Monday's green books series: Bringing Nature Home

How's your garden doing? that's an easy question that hopefully the answer on it would be 'great' or 'really great'. But how many of your plants are native plants? that's much more difficult to answer and actually this is the more important question, as we can learn from the green book we're reviewing today.

Our book today is:

Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens

Author: Douglas W. Tallamy (forwarded by Rick Darke)

Douglas W. Tallamy is Professor and Chair of the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware. Chief among his research goals is to better understand the many ways insects interact with plants and how such interactions determine the diversity of animal communities.

Publisher: Timber Press

Published on: First edition published in 2007. Updated and expanded paperback edition published in 2009

What this book is about? (from the publisher's website)
The pressures on wildlife populations today are greater than they have ever been and many gardeners assume they can remedy this situation by simply planting a variety of flowering perennials, trees, and shrubs. As Douglas Tallamy points out in this revelatory book, that assumption is largely mistaken. Wild creatures exist in a complex web of interrelationships, and often require different kinds of food at different stages of their development.

There is an unbreakable link between native plant species and native wildlife. When native plant species disappear, the insects disappear, thus impoverishing the food source for birds and other animals. Fortunately, there is still time to reverse this alarming trend, and gardeners have the power to make a significant contribution toward sustainable biodiversity. By favoring native plants, gardeners can provide a welcoming environment for wildlife of all kinds.

Healthy local ecosystems are not only beautiful and fascinating, they are also essential to human well-being. By heeding Douglas Tallamy's eloquent arguments and acting upon his recommendations, gardeners everywhere can make a difference.

Why you should get it?
Firstly the author is a Professor at UD in Newark, DE where Eco-Libris is headquartered, so even though we don't know him personally (yet..), we're for the book even before I opened the first page (supporting local products!).

My opinion didn't change a bit after I opened the book and dived into the world of plants, gardens, insects, butterflies, birds, trees, landscape and communities. The book is full with interesting and valuable information and not only for gardeners, but also to anyone who is interested in humans-nature relationship in general and in urban settings specifically.

You can look at this book as a manifesto explaining why we should favor native plants, but it's much more than that. It's a plan to sustain the endangered biodiversity and even more, it's a plan to transform suburbia from an environmental liability to an environmental asset that is supporting the natural world.

And of course if you're really into gardening, or like us into tree planting, you must have a copy of this book. As Rick Darke, author of The Encyclopedia of Grasses of Livable Landscapes put it in his forward:

"Rich in concept and detail, this book asks and answers essential questions for modern gardeners inclined to good stewardship. How can we adjust our planting palette to be both beautiful and environmentally useful? how much more does a local oak species contribute to habitat richness than an out of ecological context exotic tree?...Spending some time with Bringing Nature Home and its wealth of revelatory moments is certain to enrich your understanding of how connected and contributing good gardens can be."

Last but not least, the book is filled with beautiful photographs which makes it even more compleing and accecible, even for those who are a little bit less into biology and ecology.

What others say about the book?
"Provides the rationale behind the use of native plants, a concept that has rapidly been gaining momentum. The impact on our environment is huge. The text makes a case for native plants and animals in a compelling and complete fashion." —Joel M. Lerner, Washington Post, June 28, 2008

"If you cut down the goldenrod, the wild black cherry, the milkweed and other natives, you eliminate the larvae, and starve the birds. This simple revelation about the food web — and it is an intricate web, not a chain — is the driving force in Bringing Nature Home." —Anne Raver, New York Times, March 6, 2008

"A fascinating study of the trees, shrubs, and vines that feed the insects, birds, and other animals in the suburban garden." —Anne Raver, New York Times, December 6, 2007

More links related to the book:

Doug Tallamy in an hour-long interview with Philadelphia's Marty Moss-Coane on the show "Radio Times"

A profile article on the author at the New York Times ("To Feed the Birds, First Feed the Bugs")

The author's website

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

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

Guest post: The features that will perfect your eBooks

Today we have a guest article by Dan Harrison who writes about eco-friendly technology for EnviroGadget.com. EnviroGadget features the latest news and reviews about green gadgets, such as solar powered gadgets, eco-friendly camping gadgets, devices that benefit your health, and more!

eBooks have been around for a while now, and eBook reading devices such as the Kindle are just starting to become popular. However, for an ebook reader to be a true replacement for a good old-fashioned book, there are some challenges that we need to overcome. So here are a few ideas on features we need to see from eBook readers to even consider them a fair replacement.

Selling an eBook on again. With a real book, we can exchange, swap or sell them with other people. eBooks are essentially just files and a great deal of work has gone into copy-protection schemes to protect against theft. Surely we want to be able to sell, give away, or exchange our copy if we choose to? However, this issue does imply that we are paying per book and have some ownership over the book.

Renting an ebook I'm personally a fan of public libraries. It's a great way to experience books without owning all of them. Wouldn't it be great to go to a library website and rent a book for a week or two? Ideally this would be free, but if there's money to be made, publishers would probably want a subscription service. Perhaps in the same way Spotify exists for music.

Colour and animations Sure, we're getting closer to being a fully-fledged computer now, but having moving diagrams and colour images in an eBook reader would really improve the experience. I'm thinking more of childrens' books and text books here, but images can really help with explaining something. I believe that most eBook readers at the moment are just black and white.

Writing on some of the pages. For some books, it makes sense to annotate the pages, particularly if you're studying. There are all kinds of things you could do with this feature, such as exporting the notes on to your computer.

Bookmarking pages or portions of text. When I find a great page or quote in a book, I want to save the quote, but I usually end up losing the bit of paper with the details on it. So a useful feature would be to save a portion of text or to bookmark pages with some kind of note. You can then of course export this information to your computer. If you're writing a research paper, being able to save quotations and extract the correct details for references sections would be a huge time saver.

Reading a book using a Text-To-Speech engine If you're too tired to read a book, or there's little light, it would be great if the book could read itself to you. You could adjust the voice, pitch and speed to make it as comfortable as possible to listen to. That said, this feature is just desirable, rather than being essential!

So there are my thoughts on important features ebook readers need to have to match or exceed the usefulness of a book. What would you like to see as a feature for an ebook reader?

How to make tree planting cool again?

World Environment Day was celebrated worldwide last Friday. While looking in Grist, one of my favorite green information resources, I found that it extends its "Screw Earth Day Campaign" to the World Environment Day. Moreover, Grist added: Official couldn’t have said it better: Forget tree planting with a link to Cameron Scott's article on SFGate.com "Time to move beyond planting trees". Scott opens with the following:

"Tomorrow is World Environment Day, an international holiday the U.N. implemented shortly after the U.S. created Earth Day. Don't worry, I'm not going to tell you to plant a tree. I'm going to tell you to do something bigger, better, more fun, and less tedious. After all, caring about the world you live in shouldn't feel like going to a funeral (now, pick up the shovel...)."

You can agree or disagree with Grist and Scott, but thinking of it for a while, I found that the most worrying point here is that planting trees might not be so cool anymore! I mean, I know the tree planting is more of an example here given to make a point and I'm sure nor Scott neither Grist have nothing against trees. But at the same time, can you imagine someone making a point with a negative context about local food? I doubt..

Tree planting, once the star in the green skies, just doesn't seem to be that shiny anymore. I guess the example we see here is one reason why it happened - tree planting might be strongly associated with going green and supporting the environment just on one day (Earth Day or World Environment Day), giving people and businesses fake feeling they done their share to combat global warming. It also might be that people just get tired of it - maybe you can't be the green queen forever!

Anyway, I believe Grist and Scott show here that more than all tree planting might have an image problem - it's not about convincing that tree planting is super-duper important, but about making it cool again. So how do you do it? How do you make tree planting cool again?

Here are few ideas I thought about:

1. Learn from the current king - there's no doubt who is now the strongest and most popular green theme - it's local food. It means tree planting needs urgently its own Michael Pollan and Alice Waters, maybe a bestseller like "Omnivore's Dilemma", a movie everyone is talking about for months, and of course it wouldn't hurt if Michelle Obama will plant a nice tree in her garden.

2. Get some celebs to grab a shovel - if Scarlet Johnson or Brad Pitt were doing it (and not only once a year, but on a more regular basis), I'm sure that tree planting won't feel "like going to a funeral", or maybe it will, but everyone would like to join!

3. More fun, less tedious - it doesn't have to involve porn activism (although this one caught even Grist's attention), or guerrilla tactics, but anything that will make tree planting less tedious and more interesting and fun is more than welcome.

4. Get the coolest green biz on board - if green businesses such as TerraCycle, Nau or Better Place will push forward tree planting there's a chance some of their coolness will stick to the trees! Any more ideas? comments? feedbacks? we'll be happy to hear from you!

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

*The photo at the top of the page is courtesy of our planting partner AIR

5000 trees planted for teacher turned author’s first storybook!

Eco-Libris is proudly partnering for some time with Aaspirations Publishing, a green publisher based in Toronto and publishes books on issues that are often ignored. Today we're happy to announce on 5,000 trees that will be planted for their book ‘Where the Buttercups Grow’!

Not only that one tree is planted for every copy printed, but customers that buy ‘Where the Buttercups Grow’ can electronically adopt one of the 5000 trees planted for ‘Where the Buttercups Grow’ in the name of the one they love. As well as display a message to the person in whose name they adopted the tree. Isn't that awesome or what?

Here's a little bit more about this book which was beautifully written by Shelley Meyer and vividly illustrated by her daughter Tessa Meyer:

What happens when a mother-daughter team combine the beauty of buttercups, the power of storytelling and a great respect of nature to create a wonderful book with amazing art?

In a beautiful field, the buttercups grow, but when two children have no respect for nature, garbage begins to pile up high. Are the days of the buttercups over, or will help come to rescue the buttercups from a fate more deadly than illness? See the difference that children can make when they set their mind to it and decide to take care of Mother Earth.

Beautifully written by Shelley Meyer and vividly illustrated by her daughter Tessa Meyer, this inspiring and powerful story will find a spot on every child's list of favourites, especially when they can carry the story forward in their own lives and plant their very own buttercups. This wonderful title is doubly special because for every book 1 tree has been planted.

Customers that buy ‘Where the Buttercups Grow’ can electronically adopt one of the 5000 trees planted for ‘Where the Buttercups Grow’ in the name of the one they love. As well as display a message to the person in whose name they adopted the tree.

The author Shelly Meyer is a wife and mother of two children. She graduated with a Bachelor of Education Degree from UBC and an Early Childhood Education Certificate. She enjoyed teaching for 5 years and is now the owner and operator of Li’l Munchkin Preschool. Her preschool program encourages care and respect for each other and for the environment. Shelley's mother works with her, and together they hope to teach young children values they can live up to all their lives.

To order your copy of ‘Where the Buttercups Grow,’ visit www.aaspirationspublishing.com and click on the book of the month, or if you are in the area, drop in at the Chapters at Strawberry Hill, 12101 on 72nd Avenue, Surrey, BC V3W 2M1.

Yours,

Raz @ Eco-Libris
www.ecolibris.net

Art for All Time is going green with Eco-Libris

We are happy to annonce a new partership with Art for All Time, a unique online boutique for children's Art Photobooks, DVDs and Parties.

Art for All Time is partnering with Eco-Libris to offer its customers the opportunity to plant one tree with each Art Photobook purchase and the company will double the do-good feeling by matching, in the customer's honor, with the planting of one additional tree.

Art for All Time is an online boutique to create customized Art Photobooks and DVD Slideshows of children's art. As an exclusive offering for New York City parents, the company also plans Premium Art Birthday Parties that can be personalized for children of all ages.

Mom-owned and mom-operated, this venture was started by Corena Young-Dixon, a stay-at-home mom who cherished her daughter’s art, yet was unsatisfied with the standard children’s art photobooks available from mass retailers and print-on-demand companies. She wanted to bring a premiere children’s art photobook to the market, and so she did.

This small business hopes to meet the needs of discerning moms, from New York City and beyond, who desire a luxury Art Photobook or DVD as a simple, yet chic way to handle cherished artwork that verges on becoming clutter.

Art for All Time hopes to grow the company with customers who return annually for customized services to create children's Art Photobooks and Art DVDs or to design personalized Art Birthday Parties. Art for All Time is proud to celebrate children’s artistic development, year by year!

You can learn more about Art for All Time and their products on their website - http://www.artforalltime.net and don't forget to check out their gallery!

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

The first green assassin!

Our friends at Do the Green Thing always surprise us with great green stuff, combining wit and a great sense of humor.

This time we're talking about sustainable food or if to be precise why you should consume vegetables when they are in the season (hint: it's not only the better taste..).

Here is some more info on this video from Do the Green Thing's website:

The story of a man with a gun and a mission - to eliminate all instances of unseasonal vegetable consumption.

Written and directed by the brilliant Michael 'Watercress' Wright and starring the magnificent Daniel 'Legume' Lapaine with deft editing by Simon 'Water Celery' Wilcox and a purringly perfect soundtrack by Michael 'Mango' Mertens. Produced by the kind people at Mustard in association with the equally kind people at Eat Seasonably. Huge thanks to all.

Enjoy the video!



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

Two ABA stars at BEA: Matt Supko, the developer of the indieBound iPhone App, and Gary Vaynerchuk

Technology got more attention this year at the BEA. We already mentioned here Google and their plans to sell e-books, but even more interesting was all the buzz around social media and its growing role in the marketing efforts of publishers and authors. But not only them.

Actually one of the most successful examples is coming from ABA (American Booksellers Association) that its indieBound application for iPhones, or iPhone App is one of the most popular ones.

What you can do with it? here are few examples from indieBound website:

• Browse indie bookseller recommendation lists (The Indie Next List, The Kids Indie Next List) and bestseller lists (The Indie Bestseller Lists)
• Search for books from a comprehensive database of in-print titles
• Review detailed book information
• Buy books online from indie bookstores
• Find local, indie bookstores nearby, or across the United States
• Find other independently-owned businesses, like coffee shops, movie theaters, and bicycle stores

You can download it for free at the App store.

GalleyCat caught up with Matt Supko, the developer of this application and if you want to learn a little bit more about the world of Apps developers you should check out this video:



Speaking of social media, ABA also had another great panel with Gary Vaynerchuk, who is a successful self-made man, the author of the upcoming book "Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion" and one of the most talented and funny presenters I have seen.

He talked about his experience with Wine Library and gave tips how indie bookstores should build their brand equity over the internet using their strengths to differentiate themselves from other retailers and succeed in their business.

Vaynerchuk's gave its presentation just few hours before his his first baby Misha was born, so congrats to Gary! Enjoy his presentation - it's more than hour long but this thought-provoking presentation definitely worths your time!




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