Best of
Earth

2018

Dirt to Soil: One Family's Journey Into Regenerative Agriculture


Gabe Brown - 2018
    But as a series of weather-related crop disasters put Brown and his wife, Shelly, in desperate financial straits, they started making bold changes to their farm. Brown--in an effort to simply survive--began experimenting with new practices he'd learned about from reading and talking with innovative researchers and ranchers. As he and his family struggled to keep the farm viable, they found themselves on an amazing journey into a new type of farming: regenerative agriculture.

Birds of the Photo Ark


Joel Sartore - 2018
    It includes hundreds of species, from tiny finches to charismatic eagles; brilliant toucans, intricate birds of paradise, and perennial favorites such as parrots, hummingbirds, and owls also make colorful appearances. Everyone who cares about birds--from the family with a bird feeder outside the kitchen window to the serious birder with a life list of thousands--will flock to this distinctive and uplifting book.

Waste Not


Erin Rhoads - 2018
    Shrink-wrapped vegies, disposable coffee cups, clothes and electronics designed to be upgraded every year: we are surrounded by stuff that we often use once and then throw away. Each year Australian households produce enough rubbish to fill a three-bedroom home, including thousands of dollars worth of food and an ever-increasing amount of plastic, which takes hundreds of years to break down and often ends up in our oceans or our food chain. But what to do about such a huge problem? Is it just the price we pay for the conveniences of modern life? What if it were possible to have it both ways – to live a modern life with less waste? That’s where Erin Rhoads, aka The Rogue Ginger, comes in. Erin went from eating plastic-packaged takeaway while shopping online for fast fashion, to becoming one of Australia’s most popular eco-bloggers. Erin knows that small changes can have a big impact. In Waste Notshe shares everything she’s learnt from her own funny, inspiring – and far-from-perfect – journey to living with less waste.

Make Ink: A Forager's Guide to Natural Inkmaking


Jason Logan - 2018
    In Make Ink, Logan delves into the history of inkmaking and the science of distilling pigment from the natural world. Readers will learn how to forage for materials such as soot, rust, cigarette butts, peach pits, and black walnut, then how to mix, test, and transform these ingredients into rich, vibrant inks that are sensitive to both place and environment. Organized by color, and featuring lovely minimalist photography throughout, Make Ink combines science, art, and craft to instill the basics of ink making and demonstrate the beauty and necessity of engaging with one of mankind’s oldest tools of communication.

Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World


A.J. Swoboda - 2018
    This tired system of "life" ultimately destroys our souls, our bodies, our relationships, our society, and the rest of God's creation. The whole world grows exhausted because humanity has forgotten to enter into God's rest.This book pioneers a creative path to an alternative way of existing. Combining creative storytelling, pastoral sensitivity, practical insight, and relevant academic research, Subversive Sabbath offers a unique invitation to personal Sabbath-keeping that leads to fuller and more joyful lives. A. J. Swoboda demonstrates that Sabbath is both a spiritual discipline and a form of social justice, connects Sabbath-keeping to local communities, and explains how God may actually do more when we do less. He shows that the biblical practice of Sabbath-keeping is God's plan for the restoration and healing of all creation. The book includes a foreword by Matthew Sleeth.

Thank You, Earth: A Love Letter to Our Planet


April Pulley Sayre - 2018
    Water, air, light.Patterns, curves, shapes, colors.Things that crawl, fly, float, run, bloom, ripen. Think of everything Earth gives us.What are you most thankful for?

Flower Color Guide


Darroch Putnam - 2018
    To help you find what you are looking for, Flower Color Guide is the first reference book to organize flower types by color, with an emphasis on seasonality and creative color schemes - and the results are stunning in their sheer variety. What Pantone is to color, Flower Color Guide is to flowers.Showcasing 400 flowers at their peak, with stunning photography taken by Putnam & Putnam in their Brooklyn studio, this guide includes an appendix featuring perforated pages, with tips on flower care, notes on how to prepare vessels and a list of suggested color schemes. A great gift to give, or to have for oneself, the book speaks to the most seasoned flower enthusiasts as well as those just beginning to explore the possibilities of arranging flowers.Michael and Darroch Putnam have built a reputation for romantic, dramatic floral arrangements and installations using color as their guiding principle - here, they share their knowledge with readers worldwide: "This is the book we wished we had when we started doing flowers."

Spring After Spring: How Rachel Carson Inspired the Environmental Movement


Stephanie Roth Sisson - 2018
    Spring after spring, year after year, she observed how all living things are connected. And as an adult, Rachel watched and listened as the natural world she loved so much began to fall silent. Spring After Spring traces Rachel’s journey as scientist and writer, speaking truth to an often hostile world through her book, and ultimately paving the way for the modern environmental movement.

The Skies Above My Eyes


Charlotte Gullain - 2018
    Zoom past the technology that fills our skies, from helicopters, fighter jets, weather balloons, to satellites, hang-gliders, and hot-air balloons. Discover the insects and animals that whizz through the skies, explore the layers of the atmosphere, and travel through the solar system and out to the galaxies far beyond. The follow up to The Street Beneath My Feet, which dug down to the center of the Earth, this expansive concertina book opens out to an impressive length of over 8 feet, perfect for inquisitive young minds. Begin your journey from the sidewalk of a busy city. Look up beyond the traffic lights, utility wires, and skyscrapers. Unfold the connected pages to reveal the incredible man-made sights that you would see 12 miles above (a weather balloon), 30 miles above (a rocket blasting a capsule into space), 62 miles above (a space plane and satellites), 250 miles above (the International Space Station), 235,000 miles above (the Moon), and through our Solar System. Turn to the top of the other side to make your way beyond the Solar System to the hundreds of billions of galaxies filled with stars and planets we haven't discovered yet. Then start your journey back down through the amazing natural wonders you would see 6,200 miles above (a comet), 55 miles above (meteoroids burning up as they enter Earth's atmosphere), 7 miles above (a cumulonimbus cloud bringing thunder and lightning), 1 mile above (migrating storks), and down through the mountains, past trees, bats, and butterflies to finally reach the ground again—this time in a grassy clearing of a forest, where you can imagine yourself lying on your back wondering at the thought of the whole universe above your head. From jet trails to comets' tails, enjoy amazing sights as you journey through the skies. Explore even more of the world with The Street Beneath My Feet (March 2017) and The World Around Me (October 2020), companion books from the Look Closer series.

The Bumblebee Flies Anyway: Gardening and Surviving Against the Odds


Kate Bradbury - 2018
    She documents the unbuttoning of the earth and the rebirth of the garden, the rewilding of a tiny urban space. On her own she unscrews, saws, and hammers the decking away, she clears the builders' rubble and rubbish beneath it, and she digs and enriches the soil, gradually planting it up with plants she knows will attract wildlife. She erects bird boxes and bee hotels, hangs feeders and grows nectar- and pollen-rich plants, and slowly brings life back to the garden.But while she's doing this her neighbors continue to pave and deck their gardens. The wildlife she tries to save is further threatened, and she feels she's fighting an uphill battle. Is there any point in gardening for wildlife when everyone else is drowning the land in poison and cement?Throughout her story, Kate draws on an eclectic and eccentric cast of friends and colleagues, who donate plants and a greenhouse, tolerate her gawping at butterflies at Gay Pride, and accompany her on trips to visit rare bumblebees and nightingales.

The Parents' Guide to Climate Revolution: 100 Ways to Build a Fossil-Free Future, Raise Empowered Kids, and Still Get a Good Night's Sleep


Mary DeMocker - 2018
    Entertaining, inspiring, and science-sound climate activism for families wanting to "be the change" they want to see

Earthrise: Apollo 8 and the Photo That Changed the World


James Gladstone - 2018
    People marched for peace, fairness, and freedom. At the same time, the Apollo 8 crew was about to go farther into space than anyone had gone before--to the moon.As they surveyed the moon's surface, astronauts aboard Apollo 8 looked up just when Earth was rising out of the darkness of space. They saw the whole planet--no countries, no borders. The photograph they took, Earthrise, had a profound effect when published widely back on Earth, galvanizing the environmental movement, changing the way people saw our single, fragile home planet, and sparking hope during a year of unrest.This important and timely picture book is publishing to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 8 mission, telling the story behind the photograph, both inside the spaceship and back on Earth. Text includes dialogue pulled from NASA's Apollo 8 transcript, drawing readers into the moment Earth was first photographed in color from space. An author's note at the end explains more about the photograph, the Apollo 8 mission, and how Earthrise went on to inspire Earth Day.

Silent Spring & Other Writings on the Environment


Rachel Carson - 2018
    These writings tell the surprising and inspiring story of how Silent Spring came to be, tracing an arc from Carson’s first inklings of the potential harms of DDT in the 1940s to her resolute public defense of her findings in the face of a concerted disinformation campaign launched by the chemical industry, even as she struggled privately with the cancer that would take her life.Silent Spring was an unlikely best seller when published in the fall of 1962, a book about the unintended consequences of pesticide use that became the talk of the nation, sparking a revolution in environmental consciousness. Seeing clearly what no one else had in a dauntingly wide-ranging body of technical and scientific evidence, Carson turned a series of discrete findings into a work of enduring literature—one that helped to change the world. In the wake of Silent Spring, public debate and protest led to laws and agencies to protect our air, land, and water, and a new appreciation for what Carson calls “the right of the citizen to be secure in his own home against the intrusions of poisons applied by other persons.”This deluxe Library of America edition presents the complete text of the first edition of Silent Spring, featuring Lois and Louis Darling’s original illustrations, in conjunction with a selection of Carson’s other writings on the environment, including fascinating correspondence with ornithologists, medical researchers, ecologists, biochemists, and other experts that shows Silent Spring taking shape piece-by-piece, like a puzzle or detective story. As she makes common cause with gardeners, concerned citizens, and grassroots activists to build awareness about environmental degradation, we see Carson emerge as a champion for unbiased science, collective action, and above all reverence for life. In speeches and editorials from the period after the her well-funded critics, exposing industry influence within scientific societies and government policy-making. Other pieces reflect her lifelong love of nature and commitment to conservation, lyrically describing her epiphanies as birdwatcher and beachcomber, her dream of preserving forest land in Maine for future generations, and the joy she took in conveying an outdoor “sense of wonder” to her young adopted son.An introduction by writer and biologist Sandra Steingraber explores Carson’s life and career, and describes some of the contemporary environmental science for which she blazed a trail. Also included are a 16-page portfolio of photographs, a detailed chronology, and helpful notes.

The Splendor of Birds: Art and Photographs From National Geographic


National Geographic Society - 2018
    The book moves chronologically so readers witness the tremendous growth in our knowledge of birds over the last 130 years, as well as the new frontiers in technology and observation--from luminous vintage paintings and classic black and white photographs to state-of-the art high-speed and telephoto camera shots that reveal moments rarely seen and sights invisible to the human eye. The wide diversity of pictures captures beloved songbirds outside the kitchen window, theatrical courtship dance of birds of paradise, tender moments inside a tern's nest, or the vivid flash of a hummingbird's flight. Readers will delight in seeing iconic species from around the world through the eyes of acclaimed National Geographic wildlife photographers such as Chris Johns, Frans Lanting, Joel Sartore, and Tim Laman and reading excerpted passages from Arthur A. Allen, Roger Tory Peterson, Douglas Chadwick, Jane Goodall, and other great explorers. Exquisitely produced and expertly curated, this visual treasury displays as never before the irresistible beauty, grace, and intelligence of our feathered friends.

Nettle-Eater


Tom Hirons - 2018
    His body disappears; he learns to fly. He encounters demigods and eloquent trees. He is Nettle-Eater, crooked, arrogant, self-proclaimed bastard of the moor. This is his testament. By Tom Hirons, author of Sometimes a Wild God, also available from Hedgespoken Press.First seen as a previous version in Dark Mountain III, Nettle-Eater is a short, sharp prose-howl in the direction of genuine and magical wildness and an uncompromising love-letter to the wild places of Dartmoor. Hovering over the pages is the ghost of Milarepa, the Tibetan saint who - it is said - survived on a nettle-diet for seven years, achieved a powerful enlightenment and became Tibet's best-loved bad-kid-turned-good. Nettle-Eater is written to be read aloud as a prayer to the wild earth and a reminder to us mortals that our lives are short and on fire and that there is no better time to remember our essential nature than this instant, no better time to discard the masquerade of our civilised lives than now...

Crystal Companion: How to Enhance Your Life with Crystals


Judy Hall - 2018
    With 350 crystals listed in this book, fifty of which are new to the market, you'll find the material throughout to be accessible and suitable for both the entry-level and experienced crystal worker.No other guide offers the kind of clarity and authority that Judy Hall brings to her audience. This is the only resource you'll need to understanding the use of crystals.

101 Small Ways to Change the World 1


Lonely Planet Kids - 2018
    Includes random acts of kindness, craft projects, energy-saving ideas, and much more. 101 Small Ways to Change the World is a practical, fun and creative book to inspire you at home, school and in your local community and beyond! Remember, all big ideas start with just one person who decides to do things differently. You could be that person.Ideas for Caring for Others include:Talk to a new kid in classStart an after-school clubDonate clothes and foodIdeas for Caring for the Planet include:Say “no” to plasticBuy local food and drinkPlant a treeIdeas for Caring for Yourself include:Love yourself and stand tallDisconnect and get outsideSpend more time with familyAbout Lonely Planet Kids: Lonely Planet Kids – an imprint of the world’s leading travel authority Lonely Planet – published its first book in 2011. Over the past 45 years, Lonely Planet has grown a dedicated global community of travelers, many of whom are now sharing a passion for exploration with their children. Lonely Planet Kids educates and encourages young readers at home and in school to learn about the world with engaging books on culture, sociology, geography, nature, history, space and more. We want to inspire the next generation of global citizens and help kids and their parents to approach life in a way that makes every day an adventure. Come explore!

Earth Works: Ceremonies in Tower Time


H. Byron Ballard - 2018
    Earth Works is a book of essays and rituals for a time of deep cultural change, a shift that author Byron Ballard calls "Tower Time." The first part of the book explores scenarios in these chaotic times and suggests possible reframing to understand the historic underpinnings and the long-term effects on both the planet and its inhabitants. The second part of the book--called Berms--consists of tried-and-true rituals and ceremonies for communities, small groups and individuals to improve resilience and face inevitable change with courage, consideration and humor. Ballard has decades of ritual experience and brings that understanding to the practical and esoteric considerations of making ceremony both personal and powerful. You will find ideas here and inspiration--and something like hope.

Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World


Marcia Bjornerud - 2018
    The passage of nine days, which is how long a drop of water typically stays in Earth's atmosphere, is something we can easily grasp. But spans of hundreds of years--the time a molecule of carbon dioxide resides in the atmosphere--approach the limits of our comprehension. Our everyday lives are shaped by processes that vastly predate us, and our habits will in turn have consequences that will outlast us by generations. Timefulness reveals how knowing the rhythms of Earth's deep past and conceiving of time as a geologist does can give us the perspective we need for a more sustainable future.Marcia Bjornerud shows how geologists chart the planet's past, explaining how we can determine the pace of solid Earth processes such as mountain building and erosion and comparing them with the more unstable rhythms of the oceans and atmosphere. These overlapping rates of change in the Earth system--some fast, some slow--demand a poly-temporal worldview, one that Bjornerud calls "timefulness." She explains why timefulness is vital in the Anthropocene, this human epoch of accelerating planetary change, and proposes sensible solutions for building a more time-literate society.This compelling book presents a new way of thinking about our place in time, enabling us to make decisions on multigenerational timescales. The lifespan of Earth may seem unfathomable compared to the brevity of human existence, but this view of time denies our deep roots in Earth's history--and the magnitude of our effects on the planet.

Wonders: Spectacular Moments in Nature Photography


Sylvia A. Earle - 2018
    This breathtaking collection of nature photography reveals rare creatures, transports us to distant landscapes, and captures uncommon moments of drama and beauty in the natural world. From a heart-pounding shot of the Wildebeest Migration to a glimpse of the elusive Pampas cat, each image tells a story about the diversity and grandeur of life on earth. Bold, surprising, and jaw-droppingly beautiful, these photographs are all winners of the California Academy of Sciences' BigPicture Natural World Photography Competition. With more than 100 photographs and captions explaining the scientific phenomena and photographic techniques behind each picture, this book will captivate nature lovers, science enthusiasts, photographers, and adventurers.