Shana Tova from Eco-Libris!

Today is Rosh Hashanah Eve, the day before Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish holiday celebrating the new year's day according to the Hebrew calendar.

Rosh Hashana is one of my favorite holidays, with many beautiful traditions, such as eating apple slices dipped in honey, which represent our hope for a sweet new year.

I would also like to take this opportunity and wish you all Shana Tova on behalf of Eco-Libris. May this be the beginning of a sweet, green and wonderful year!

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Plant a tree for every book you read!

Jonathan Demme interviews Author Daniel Wolff and more interesting events at Strand this month!

Our friends at Strand Bookstore have not only great books, but also great events all year round. This month is no different with a list that includes, Artist Robert Longo and Novelist Richard Price In Conversation, Director, Actress, Producer Penny Marshall Chats & Signs Her New Memoir and Joyce Johnson’s New Portrait of Jack Kerouac, with Journalist John Leland.

There's one event I especially want to recommend on: Filmmaker Jonathan Demme will interview author Daniel Wolff on September 18, 7-8pm.

Here are some more details from Strand's website on this upcoming interesting event:

Writer Daniel Wolff’s books include How Lincoln Learned to Read, and You Send Me: The Life of Sam Cooke. Daniel was researching for the documentary I am Carolyn Parker, which he was producing with filmmaker Jonathan Demme, when his new book, The Fight For Home: How (part of ) New Orleans Came Back, was born. The story looks at a range of locals who not only survived the floods, but also have dealt and continue to deal with the deep corruption and poverty that affects the city.

Academy Award winning director Jonathan Demme has made countless films and documentaries including The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia and Stop Making Sense.

Buy The Fight for Home or a $10 Strand gift card in order to attend this event. Both options admit one person. Please note that online orders require payment at the time of checkout to guarantee admission. The event will be located in the Strand's 3rd floor Rare Book Room at our store at 828 Broadway at 12th Street.Additional copies of the book (and previous books by the author, when applicable) will be available for purchase at the event.

Located in 828 Broadway (at 12th St.), this New York's independent landmark bookstore is one of most famous bookstores in the world. With over 200 employees, more than 2.5 million used, new and rare books, a renovated main store and a growing author events program, the Strand looks forward to offering great books at great prices to book-lovers worldwide for another 80 years.

For more information on September's events please check Strand's list of events at http://www.strandbooks.com/events/.

Strand bookstore is also a partner of Eco-Libris. Strand are taking part in our bookstore program and customers at the store can plant a tree for every book they buy there and receive our sticker at the counter!

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

DUMBO's powerHouse will be openning a new store in Park Slope, Brooklyn

Good news from Brooklyn! The Brooklyn Paper reported earlier today that "DUMBO’s powerHouse Books is planning to open an outpost in a former video rental shop on Eighth Avenue in October — marking the first high-profile bookstore to come to the neighborhood since Barnes and Noble set up shop on Seventh Avenue in 1997."

This is certainly a bold move, as even Park Slope doesn't seem to be immune to the unfortunate trend of bookstore closings - the neighborhood once had four booksellers on Seventh Avenue alone, but now has just two.

There might be a reason yet to be optimistic, as Ezra Goldstein, co-owner of the Community Bookstore on Seventh Avenue, offers a more positive perspective on the state of bookstores in Park Slope:

“Our business is way up despite Nooks, Kindles, and Amazon. We now share that literary cachet with many more neighborhoods, but people in Park Slope still love books.”

Will that be good enough to justify the opening of another bookstore? powerHouse hopes so and so do we!

The bookstore is expected to be opened on October and will be located at 1111 Eighth Ave. between 11th and 12th streets in Park Slope. Check www.powerhouseon8th.com for further updates.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Plant trees for your books!

The Environmental Paper Network has released a new version of the Paper Calculator

We received some exciting news from our friends at the Environmental Paper Network (EPN) last week. They have just released a new version of their Paper Calculator to better assist paper buyers with measuring the environmental impact of their paper usage and shifting to paper that supports climate and endangered forest protection.

The Paper Calculator is a very important tool. It helps individuals and businesses make better and smarter decisions that are based on facts and figures rather than just on guestimations and intuitions. EPN's Paper Calculator is the original and most independent paper life-cycle impact estimator available, helping you to compare factors such as wood use, net energy use, GHG emissions, water consumption and so on.

What I really like about the Paper Calculator is that it is a very user-friendly tool. Now the improvements are supposed to make it even more easier to use. In addition, the new calculator includes updated industry data and technical input from diverse stakeholders. The Paper Calculator is made available to users for free by the Environmental Paper Network thanks to its coalition members, its supporters, and through Power User premium sponsorships.

The key improvements in version 3.2 include:

• More completely capturing the life cycle water use of both recycled and virgin fiber based on consultation with industry associations and life cycle experts
• Updated national average data on mill performance
• Calculates the environmental savings of both post-consumer and pre-consumer recycled content
• Updated decomposition rates for each of the paper grades based on new data

The Paper Calculator is committed to independence and transparency and a detailed documentation of the Paper Calculator version 3.2 methodology can be found at http://calculator.environmentalpaper.org/resources_and_tools.

You can check it out and try it for yourself at www.papercalculator.org.

Finally, one more word about the EPN - the Environmental Paper Network is a coalition of non-profit organizations working together to protect the earth’s climate and endangered forests by transforming the production and consumption of paper products. The Steering Committee of the Environmental Paper Network is Canopy, Climate for Ideas, Conservatree, Dogwood Alliance, ForestEthics, Green America, Green Press Initiative, National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Council of Maine, and Rainforest Action Network. Learn more about the Environmental Paper Network at www.environmentalpaper.org.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Plant trees for your books!

My article today on Triple Pundit about the settlement between Gibson Guitars and the DOJ

Here's an update on a new article I published earlier today on Triple Pundit with the latest news on the settlement between the Justice Department and Gibson Guitars following the accusations against Gibson of violations of the Lacey Act.

The article is entitled 'Gibson Guitars Settles in Lawsuit Over Illegal Wood Sourcing'. Here's the first part of the article:

If only life were like the Olympic Games – while in the Olympics participants either win or lose, life is full of compromise and most of the time there are no clear winners or losers. This seems to be the case in the fight between the Department of Justice and Gibson Guitars over whether the company imported wood illegally from Madagascar and India, violating the Lacey Act, a law requiring that all wood products and plants imported into the U.S. come from legal sources. This case, which made the headlines due to two raids on Gibson’s factory and accusations that Gibson is persecuted because of political reasons, ended last week in a settlement between the two sides.

To read the full article go to http://www.triplepundit.com/2012/08/gibson-guitars-lawsuit-lacey-act/

Links to other articles I wrote for Triple Pundit can be found at http://www.triplepundit.com/author/raz-godelnik/

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Plant trees for your books!

Eco-Libris offers monthly subscription option for green readers with large libraries!

I'd like to remind you about one of the options available on our website - monthly subscription.

If you have a big library at home and you want to green it up one bookshelf or bookcase at a time, balancing out 5 or 10 books every month on regular basis, can be a good fit for you.

The process is very easy and similar to one-time purchase: Visit our website (www.ecolibris.net) and go to the subscription page, where you choose how many books you want to balance out each month. Then just click on the 'Buy' bottom and complete the payment process on the PayPal page. And that's it!

Then every month we'll balance out for you the number of books you chose by planting trees in developing countries with our planting partners. You will receive a confirmation email from PayPal following each monthly payment as well as our "one tree planted for this book" stickers.

And that's not all, if you're also a member at BookMooch, you will receive 1 bookmooch point for every 10 books you balance out!

If and when you'll decide that you want to suspend your subscription, you will be able to do it easily and quickly on PayPal website.

We are very happy to offer this option to all the eco-conscious readers out there who want to green up many of their books but want to do gradually. If you have any questions about the subscription option, please feel free to email me at: raz [at] ecolibris [dot] net.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

New children's book, Concerto Tutti by Tapio (publisher: Galaxias) is going green with Eco-Libris!

We're happy to announce on a new collaboration of Eco-Libris: the German publisher Galaxias is partnering with us to plant trees for a new great children's book: Concerto Tutti by Tapio.

One tree will be planted for every printed copy of the book! Already 800 new trees are being planted with our planting partners to green it up! In addition the book is printed on FSC-certified paper.

What's the book is all about? Here are more details on Concerto Tutti:

The book “Concerto Tutti“ by Finish German Author and Illustrator Tapio invites you to visit the peaceful lake “sleeping dino,” somewhere in the deep deep jungle. Visit the big crocodile, its friends the gorillas and the sassy little frogs, who tease the crocodile and other inhabitants of the lake by loud croaking and with their newly invented “water fart drive”. Until one day the crocodile calls for its old friends the pelicans. Pelican named Karajan finally finds a solution for the quarrels in the jungle and turns out to be a real “maestro”…

Currently the book is only available in German but Galaxias hopes to be able to spread the lovely story of the “Concerto Tutti” also in other countries.

Read more on www.galaxias-verlag.de (soon with English translation).

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!