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Making your life greener - one bite at a time.

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia

by Elizabeth Gilbert

Elizabeth Gilbert tells how she made the difficult choice to leave behind all the trappings of modern American success (marriage, house in the country, career) and find, instead, what she truly wanted from life. Setting out for a year to study three different aspects of her nature amid three different cultures, Gilbert explored the art of pleasure in Italy and the art of devotion in India, and then a balance between the two on the Indonesian island of Bali. By turns rapturous and rueful, this wise and funny author (whom "Booklist" calls aAnne Lamottas hip, yoga- practicing, footloose younger sistera) is poised to garner yet more adoring fans.

Emotionally wrung-out from her divorce, the painful ending of a subsequent love affair, and a general, long-standing feeling of malaise, novelist and journalist Elizabeth Gilbert decides to recharge herself through a year's worth of travel, believing that her return to happiness could be found through exploring both physical gratification and spiritual peace and then determining an appropriate balance between the two. She pursues the first part of her program (eating, drinking, and talking) in Italy, the second in India (joining an ashram), and the third in Bali (studying with a medicine man).

An earth without people

Alan Weisman is author of five books, including The World without Us (St. Martin’s Press, 2007). His work has appeared in Harpers, the New York Times Magazine, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, Discover, the Atlantic Monthly, Condé Nast Traveler, Orion and Mother Jones. Weisman has been heard on National Public Radio and Public Radio International and is a senior producer at Homelands Productions, a journalism collective that produces independent public radio documentary series. He teaches international journalism at the University of Arizona.

It’s a common fantasy to imagine that you’re the last person left alive on earth. But what if all human beings were suddenly whisked off the planet? That premise is the starting point for The World without Us, a new book by science writer Alan Weisman. In this extended thought experiment, Weisman does not specify exactly what finishes off Homo sapiens; instead he simply assumes the abrupt disappearance of our species and projects the sequence of events that would most likely occur in the years, decades and centuries afterward.

According to Weisman, large parts of our physical infrastructure would begin to crumble almost immediately. Without street cleaners and road crews, our grand boulevards and superhighways would start to crack and buckle in a matter of months. Over the following decades many houses and office buildings would collapse, but some ordinary items would resist decay for an extraordinarily long time. Stainless-steel pots, for example, could last for millennia, especially if they were buried in the weed-covered mounds that used to be our kitchens. And certain common plastics might remain intact for hundreds of thousands of years; they would not break down until microbes evolved the ability to consume them.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=an-earth-without-people&modsrc=most_popula

Food to Live By: The Earthbound Farm Organic Cookbook (Earthbound Farm Organic Cookbk) (Paperback)
by Myra Goodman (Author), Linda Holland (Author), Pamela McKinstry (Author)

This is not just another cook book, it is a green book with great practical info to live by.

ANTARTICA; THE GLOBAL WARMING By Sebastian Copeland (The Five Mile Press, RRP $75).

Despite the recent loss of ice mass, an incredible 90% of the world's fresh water is still locked away in the continent's glaciers - a vast frozen dam that, as polar melting continues, has the potential to raise ocean levels by up to 60 metres and displace up to 80% of the planet's population before your grandchildren are out of nappies.

So it's just as well photographer Sebastian Copeland has captured this vanishing treasure in haunting images.

An award winning photographer, Copeland also serves on the board of directors of Global green USA - an environmental organisation committed to slowing global climate change. Noted for his celebrity portraiture, he left behind a successful career as a television commercial director to embrace his dual passions of photography and the environment.

This book is definetely a 'keeper'.

Eco-Friendly Families (Paperback)
by Helen Coronato (Author)

Eco-Friendly Families is filled with many simple tips, such as watering your houseplants with rainwater and hosting a neighborhood toy swap, as well as explains the bigger issues and how our actions affect them. By targeting families, this guide helps families raise the next generation with green values. Saving the planet is a family affair!

This guide begins by asking families to take inventory of their current lives, then demonstrates how small changes bring big results. Families are assisted with setting green goals and led through the three Rs: reduce, reuse, recycle. Suggestions for doing an eco-remodel on the home, eating green, and cleaning green are followed with ideas for green holidays and travel.

The Good Giving Guide by Lyn Amy & Mary Pearce.Penguin

While 87% of Australians gave to charity,the majority of us have to be asked first. Consider this your official written invitation to a life of quiet philanthropy, complete with fascinating insigts into the lives of those most in need.