Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Second Nature: A Gardener's Education

by Michael Pollan

In his articles and in best-selling books such as The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan has established himself as one of our most important and beloved writers on modern man's place in the natural world. A new literary classic, Second Nature has become a manifesto not just for gardeners but for environmentalists everywhere. Chosen by the American Horticultural Society as one of the seventy-five greatest books ever... (more)

More-With-Less Cookbook (World Community Cookbook)

More-With-Less Cookbook (World Community Cookbook)

by Doris Janzen Longacre, Doris Longacre

Longacre has gathered 500 recipes from Mennonite kitchens that tell us how to eat better and consume less of the world's limited food resources. All recipes have been tested by professional home economists. This cookbook is written for those who care about their own health and the food needs of others in the world.

Preserving Food without Freezing or Canning: Traditional Techniques Using Salt, Oil, Sugar, Alcohol, Vinegar, Drying, Cold Storage, and Lactic Fermentation

Preserving Food without Freezing or Canning: Traditional Techniques Using Salt, Oil, Sugar, Alcohol, Vinegar, Drying, Cold Storage, and Lactic Fermentation

by The Gardeners and Farmers of Centre Terre Vivante

Typical books about preserving garden produce nearly always assume that modern "kitchen gardeners" will boil or freeze their vegetables and fruits. Yet here is a book that goes back to the future—celebrating traditional but little-known French techniques for storing and preserving edibles in ways that maximize flavor and nutrition. Translated into English, and with a new foreword by Deborah Madison, this book... (more)

The American Empire Project

The Limits of Power

The End of American Exceptionalism

by A. J. Bacevich

From an acclaimed conservative historian and former military officer, a bracing call for a pragmatic confrontation with the nation's problems The Limits of Power identifies a profound triple crisis facing America: the economy, in remarkable disarray, can no longer be fixed by relying on expansion abroad; the government, transformed by an imperial presidency, is a democracy in form only; U.S. involvement in... (more)

Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods

Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods

by Sandor Ellix Katz

For thousands of years humans have enjoyed the taste and nutrition of fermented foods and drinks. We rely on the transformative, almost magical power of fermentation to preserve and improve all sorts of food, making them tastier, more digestible, and more appealing. Author Sandor Katz takes readers on a whirlwind trip through the wild world of fermentation. The book is divided into chapters that focus on... (more)

The New Ecological Home: A Complete Guide to Green Building Options (Chelsea Green Guides for Homeowners)

The New Ecological Home: A Complete Guide to Green Building Options (Chelsea Green Guides for Homeowners)

by Daniel D. Chiras

In this new comprehensive volume, Chiras includes chapters on green building materials, earth-sheltered architecture, passive solar heating and cooling, sustainable approaches to water and waste, energy efficiency, and environmental landscaping. He sets the record strait on the vast potential for passive heating and cooling and provides a resource guide, recommendations, and a green-building checklist.

Green Remodeling: Your Start toward an Eco-Friendly Home (Ultimate Guide)

Green Remodeling: Your Start toward an Eco-Friendly Home (Ultimate Guide)

by John D. Wagner

Ultimate Guide to Green Remodeling shows homeowners how they can take part in the "green" revolution through remodeling. Some of the topics covered include reducing home energy use, selecting nontoxic products, saving water, and supporting the environment through the use of products that support responsible manufacturing and the sustainable harvesting of natural resources.

Eco-Friendly Families

by Helen Coronato

Going green is a family affair… Parents and kids making the world a better place. Eco-friendliness has grown into a way of life across the country. Eco-Friendly Families is the perfect guide to raising a family with “green” values, whether they’re celebrating their first Earth Day or are old hands at recycling, eating organic, and carrying a cloth bag to the supermarket. Parents and children can all live by... (more)

Hot, Flat, and Crowded

Why We Need a Green Revolution - and How it Can Renew America

by Thomas L. Friedman

A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year A Washington Post Best Book of the Year A Businessweek Best Business Book of the Year A Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year In this brilliant, essential book, Thomas L. Friedman speaks to America’s need for national renewal, and explains how a green revolution is the only way to secure our children’s future. Global warming, rapidly... (more)

Natural Home Heating: The Complete Guide to Renewable Energy Options

Natural Home Heating: The Complete Guide to Renewable Energy Options

by Greg Pahl

Natural Home Heating is the first comprehensive guide to heating your home with renewable energy sources. Greg Pahl offers a well-organized, easy-to-understand tour of all available renewable home-heating options, including wood, pellet, corn and grain-fired stoves, fireplaces, furnaces and boilers as well as masonry heaters, active and passive solar systems, and heat pumps. Learn how to burn environmentally... (more)

How to Store Your Garden Produce

by Piers Warren

How to Store Your Garden Produce: The Key to Self-Sufficiency has been completely revised and is the modern guide to storing and preserving your garden produce, enabling you to eat home-grown goodness all year round. The easy-to-use reference section provides applicable storage and preservation techniques for the majority of plant produce grown commonly in home gardens. Why is storing your garden produce the key... (more)

Simple Prosperity: Finding Real Wealth in a Sustainable Lifestyle

Simple Prosperity: Finding Real Wealth in a Sustainable Lifestyle

by David Wann

In his bestseller Affluenza , David Wann and his co-authors diagnosed the debilitating disease of over-consumption. In Simple Prosperity he shows readers how we can overcome this disease by investing in a variety of real wealth sources. To recapture a more abundant and sustainable lifestyle, try: - Creating a richer life story through personal growth incentives - Forming higher-yield friendships and... (more)

Green Remodeling : Changing the World One Room at a Time

Green Remodeling : Changing the World One Room at a Time

by David Johnston

Whether because of changing lifestyles or simply because houses are becoming outdated, millions of North Americans are renovating their homes every year, spending more money annually on renovation than on new-home construction. But renovations can be fraught with unintended consequences like indoor air pollution. How do you remodel in a healthy, environmentally friendly way? Green Remodeling is a comprehensive... (more)

The Walls Around Us: The Thinking Person's Guide to How a House Works

The Walls Around Us: The Thinking Person's Guide to How a House Works

by David Owen

Anyone who's ever quailed at the thought of buying a two-by-four or suspected that his (or her) dwelling is breaking down out of spite will be charmed, educated and entertained by this delightful history and how-to of the house.

Natural Remodeling for the Not-So-Green House: Bringing Your Home into Harmony with Nature (Natural Home & Garden)

Natural Remodeling for the Not-So-Green House: Bringing Your Home into Harmony with Nature (Natural Home & Garden)

by Carol Venolia

This absolutely indispensable and lavishly photographed guide will become a cornerstone work for years to come. It redefines the best way to "go green" and addresses a timely topic in a way designed to appeal to a growing and eager audience. Completely user-friendly and filled with motivational case studies and informative graphics. Every page leads would-be remodellers through the process of understanding their... (more)

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

A Year of Food Life

by Barbara Kingsolver

Bestselling author Barbara Kingsolver returns with her first nonfiction narrative that will open your eyes in a hundred new ways to an old truth: You are what you eat. "As the U.S. population made an unprecedented mad dash for the Sun Belt, one carload of us paddled against the tide, heading for the Promised Land where water falls from the sky and green stuff grows all around. We were about to begin the... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: a sustainable home and lifestyle