and exceptional history of the fiftieth state. In examining the place where Manifest Destiny got a sunburn, she finds America again, warts and all.

About the author: Sarah Vowell is a contributing editor for public radio's This American Life and has written for Time, Esquire, GQ, Spin, Salon, McSweeneys, The Village Voice, and the Los Angeles Times. She is the author of Radio On, Take the Cannoli, and The Partly Cloudy Patriot. She lives in New York City.

What we think of Unfamiliar Fish?
I don't consider myself a history buff and I've never been in Hawaii so I was a little bit afraid I'll get bored with this audiobook. Well, I was wrong. Vowell has a gift of presenting a story in such a way that makes you want to stay in the car until the last minute of this audiobook. It was fascinating.

Her strength comes from the fact she's not historian, but more of an explorer that is fascinated with what she sees and learn. Combine this thirst for knowledge and understanding our world with Vowell's unique style that takes history apart and reconstruct it with little anecdotes as its building blocks and you get the modern history of Hawaii in its most interesting form ever.

Now this is the time to say something about the audiobook format. I believe 'Unfamiliar Fish' is one of the cases where the advantages of hearing a story in this format are so obvious. Vowell is a great story teller and by hearing her telling the story rather than just reading it, I believe you get a better chance to fully enjoy her witty style. She is also getting some help from some great actors who read bits of the book, like John Slattery, Paul Rudd, Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, John Hodgman, Catherine Keener, Edward Norton, Keanu Reeves and Maya Rudolph.

Hear an excerpt from the audibook:



Disclosure: We received a copy of this audiobook from the publisher (Simon and Simon Audio).

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

Play On Words by Elmer Gentry (Trap) joins the 100 trees project!

Do you like playing word games? If you are, I'm sure you'll be happy to check out Play On Words by Elmer Gentry (Trap), which has just joined the "100 Trees Project"!

This joint program was launched by Infinity Publishing, a leading self-publishing company together with Eco-Libris to promote environmental sustainability among its authors. Through the program, authors that publish with Infinity are able to plant 100 trees for the title they publish. These authors also have the option to add a special "100 trees planted for this book" logo to their book's design, as a way to showcase their commitment to environmental sustainability.

What Play On Words is about? Play On Words contains a variety of word games in which illustrations, word similarities, rhyming and double letters within words provide clues to the name of the word or words, and also their meanings. Some are classic rebuses; others are more complex word-picture puzzles. A prologue to each Act or Scene explains its own game, and provides instructions on how it is to be played. Answers are given at the end of each Act or Scene. If you can read English, decipher homophones, recognize word rhymes, and interpret visual illustrations, you are a player. Read, guess, challenge a playing partner.

About the author: Trap Gentry is a retired WWII naval aircraft carrier pilot, valuation engineer and sculptor. He is also a marginal illustrator and word-game developer. He lives in Hawaii, for the last 25 years and counting.

Play On Words is available for sale on Infinity's website.

Other books on the "100 Trees Project":

The Last Original Idea: A Cynic's View to Internet Marketing by Alan K'necht and Geri Rockstein

Buffalo on the Ridge by Deanna Meyer

What Love Is...A-Z by by Elle Febbo

Raven Wings and 13 More Twisted Tales

Ishift- Innovation Shift

Good Management is Not Firefighting

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

10 best green marketing ebooks!

We're back again with our weekly ten recommendations on green ebooks!

This week I prepared a list that is inspired by the Joel Makower's excellent article Green Marketing Is Over. Let’s Move On and the heated debate that followed it. So this week I present you with my 10 recommendations on green marketing books that are available in an electronic version.

This list is based on my personal preferences as well as on the books I use on the course I teach at University of Delaware's Business School on sustainability and green business. Therefore, some of them are relatively old, but I still find them relevant and valuable.

The links of these ebooks are to Amazon.com and I apologize in advance to all the Nook, iPad, Kobo and Sony Reader owners. I hope you can easily find an ebook you'll like on other ebookstores. This is also the place to disclose that we're taking part in Amazon's affiliate program and therefore will receive a small percentage of every purchase made using these links. We hope you don't mind! You can find all the lists published so far on our recommended green ebooks webpage.

Without further ado, here's this week's list of 10 recommended green marketing e-books:

1.The New Rules of Green Marketing: Strategies, Tools, and Inspiration for Sustainable Branding by Jacquelyn Ottman - Berrett-Koehler Publishers (February 14, 2011)

2. The Green Marketing Manifesto by John Grant - Wiley (August 31, 2009)

3. Strategies for the Green Economy : Opportunities and Challenges in the New World of Business by Joel Makower - McGraw-Hill (October 5, 2008)

4. Ethical Marketing and The New Consumer by Chris Arnold - Wiley (November 3, 2009)

5. The Gort Cloud: The Invisible Force Powering Today's Most Visible Green Brands by Richard Seireeni - Chelsea Green Publishing (February 17, 2009)

6. Sustainable Marketing by Diane Martin and John Schouten - Prentice Hall (April 28, 2011)

7. Understanding Green Consumer Behaviour by Sigmund Wagner - Taylor & Francis (April 16, 2007)

8. Fostering Sustainable Behavior: An Introduction to Community-Based Social Marketing by Doug McKenzie-Mohr - New Society Publishers (March 1, 2011)

9. New Frontiers in Environmental and Social Labeling by Ulrike Grote - Physica-Verlag HD (December 28, 2006)

10. Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough and Michael Braungart - North Point Press (April 1, 2010)

See you next week!

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

5 ways to green your ebook reading

If you one of the millions of readers who read e-books and you're wondering if you can do anything to green up your e-reading, the answer is clear and simple: Yes, you can. Actually, it's very easy.

Here are five simple things you can do to green your ebook reading:

1. Ask Amazon and B&N to follow Apple and disclose the carbon footprint of their e-readers.
Why? Both of them don't provide any sort of information on the carbon footprint of neither the Kindle nor the Nook and hence we have no way to know how eco-friendly these devices really are. Any sustainability journey begins with transparency and Apple is example both Amazon and Barnes & Noble should follow.

This is especially true when it comes to Amazon, which sells the most popular e-reading device, and, as I mentioned many times in the past, has repeatedly ignored requests to provide information regarding the Kindle’s footprint.

What to do? If you own a Kindle, email Jeff Bezos (jeff@amazon.com), founder and CEO of Amazon.com, letting him know you own a Kindle and you would really appreciate if Amazon would disclose the Kindle's footprint just like Apple does. If you own a Nook, write the same request to their customer service at nook@barnesandnoble.com (sorry, I don't have the email address of B&N CEO, William Lynch). Although we're focusing here on the market leaders, please feel free to send similar emails if you have other e-reading devices.

2. Maximize the use of your e-reader
Why? The largest part of your e-reader's footprint comes from its production - for example, about 60% in the case of the iPad 2. It means that when you get your new e-reader, you receive it with much of its footprint already attached to it and even though you can't change that, you can still use it to reduce your reading's footprint by using it as much as possible and hence avoiding the generation of carbon emissions from the printing of new books for example (4.01 kg per book).

What to do? Read ad as many books and magazines as you can on your e-reader instead on paper.

3. Don't replace your e-reader so fast
Why? Because you need at least couple of years of reading on the same e-reader to pass the breakeven point that will make your e-reader a greener option comparing to paper books (about 26 books with the iPad 2 for example).

It's also about efficient use of resources. Buying a new e-reader every year or so might keep you with the most updated version, but will also increase your footprint significantly and will be a very inefficient use of resources.

What to do? Try to keep your e-reader with you at least for 3-4 years. Then recycle it or sell/give it to someone else to use.

4. Buy ebooks at local independent bookstores
Why? Because independent bookstores are a viable part of local economies and making your local independent bookstore stronger will make your community stronger. You can't say that about your local Barnes & Noble and Borders (if there's still one around you) store and certainly not about Amazon.com. Remember that social sustainability is not less important than environmental sustainability.

What to do? Now that Google eBooks Now Sold at 250 Indie Bookstores it shouldn't be a problem. Just go to your local indie bookstore's website and purchase there the ebook you're looking to read.

5. Rent ebooks
Why? Again, it's about maximizing the use of your e-reader and making sure you'll reach the breakeven point that you need to pass to make it a greener reading option. Renting books, whether through your local library or one of the online lending services available now is a great way to make e-reading more affordable, which will result in more e-reading and better and greener use of your e-reader.

What to do? Check if your local library provides this option. Also, check one of the lending services available online - eBookFling, BookLending and Lendle.

For more resources on how green e-books are, check our ebooks page at http://www.ecolibris.net/ebooks.asp

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

It's not the end of the world so let's celebrate it by planting new trees!

Saturday, or "The Day of Rapture" passed with some rain, but it wasn't the end of the world, literally. I guess the news that we're still here are good news for everyone, except maybe those who waited to be “raptured” - ascended to heaven before the end of the world, exactly at 6 p.m.

But there's a cure that can help even these disappointed rapture believers:

Plant a tree.

There's nothing more symbolic of new life than a new tree (well, other than a baby, but that's something that you can't really do within a day or even few weeks..). Sadly, their destruction, unlike the apocalyptic predictions of Harold Camping, is very real and it seems to be getting worst (The BBC News reported last Thursday that "Amazon rainforest deforestation rises sharply"). If this trend will continue, it can be a real threat to the planet's future.

If you're looking for a religious point of view, just think of the beautiful words of the American poet Leonora Speyer:

The trees are God's great alphabet:
With them He writes in shining green
Across the world His thoughts serene.

So start this week with a hope and some faith in a better (living) world by planting trees. We invite you to plant trees with us through our planting partners, three highly respected US and UK based non-profit organizations that work in collaboration with local communities in developing countries to plant these trees. These trees are planted in high ecological and sustainable standards in Latin America (Nicaragua, Guatemala, Panama, Belize, Honduras) and Africa (Malawi), where deforestation is a crucial problem.

I know it might not compare to heaven, but it's still a heavenly feeling to plant a new tree. Guaranteed!

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

5 questions to John Malone who is looking to buy Barnes & Noble for $1 billion in cash

Yesterday B&N announced that "the Special Committee of its Board of Directors has received a proposal from Liberty Media to acquire the Company at a price of $17 per share in cash." It means that John Malone, the billionaire who controls Liberty Media is ready to pay about $1 billion in cash to buy B&N.

This is big news and we need some time to digest them and therefore this week we won't have our regular B&N Bankruptcy Index, but instead we'll be asking Malone 5 questions and hopefully we'll be able to receive some answers this week (not directly I assume) and better assess this news for next week's update of the bankruptcy index.

So here are our questions for Mr. Malone:

1. Did you have the chance to talk to Bill Ackman?
He's also a successful businessman and investor who controls Pershing Square Capital Management. Like you he had a good reputation with successful acquisitions in the past that made him money ( Target Stores, J.C. Penney and Fortune Brands) and was looking to achieve similar results with Borders. Four years ago, according to the WSJ, "Ackman first started buying Borders stock, those shares would have been worth $233 million. Today, his stake has lost 99% of its value, down to $2.4 million." Again, he lost about 99% of his investment in Borders.

No wonder Ackman told Deal Journal "it wasn’t a good investment."

2. Do you have a strategy for the brick and mortar bookstores?
No matter how many of them you plan to close and how strongly you want to shift towards the digital business - you're still buying a brick and mortar company (705 stores with 18.4 million square feet, not including B&N college stores) and you need a strategy to start transforming the stores you'll be keeping open back to an asset. Right now, B&N doesn't really seem to have a strategy, so hopefully you bring one with you.

3. Did you watch this video?



It's just 30 seconds, but it will give you an idea you on how complicated and competitive the business environment of B&N is getting.

4. Did you hear about Bookish?
Yes, publishers are becoming your competitors and they're getting better at it. Just read this piece out of Geek.com:

Carolyn Reidy, president and chief executive of Simon & Schuster, told the New York Times that the current discovery of books in the “physical environment” needs to be recreated so that it can happen online, something which Reidy said isn’t currently happening. The NYT said that the publishing companies envision that Bookish will be for books what Pitchfork.com is for music in terms of reviews and information. Bookish, unlike Pitchfork, will also have a sales aspect to it. The site will sell both physical and digital books.

As you can see, there's another front to worry about, so I hope you're ready for that.

5. Did you read the news yesterday that Kindle ebooks outselling print books?
Good news? Yes, you're also in the business of selling e-books and it means it's a growing business. Bad news? You bet.

According to MNN "The Kindle ebooks began outselling hardcover books on Amazon.com in July 2010. Six months later, Kindle ebooks overtook paperback sales as well.Now, Amazon said it is selling more ebooks than hardcover and paperback books — combined. The trend does not appear to be slowing down any time soon." It only shows you that the ebook revolution is moving fast, very fast.

It means that your clock is ticking and you have very little time to adjust B&N to this digital revolution. Remember, you will have 18.4 million square feet of retail to take care of, while your biggest competitor Amazon has none.

To view the weekly changes in the index visit Barnes and Noble Bankruptcy Index on our website.

You can find more resources on the future of bookstores on our website at www.ecolibris.net/bookstores_future.asp

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

Go Green stamps: Greenwashing at your local post office?

Yesterday I went to the post office and saw that USPS is offering now Go Green stamps, "showing what each of us can do to promote the health of our environment." The brochure on the stamps (printed on FSC-certified paper) also mentions it's part of USPS' "Go Green" commitment.

Sounds very nice, right? But wait a second, isn't that the same USPS that sends you every day loads of junk mail, wasting important resources like trees and water, contributing to pollution and global warming? Did you know that on average, we receive 16 pieces of junk mail a week, compared to only 1.5 personal letters? And that the majority of household waste consists of junk mail? (source: 41pounds.org).

Not only that the USPS don't have a problem with junk mail, but it actually helps junk mailers. The Wall Street Journal reported on January that "the U.S. Postal Service began easing rules on so-called "simplified addressing" for bulk mail. The move allows marketers to send letters, flyers and parcels to every home, business and post-office box on a city delivery route—known as saturation mail at the post office, and junk mail by consumers—without using exact names and addresses."

Why USPS does it? The WSJ article explains: "The changes come as many small businesses have abandoned traditional direct-mail advertising in favor of cheaper e-marketing and social-media strategies." This is bad news to the USPS, because according to PrintReady "the business-to-consumer channel is currently responsible for around 70% of its revenues and 80% of mail volume."

Now, USPS is in financial trouble. According to AP "the Postal Service is continuing to hemorrhage money, reporting a loss Tuesday of more than $2 billion over the first three months of the year and warning it could be forced to default on federal payments." So it might be understandable why they do whatever they can to promote companies to send you more mail, which of course also means more junk mail, although from a business perspective it also looks as a mistake, or at least as fighting a losing war.

USPS has of course the right to choose its own methods to try and avoid bankruptcy, but it certainly doesn't have the right to call itself committed to going green and certainly not to try showing others how to do it, when they do exactly the opposite. No matter how bad things are at USPS, this sort of greenwashing is unacceptable.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

photo: Go Green Stamps from USPS website