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Sustained
Regular price $9.99 Save $-9.99Help Save Our Planet with Money-Saving Sustainable Tips for Your House
Households are among the biggest contributors to global greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Could the secrets of saving the environment (and money) be closer to home than we thought?
Looking for easy, budget-friendly ways to reduce your environmental impact and save money? Authored by award-winning environmental journalist, Candice Batista, Sustained takes you on an eye-opening journey towards sustainability and eco-friendly living─starting at home. This step-by-step, eco-living guide offers simple yet powerful ways to turn each room in your home into a hub of sustainability, while pocketing impressive savings every step of the way.
Small changes, big impact. Starting with a deep dive into how our actions at home impact the planet, Sustained offers a practical suite of never-before-seen tools and solutions to initiate the shift towards a greener lifestyle–without draining your time, energy, or budget.
Inside find:
- Eye-Opening Ideas: Explore green cleaning alternatives, ethical fashion brand recommendations, kitchen composting and waste management advice, laundry routine overhaul guidance, and more.
- Cleaner and Greener: Reduce your dependence on chemical products and single-use plastics, decipher cryptic food and fashion labels, shop like an eco-pro, and make room for a new lifestyle that’s kinder to you, your pocket, and the planet.
- Eco-Living Simplified: Going green doesn’t have to push your bank account into the red. Uncover tried-and-trusted tips for sustainable living, fresh recipe ideas, and up-to-date insights into top-rated biodegradable home products.
Environmentally conscious readers of sustainability books like Simply Living Well, The Backyard Homestead Bible, or Sustainable Minimalism, will love Candice Batista's Sustained.

The Art of Hutting
Regular price $17.99 Save $-17.99Living Off-the-Grid in Scotland
Don’t just experience Scottish history. Live it with The Art of Hutting, the essential beginner’s guide to sustainable living off the grid.
Experience Scotland like never before. The Land of the Brave has so much to see and offer, but nothing is more breathtaking than living in its natural beauty. So how does one live away from the cities of Scotland? Inspired by traditional and modern shelter techniques, hutting expert Peter MacQueen shares how to live off the grid in The Art of Hutting. Each chapter answers many your questions about local sustainable living, from the safest bushcraft tools to growing a bountiful garden for every season. That way, you can be prepared to create your forever home and make memories in the untamed heart of Scotland.
Create your own cozy Scottish hideaway. Along with learning the necessary outdoor skills to live off Scotland’s resources, this self-sufficient living book also shares how to create the hut of your dream. Off-grid living has never been cozier than with MacQueen’s hutting tips and tricks, from constructing the perfect eco-design to finding natural building materials. And with visual examples of local huts and cottages to choose from, you can create your next home with all the beauty and wonders the Scottish highlands and lowlands have to offer.
Inside The Art of Hutting, you’ll also find:
- Best locations for hut building
- How to create a wildlife garden made from Scotland’s natural vegetation
- Recommendations for fire-starter tools and firewood storage
If you liked books such as Thrive, Clansland Almanac, or Surviving the Wild, then you’ll love The Art of Hutting.

Holistic Homesteading
Regular price $9.99 Save $-9.99Learn to Live Holistically, Sustainably, and Intentionally
Make healthier life choices to heal yourself and the environment through self-sufficiency. The Happy Holistic Homestead by Roxanne Ahern provides the tools for living slowly, intentionally, and better through permaculture, edible gardening, and organic farming.
Live the Homestead Life. Ahern’s book guides new and seasoned homesteaders in improving personal and environmental health. The Happy Holistic Homestead is geared toward people who are interested in pursuing intentional lifestyles and organic farming methods. It is both for those who have access to land and those who are interested in retrofitting urban and suburban lifestyles and landscapes to shift towards sustainability.
Utilize Sustainable Organic Farming Techniques. Learn about permaculture design, holistic nutrition, and sustainable farming in rural and urban settings. The Happy Holistic Homestead covers how to use organic soil and zero chemicals to grow the best vegetables and fruits, responsible and humane animal husbandry that improves the ground and carbon sequestration, as well as the best canning and preserving techniques. Ahern also provides tips on safely foraging for flowers and mushrooms.
Read The Happy Holistic Homestead and learn:
- Permaculture practices that can be used in rural and urban spaces
- How to get the most out of your food through holistic nutrition
- The best techniques for canning and preserving your fruits and vegetables
- How to bake sourdough bread and how to create your own sourdough culture
If you enjoyed books such as The Modern Homestead Garden, The Encyclopedia of Country Living, and Beginner's Guide to Preserving, your next read should be The Happy Holistic Homestead.

So You Want to Be a Modern Homesteader?
Regular price $17.99 Save $-17.99The "look before you leap" guide to the joys and pitfalls of the rural good life.
Dreams of self-sufficiency, independence, and tranquility continue to pull in a new generation of modern homesteaders. While growing your own food and being in charge of your life is the source of much satisfaction, there are many challenges to living away from modern conveniences.
Written by an experienced modern homesteader who successfully made the leap, So You Want to Be a Modern Homesteader? offers an in-depth examination of what you need to consider before moving "back to the land." Drawing from a deep well of experience, this essential guide covers:
- Romance versus the reality of rural living
- Finding the right property
- Building versus bootstrapping
- Practical "must-have" skills
- Earning an income and farming on a budget
- Creating community
- Seasonal living
- Children and schooling
- Social media, the internet and rural life.
Whether you are dreaming of moving to the country for peace and an escape from the daily grind, to provide a different lifestyle for your children, or you're already long-established in the country, this complete and realistic guide is the essential resource to help you achieve success as a modern homesteader.

Essential Composting Toilets
Regular price $39.99 Save $-39.99From wastestream to mainstream, a practical guide to composting toilet systems.
Composting toilets are a key feature for local resilience, money saving, water conservation, resource recovery, septic system replacement, and an improved bathroom experience in rural and urban buildings.
Essential Composting Toilets is a streamlined manual that takes a practical, how-to approach to composting toilet system selection, design, installation, and operation, while meeting universal health and safety objectives. Drawing from existing regulations and research, this book dispels myths and provides tools to assess various systems. It includes:
- Easily-understood drawings, plans, and photos
- Coverage of all main composting toilet systems
- Selection criteria including site considerations, urine separation pros/cons, renovations/new builds, ventilation, servicing, and composting details
- Design and installation details.
Offering a professional approach accessible to DIYers, homeowners, designers, building consultants, water conservation advocates, and regulators, Essential Composting Toilets provides key information for redesigning toilet systems anywhere in the world.

Wearing Smaller Shoes
Regular price $16.99 Save $-16.99"This inspiring title offers many ways that readers can adopt a greener lifestyle without going overboard. Illustrated with photos, this is based on the author's own experiences. Insted of going cold turkey, there are many small lifestyle changes that will ultimately make a big difference." - Connie Krochmal, Bellaonline
You’ve been wondering how to reduce your eco-footprint but are intimidated by the idea that nothing less than installing solar panels and going off the grid will work. Nonsense—no need to be scared off by all that “green” noise. You have two goals: saving your money and saving resources—and you can do that by making quiet, gradual changes over time and still living your life the way you live it now.
This is not about ripping out all the offending objects in your house in one afternoon and upgrading with the latest in high-tech green toys. The author outlines how he and his wife first began making small changes around the house to save electricity. They cut their power bill in half. Then they moved to recycling and brought their garbage down to almost nothing. Chip Haynes walks the reader through every low-impact, low-tech solution—from power to recycling to shopping to transportation—with the important distinction that it won’t cost you more than you save. You can live light and go green the easy way, within your budget and stress-free. You really can.
Wearing Smaller Shoes is all about making small changes over time, and staying comfortable with everything you do. It’s about going green without having to brag about it. (But you could if you wanted to.)
Chip Haynes is a graphic artist and writer living in the center of suburbia in Pinellas County, Florida, with his wife, the lovely JoAnn.

Finding Community
Regular price $24.99 Save $-24.99Finding community is as critical as obtaining food and shelter, since the need to belong is what makes us human. The isolation and loneliness of modern life have led many people to search for deeper connection, which has resulted in a renewed interest in intentional communities. These intentional communities or ecovillages are an appealing choice for like-minded people who seek to create a family-oriented and ecologically sustainable lifestyle—a lifestyle they are unlikely to find anywhere else.
However, the notion of an intentional community can still be a tremendous leap for some—deterred perhaps by a misguided vision of eking out a hardscrabble existence with little reward. In fact, successful ecovillages thrive because of the combined skills and resources of their members.
Finding Community presents a thorough overview of ecovillages and intentional communities and offers solid advice on how to research thoroughly, visit thoughtfully, evaluate intelligently, and join gracefully. Useful considerations include:
• Important questions to ask (of members and of yourself)
• Signs of a healthy (and not-so-healthy) community
• Cost of joining (and staying)
• Common blunders to avoid
Finding Community provides intriguing possibilities to readers who are seeking a more cooperative, sustainable, and meaningful life.
Diana Leafe Christian is the author of Creating a Life Together and editor of Communities magazine. She lives at Earthhaven Ecovillage in North Carolina.

Food Security for the Faint of Heart
Regular price $16.99 Save $-16.99There are books you merely read. There are books you read, recommend to others and pass along. Then there are those books yu read, lay aside, jump to your feet, throw your hands in the air, and holler, "Yes!!" Food Security for the Faint of Heart is one of the latter.
Robin Wheeler has managed to extract logic from hysteria, package it with a strong environmental perspective, an abundance of practical suggestions and enough good humour to make this a must-have for every soul interested in surviving whatever natural disaster comes along.
Wheeler wastes no time in addressing the central theme of her book: Anything can happen so you better be prepared--and here's how. In her impressive list of "Good Things to Have in an Emergency", she catalogues essential items, including lesser touted items such as cooking oil and salt.
If Wheeler has done anything by writing this book, she's pulled thr proverbial rug from under our feet when it ocmes to excuses for not eating well through any disaster. Reviewed by Linda Wegner, Country LIfe in BC
Where would you find your groceries if your supermarket’s shelves were suddenly empty? The threat of earthquakes, trucker strikes, power outages, or a global market collapse makes us vulnerable like never before. With spiraling fuel prices and unstable world economies, individuals and communities are demanding more control over their food supply.
Food Security for the Faint of Heart is designed to gently ease readers into a more empowered place so that shocks to our food supply can be handled confidently. As well as acquiring new skills and ideas, there are other compelling reasons to get better prepared. The local economy gains support and encouragement to expand, in turn boosting food’s taste and nutritional value, along with the health of people and ecosystems. Community support helps low-income families eat higher quality food, and the preparation provides a psychological edge in an emergency.
Chapters are devoted to useful, transferable skills, including:
- Preserving garden food
- Saving freezer food during a power outage
- Managing through an earthquake
- Preparing quick herbal medicinals
- Foraging for wild food
A humorous treatment of a sometimes threatening topic, this book will appeal to both long-time food security advocates and newcomers to the topic who are wary of it all and would prefer to avoid it.
Robin Wheeler teaches traditional skills, sustenance gardening, and medicinals at Edible Landscapes (www.ediblelandscapes.ca), a nursery and teaching garden in Roberts Creek, British Columbia. She is also the author of Gardening for the Faint of Heart (New Catalyst Books).

Essential Natural Plasters
Regular price $39.99 Save $-39.99A veritable cookbook of natural plaster recipes and techniques for beautiful, durable finishes
Natural plasters made of clay, lime, and other materials mixed with sand are beautiful building finishes. Fun to work with, low-impact, and allowing infinite creativity, they are high performance and provide proven, centuries-long durability.
Yet until now there's been no resource that has pulled together the best North American plaster recipes and how-to into one place. Essential Natural Plasters covers it all:
- Sourcing and selecting materials, including site-soils
- Clay, lime, and gypsum plasters as well as fibers and amendments
- Interior and exterior use and specialty plasters such as tadelakt for bathrooms
- Preparing substrates, from straw bales and cob to lath and Sheetrock
- How to set up a safe, efficient worksite
- Mixing, testing, tinting, repairing, and applying plasters
- Coveted recipes from leading plasterers in Ontario, Vermont, New Mexico, France, and New Zealand.
Richly illustrated and deeply researched, Essential Natural Plasters is the must-have resource for owner-builders and professionals alike.

Essential Cordwood Building
Regular price $39.99 Save $-39.99Cordwood construction - log-ends set in insulated mortar - is a versatile, economical, low-impact, and beautiful building method. Its durability and performance has been proven in beautiful, centuries-old buildings in North America and Europe.
Yet until now, there has been no trusted, practical guide to cordwood construction using the material in a wide variety of construction projects.
Distilling decades of experience and best practices, Essential Cordwood Building is the first fully illustrated, step-by-step guide to cordwood building. Ideal for the DIYer and professional designer and builder alike, it covers:
- Wood species selection, log-end length, and seasoning
- Cement, lime putty, and cob mortar options
- Wall cavity insulation options
- Budgeting and estimating
- Highly illustrated, step-by-step building techniques
- Window and door frame installation
- Pointing and chinking, finishing, and plastering
- Special designs and decorative features
- Code references, compliance, building science, and best practices
- Troubleshooting and maintenance

The Carbon Buster's Home Energy Handbook
Regular price $12.99 Save $-12.99The first book in North America to provide a detailed carbon accounting of a family’s carbon emissions and how to reduce them, it systematically analyzes energy costs and evaluates which measures yield the highest returns for the environment and the pocketbook. It provides answers to questions such as:
* Which measure is more effective: putting solar panels on your roof or buying a hybrid car?
* Where do I need to invest first: in high-efficiency shower heads or solar tubes?
* Is a $500 fridge that uses 800 kWh of power per year a good buy?
The book allows individuals to quickly and accurately assess which products are a good deal and which aren’t. It systematically analyzes residential carbon emissions and energy costs and prioritizes solutions based on highest carbon reductions and monetary returns, yielding results that are often surprising. The book enables readers to dramatically reduce their carbon emissionsfar below the levels targeted under the Kyoto Protocol. At the same time, readers implementing the recommendations will save an average of $15,000 in energy costs over the next five years.

Choosing Green
Regular price $19.99 Save $-19.99I find Choosing Green incredibly insightful and chock full of insider's experience. This is the kind of book that will help homebuyers cut to the chase and leap frog the poseurs towards legitimate green home living.
I think Choosing Green would also be helpful to builders that are trying to green their business. Building green, as Yudelson discusses in the book, is the hottest trend in the building industry, but you have to know how to do so in the best, most effective way. So if you're looking for a thorough guide to good green homes, make sure to pick up a copy of Choosing Green.
Reviewed by Preston D K, Jetson Green
Energy-efficient, non-toxic, healthy homes are the hottest trend in the building industry. Homebuilders are constructing green homes in astonishing numbers—nearly 200,000 in the United States alone in 2006.
How does a home buyer who wants a green home know what to look for, what questions to ask a builder, which green home rating systems to trust, and what homes are on the market? Nationally recognized green-building expert Jerry Yudelson provides answers to some common areas of concern, including:
- Energy-efficient home features
- Water conservation fixtures
- Non-toxic finishes
- Green products
- Healthy indoor air
Drawing from the expertise of dozens of homebuilders, government officials, and green home experts, Choosing Green deftly takes the reader through these considerations with easy-to-use tables, charts, maps, score sheets, and checklists.
The book includes a glossary of green building terms, an extensive resource section, and a list of homebuilders, green rating programs, and financial incentives. This comprehensive book provides home buyers with every thing they will need to make a successful search for their own green home.
Jerry Yudelson is the president of Yudelson Associates, green building consultants. He has trained over 3,000 people in the LEED green building rating system. He chairs Greenbuild, the world’s largest green building conference, and has written six books on green building, including Green Building A to Z (New Society Publishers).

Bokashi Composting
Regular price $21.99 Save $-21.99The safe, clean, and convenient way to compost all your food scraps.
Bokashi is Japanese for "fermented organic matter." Bokashi composting is a safe, quick, and convenient way to compost in your kitchen, garage, or apartment, using a specific group of microorganisms to anaerobically ferment all food waste (including meat and dairy). Since the process takes place in a closed system, insects and smell are controlled, making it ideal for urban or business settings. The process is very fast, with compost usually ready to be integrated into your soil or garden in around two weeks.
While bokashi has enjoyed great popularity in many parts of the world, it is still relatively unknown in North America. From scraps to soil, Bokashi Composting is the complete, step-by-step, do-it-yourself guide to this amazing process, with comprehensive information covering:
- Background-the history, development and scientific basis of the technique
- Getting started-composting with commercially available products or homemade systems
- Making your own-system plans and bokashi bran recipes using common materials and locally sourced ingredients
- Growing-improving your soil with fermented compost and bokashi juice.
This essential guide is a must-read for gardeners, homeowners, apartment dwellers, traditional composters, and anyone who wants a safe, simple, and convenient way to keep kitchen waste out of the landfill.

Stepping Lightly
Regular price $17.99 Save $-17.99
Power from the Sun - 2nd Edition
Regular price $29.95 Save $-29.95The completely revised and updated guide to solar energy – everything you need to power your home or small business
Written for the individual or business layman, this is the fully revised and updated guide for generating solar electricity. Practical and accessible, it provides a basic understanding of electricity, wiring, and solar energy, and guides the reader through solar electricity site assessment and determining the type of solar system needed for generating solar electricity, providing a solid understanding of grid-tied and off-grid systems, along with important guidelines on installation.
Power from the Sun – 2nd Edition discusses types of photovoltaic and photovoltaic solar energy systems, and includes comprehensive information on recent changes and improvements in PV modules, charge controllers, inverters, batteries, generators, and net metering policies. It offers an excellent overview of the many options available as a guide for generating solar electricity, allowing the reader to make the best choices for their individual situation during the design, installation, and operation of a solar energy system. The definitive layman’s guide for homeowners, business owners, installers, architects, and just about anyone interested in generating solar electricity to lower energy bills and achieve greater independence through solar energy.
Dan Chiras is Director of the Center for Renewable Energy and Green building through which he teaches workshops on solar electricity, wind energy, passive solar design, natural building, and green building. He is also president of Sustainable Systems Design, Inc., a company that installs residential solar electricity and wind energy systems and consults on passive solar design, residential renewable energy, and green building throughout North America. Dan is the author of 32 previous books, including The Homeowner's Guide to Renewable Energy and Power from the Wind .

Craft Distilling
Regular price $24.95 Save $-24.95How to distill your own premium alcohol safely and legally.
Many people have experienced great success making their own beer or wine at home. In recent years a number of hobbyists have become interested in making distilled spirits. However, distilled spirits are more complicated to produce, and the process presents unique safety issues. In addition, alcohol distillation without a license is illegal in most countries, including the United States and Canada.
From mashing and fermenting to building a small column still, Craft Distilling is a complete guide to creating high-quality whiskey, rum and more at home. Experienced brewer, distiller and self-reliance expert Victoria Redhed Miller shares a wealth of invaluable information including:
- Quality Spirits 101: Step-by-step recipes and techniques
- Legal Liquor: An overview of the licensing process in the U.S. and Canada
- Raising the Bar: Advocacy for fair regulations for hobby distillers.
This unique resource will show you everything you need to know to get started crafting top-quality spirits on a small scale-and do it legally. Sure to appeal to hobbyists, homesteaders, self-sufficiency enthusiasts, and anyone who cares about fine food and drink, Craft Distilling is the ideal offering for independent spirits.

Green Restorations
Regular price $37.95 Save $-37.95 Some 40 percent of North Americans live in homes built prior to 1940, and when it comes time to remodel or restore our older homes, homeowners and contractors can find themselves lost in a morass of wildly divergent information and opinion. With Green Restorations , author Aaron Lubeck brings his expertise as a restoration contractor and preservation consultant to this first-of-its-kind guide, leading the reader through the steps for restoring historic building using sustainable practices and green building techniques.
In a readily accessible room-by-room and system-by-system format, Green Restorations covers rehabilitation and remodelling questions applicable to old homes, focusing on the core techniques and debates often seen in practice. Here you'll find the answers to restoration questions, such as:
- Is sealing my old crawl space a good idea?
- Should I replace or rehabilitate my windows?
- Are there historic aspects of my home I need to preserve and what can I change?
- What are the cultural, environmental and financial implications of my proposed changes?
- Do residential historic tax credits apply to my home and how can I access them?

Cordwood Building
Regular price $29.95 Save $-29.95Dreamers, owner-builders, natural and sustainable building contractors, modern homesteaders
Cordwood construction - log-ends set in insulated mortar - is a versatile, economical, low-impact, and beautiful building method. And while cordwood construction’s durability and performance has been proven in beautiful, centuries-old buildings in North America and Europe, there has been no trusted, practical and comprehensive book on cordwood construction methods using cordwood in a wide variety of cordwood masonry construction projects.
Distilling decades of experience, best practices, and innovations in cordwood construction, Essential Cordwood Building is the first fully illustrated, step-by-step comprehensive book on cordwood construction. Ideal for the DIYer, professional designer, and builder alike, this comprehensive book on cordwood construction covers:
- Wood species selection, log-end length, and seasoning
- New mortar options such as cement, lime putty, and cob mortar
- Wall cavity insulation options
- Budgeting and estimating for your cordwood construction
- Highly illustrated, step-by-step cordwood masonry construction methods and techniques
- Window and door frame installation
- Painting and chinking, finishing, and plastering your cordwood construction
- Special designs and decorative features
- Code references, code compliance, building science, and best practices for cordwood masonry construction methods
- Troubleshooting and maintenance.
Written by the world's leading sustainable builders, designers, and engineers, these succinct, user-friendly handbooks are indispensable tools for any project where accurate and reliable information is key to success. GET THE ESSENTIALS!
Rob Roy is widely recognized as a world leading authority on cordwood masonry construction methods. Rob has authored and edited 15 books including Cordwood Building and Stoneview . He lives in West Chazy, New York.

Backyard Biodiesel
Regular price $24.95 Save $-24.95Make your own fuel, for a fraction of what you would pay at the pump.
Small-scale home biodiesel production holds a singular attraction for the do-it-yourself enthusiast. While perhaps it can't save the world, this unique renewable fuel is economical, fun to make, better for the environment, and will help you reduce your dependence on Big Oil. And getting started is easier than you think.
Backyard Biodiesel is written by two recognized experts in the field of small-scale biofuels. This comprehensive hands-on, practical, DIY guide includes:
- The basics of small-scale brewing-recipes, strategies, and technologies
- Advanced backyard analytics and troubleshooting
- Safety considerations and regulatory issues
- Topping up the tank-how to put your biodiesel to work for you.
Making your own fuel is not only possible, it is rewarding. Designed to be accessible to everyone from readers with no prior technical expertise to alternative energy buffs, Backyard Biodiesel is a must-read for any aspiring brewer, packed with everything you need to get up and running quickly and safely.

Timber Framing for the Rest of Us
Regular price $29.99 Save $-29.99All those of us without traditional skills need to know to build with timber framing
Many natural building methods rely upon the use of post and beam frame structures that are then in-filled with straw, cob, cordwood, or more conventional wall materials. But traditional timber framing employs the use of finely crafted jointing and wooden pegs, requiring a high degree of craftsmanship and training, as well as much time and expense. However, there is another way...
Timber Framing for the Rest of Us describes the timber framing methods used by most contractors, farmers, and owner-builders, methods that use modern metal fasteners, special screws, and common sense building principles to accomplish the same goal in much less time. And while there are many good books on traditional timber framing, this is the first to describe in depth these more common fastening methods. The book includes everything an owner-builder needs to know about building strong and beautiful structural frames from heavy timbers, including:
- the historical background of timber framing
- crucial design and structural considerations
- procuring timbers-including different woods, and recycled materials
- foundations, roofs, and in-filling consdierations
- the common fasteners.
A detailed case study of a timber frame project from start to finish completes this practical and comprehensive guide, along with a useful appendix of span tables and a bibliography.
Highly illustrated, this book enables 'the rest of us' to build like the professionals and will appeal to owner-builders, contractors and architects alike.

Better
Regular price $18.95 Save $-18.95Intellectual arguments alone will not sway the dominant paradigm; to be motivated to create change, people must be moved. Art has the power to inform, influence, and inspire. The creative impulse can, quite literally, change the world.
Better explores the intersection of sustainability and art, showing how each of us can reinvent our lives as our greatest artistic achievement. Presented in the context of the unique story of Better Farm, a blueprint for environmentally conscious living originally established as an intentional community, this unusual guide blends theory with practical, hands-on, DIY ideas to incite your own creative adventures, including:
- Upcycling trash into treasure
- Turning your fish tank into a garden
- Making your yard or balcony a work of art.
Better is a concrete application of the Better Theory, which views every experience-good or bad-as an opportunity for exponential personal growth. Packed with life lessons and tips for making any lifestyle more sustainable, while drawing on everyone's inherent creativity, this unique book provides the inspiration to live more simply, take more chances, and engage more with the natural world. A must-read for anyone who questions the purpose of the daily grind or grapples with the need for more meaning in his or her life.

Surviving the Apocalypse in the Suburbs
Regular price $19.99 Save $-19.99
Consumer Guide to Home Energy Savings-10th Edition
Regular price $18.95 Save $-18.95The most complete and up-to-date guide available to energy savings in the home .
Increasing the energy efficiency of your home can save you money, help the environment, and enhance your comfort, but how do you decide which improvements are the most beneficial and cost-effective? Completely revised to incorporate the latest developments in green technology, The Consumer Guide to Home Energy Savings is the definitive resource for consumers who want to better their home's performance while reducing their energy bills.
Well-organized and highly readable, The Consumer Guide to Home Energy Savings begins with an overview of the relationships between energy use, economics and the environment. Updated and expanded chapters focus on specific aspects of any home, such as heating and cooling, ventilation, electronics, lighting, cooking and laundry, and provide helpful explanations for each, including:
- Energy use characteristics
- Comparisons between available technologies
- Cost-effective repair and replacement options
- Step-by-step guidance for finding the right equipment.
This comprehensive resource is packed with tips on improving existing equipment and guidance for when and why to invest in new purchases, as well as a reminder to check local government and utilities for purchase or retrofit grants or incentives. It is a must-read for anyone concerned about reducing both their energy bills and their environmental impact.

Green Building A to Z
Regular price $18.95 Save $-18.95Green building is the fastest-growing trend to hit since the Internet, bringing with it an enormous range of new products, systems and technologies. Green Building A to Z is an informative, technically accurate and highly visual guide to green building, for both decision-makers and interested citizens. It begins with an introduction to the importance of green buildings and a brief history of the green building movement, outlines the benefits and costs of green buildings, and shows how you can influence the spread of green buildings. The book touches on key issues, such as enhancing water conservation, reducing energy use and creating a conservation economy.
Green Building A to Z examines all aspects of green buildings from:
- Architecture 2030 to
- Locally sourced materials to
- Natural ventilation to
- Solar energy to
- Zero-net energy buildings
More than just a reference, this book emphasizes the importance of green buildings and green developments for a sustainable future. It will be an invaluable resource for businesspeople, homeowners, product manufacturers, developers, building industry professionals and government officials.

Energy-Wise Landscape Design
Regular price $29.95 Save $-29.95An inspiring instructional handbook for transforming idealism into social change
The pursuit of freedom and justice is a timeless one, but new activists may not know where to begin, while more experienced ones often become jaded or fatigued. The task of constructing a new society, free from oppression and inequality, can be overwhelming. Tools for facilitating motivation, engagement, and communication can mean the difference between failure and success for activists and social movements.
Educating for Action collects the voices of activists whose combined experience in confronting injustice has generated a wealth of key insights for creating social change. This practical guide explores such topics as:
- Community activism and direct democracy
- Conflict negotiation, communication, and rhetoric
- Law, the educational system, and lifestyle activism
- Social media skills, conference planning, and online organizing
Written in an inspirational tone, Educating for Action consciously straddles the line between street activism and classroom instruction. Bridging the gap between these two worlds makes for an engaging and instructive manual for social justice, helping students, teachers, and larger activist communities turn their idealism into action.
Jason Del Gandio is a scholar-activist and assistant professor of rhetoric and public advocacy at Temple University. He is the author of Rhetoric for Radicals: A Handbook for 21st Century Activists .
Anthony J. Nocella II is a scholar-activist and senior fellow of the Dispute Resolution Institute at the Hamline Law School. He is a long-time anti-racism, youth justice, prison abolition, hip hop, animal, disability, and Earth liberation activist and has published over fifty scholarly articles and book chapters and sixteen books.

Depletion & Abundance
Regular price $18.99 Save $-18.99Why are so few peak oil authors women? There's been much debate about this, and no one has yet arrived at a definitive answer. But whatever the reason, Sharon Astyk has established herself as a true rarity within the peak oil community by virtue of being a woman who has chosen to write about peak oil. The perspective she offers is thus both uncommon and vital.
In Depletion and Abundance, she shows how rewarding life on her New Home Front could be, immeasureably improving our health, nutrition, sense of community and overall well-being. Chief among its benefits would be all the extra time that we'd have. She points out that people in medieval times worked far fewer hours than Americans do today, and that most people in modern-day peasant societies also work less hard than we do.
This, along with Astyk's unique perspective as a woman, a mother and a peak oil activist, makes Depleiton and Abundance well worth a read. The ring of authenticity to her writing will hook you - while its relaxed style, ineffable humor, personal anecdotes and comforting touch will soothe your melancholy peaknik soul like a warm hand on the shoulder.
Reviewed by Frank Kaminski, Energy Bulletin
Sharon's introduction is pricelss in its succinct, dead-on analysis of collapse, and is reason enough to buy and send this book to everyone you know who is partially or completely clueless about where we're headed. "When I realized that everything was going to change, I was at first afraid. Because I thought, if my government or public policy or other choices weren't going to fix everything, what could I possibly do? What hope was there, if I had to take care of myself, if my community had to take care of itself?
But when I began looking for solutions that could be applied on the level of ordinary human lives, that involved changes in perspectives and pulling together, the reclamation of abandoned ideas and the restoration of strong communitites, I began to feel hopeful, even excited. Because I realized that when large institutions cease to be powerful, sometimes that means that people start being powerful again."
Depletion and Abundance is not a feel-good book, but it is intensely human, compassionate, supportive, pracitcal, alarming, enlivening, and astonishingly accurate.
Reviewed by Carolyn Baker, Carolynbaker.net
Climate change, peak oil, and economic instability aren’t just future social problemsthey jeopardize our homes and families right now.Our once-abundant food supply is being threatened by toxic chemical agriculture, rising food prices and crop shortages brought on by climate change. Funding for education and health care is strained to the limit, and safe and affordable housing is disappearing.
Depletion and Abundance explains how we are living beyond our means with or without a peak oil/climate change crisis and that, either way, we must learn to place our families and local communities at the center of our thinking once again. The author presents strategies to create stronger homes, better health and a richer family life and to:
*live comfortably with an uncertain energy supply
*prepare children for a hotter, lower energy, less secure world
*survive and thrive in an economy in crisis, and
*maintain a kitchen garden to supply basic food needs.
Most importantly, readers will discover that depletion can lead to abundance, and the anxiety of these uncertain times can be turned into a gift of hope and action.
An unusual family perspective on the topic, this book will appeal to all those interested in securing a future for their children and grandchildren.

The Permaculture Handbook
Regular price $49.99 Save $-49.99Permanent agriculture - abundance by design
"The wealth of practical knowledge in The Permaculture Handbook is a welcome addition to North America's canon of books on permaculture design, and will serve other regions as well. Peter Bane's broad and well-tested experience in ecological living will guide homeowners, gardeners, and small farmers toward designing and living in lushly productive and harmonious landscapes."
― Toby Hemenway, author of Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture
The Permaculture Handbook is a step-by-step, beautifully illustrated guide to creating resilient and prosperous households and neighborhoods, complemented by extensive case studies of three successful farmsteads and market gardens. This comprehensive manual casts garden farming as both an economic opportunity and a strategy for living well with less money. It shows how, by mimicking the intelligence of nature and applying appropriate technologies such as solar and environmental design, permaculture can:
- Create an abundance of fresh, nourishing local produce
- Reduce dependence on expensive, polluting fossil fuels
- Drought-proof our cities and countryside
- Convert waste into wealth
Permaculture is about working with the earth and with each other to repair the damage of industrial overreach and to enrich the living world that sustains us. The Permaculture Handbook is the definitive, practical North American guide to this revolutionary practice, and is a must-read for anyone concerned about creating food security, resilience and a legacy of abundance rather than depletion.

Less is More
Regular price $16.95 Save $-16.95Less stuff, less stress - more freedom, more joy.
Our obsessive pursuit of wealth isn't working-people are afraid and anxious; we're destroying the planet, undermining happiness, and clinging to an unsustainable economy.
But there's another way. Less can be More. Throughout history wise people have argued that we need to live more simply-that only by limiting outer wealth can we have inner wealth. Less is More is a compelling collection of essays by people who have been writing about Simplicity for decades -including Jim Merkel, Bill McKibben, Duane Elgin, Juliet Schor, Ernest Callenbach, John de Graaf, and more. They bring us a new vision of Less: less stuff, less work, less stress, less debt. A life with Less becomes a life of More: more time, more satisfaction, more balance, more security.
When we have too much, we savor nothing. When we choose less, we regain our life and can think and feel deeply. Ultimately, a life of less connects us with one true source of happiness: being part of a caring community. Less is More shows how to turn individual change into a movement that leads to policy changes in government and corporate behavior, work hours, the wealth gap and sustainability. It will appeal to those who want to take back their lives, their planet and their well-being.

A Kind Life
Regular price $16.95 Save $-16.95"A Kind Life takes readers on a personal journey, laying a pathway of how to live more kindly on the earth"—Keegan Kuhn, co-director of Cowspiracy
What does it mean to live a kind life? In this inspiring book, a mother-of-two provides a blueprint for how she and her family adopted a sustainable, plant-based lifestyle, sharing the eye-opening facts that convinced her they needed to make a change.
Carina Wohlleben grew up at nature’s doorstep, in a mountain lodge surrounded by forests and fields where her family grew vegetables and raised animals. Her father, the forester and bestselling author of The Hidden Life of Trees, taught her about the value of wilderness and the importance of preserving nature for everyone.
But it wasn’t until she was a new mom that she had an epiphany about how her own daily habits were connected to the ecological crisis we are facing and the importance of living sustainably.
After learning that we can reduce our environmental footprint by 25 percent simply by forgoing animal products, she transformed her life, adopting a vegan diet, rethinking all her travel and consumption choices, and rediscovering her connection to nature.
Carina writes candidly about the challenges of making this transition as well as the health benefits she and her family noticed after cutting out animal products. She also addresses issues such as unsustainable agriculture and forestry practices, the environmental impact of our transportation and shopping choices, and how slowing down and making do with less is not only better for the planet but improves our own sense of belonging in nature.
Carina's account of balancing motherhood with environmental choices is interspersed with profiles of young people around the world who are making a difference. This book is a must-read for anyone who is considering a change, and anyone who believes it’s not too late to save the planet.

Our Little Farm
Regular price $24.95 Save $-24.95From Peter Wohlleben, the New York Times-bestselling author of The Hidden Life of Trees, and his wife, Miriam, comes an inspired, practical memoir of creating a sustainable homestead amongst the trees.
Called "a veritable tree whisperer" by the Wall Street Journal, Peter Wohlleben is known across the world for his illuminating books about forests and how to help them thrive. Now, the German forester invites readers into his home for the first time in Our Little Farm, describing the steps he and his wife, Miriam, have taken to live sustainably and in harmony with nature.
Peter and Miriam moved from the city to a remote forest lodge in the early nineties. Amidst juggling careers and raising a young family, they learned how to plant and rotate crops, harvest and preserve nature's bounty, and tend to the unique needs of their animals and environment. Along the way, they made mistakes and abandoned some projects (sheep raising was not their thing) but maintained a sense of joy in their shared goal.
Brimming with insights, wisdom, and tips on everything from constructing farm buildings to choosing the perfect chicken, Our Little Farm shows that, with a little grit, humor, and self-compassion, it's possible to live according to our values and to care for the earth even as we care for ourselves, our homes, and our families.
Published in partnership with the David Suzuki Institute.

Just Enough
Regular price $14.95 Save $-14.95How the mindset of traditional Japanese society can guide our own efforts to lead a green lifestyle today.
If we want to live sustainably, how should we feel about nature? About waste? About our forests and rivers? About food? Just Enough is a book of stories and sketches that give valuable insight into what it is like to live in a sustainable society by describing life in Japan some two hundred years ago, during the late Edo period, when cities and villages faced many of the same environmental challenges we do today and met them beautifully and inventively.
