Book picks similar to
Low Impact Forestry: Forestry as If the Future Mattered by Mitch Lansky
agriculture
food-and-agriculture
forestry
forestry-forests
The Hellion
Harriet Young - 2021
What happens next triggers a series of events leading inexplicably to the cells of Lancaster Gaol.Lancashire, 1612: The most notorious witchcraft trials in England are taking place.Among the accused, three generations of the same family. A family rooted in Pendle, tied to the infamous Malkin Towers and always followed by a whisper of evil. A family destroyed by the evidence given by a nine year old girl…
Bringing it to the Table: On Farming and Food
Wendell Berry - 2009
Long before Whole Foods organic produce was available at your local supermarket, Berry was farming with the purity of food in mind. For the last five decades, Berry has embodied mindful eating through his land practices and his writing. In recognition of that influence, Michael Pollan here offers an introduction to this wonderful collection.Drawn from over thirty years of work, this collection joins bestsellers The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Pollan, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver, as essential reading for anyone who cares about what they eat. The essays address such concerns as: How does organic measure up against locally grown? What are the differences between small and large farms, and how does that affect what you put on your dinner table? What can you do to support sustainable agriculture?A progenitor of the Slow Food movement, Wendell Berry reminds us all to take the time to understand the basics of what we ingest. “Eating is an agriculture act,” he writes. Indeed, we are all players in the food economy.
The Fate of Food: What We'll Eat in a Bigger, Hotter, Smarter World
Amanda Little - 2019
The journey is scary, exciting, and, ultimately, encouraging."--Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth ExtinctionClimate models show that global crop production will decline every decade for the rest of this century due to drought, heat, and flooding. Water supplies are in jeopardy. Meanwhile, the world's population is expected to grow another 30 percent by midcentury. So how, really, will we feed nine billion people sustainably in the coming decades?Amanda Little, a professor at Vanderbilt University and an award-winning journalist, spent three years traveling through a dozen countries and as many U.S. states in search of answers to this question. Her journey took her from an apple orchard in Wisconsin to a remote control organic farm in Shanghai, from Norwegian fish farms to famine-stricken regions of Ethiopia.The race to reinvent the global food system is on, and the challenge is twofold: We must solve the existing problems of industrial agriculture while also preparing for the pressures ahead. Through her interviews and adventures with farmers, scientists, activists, and engineers, Little tells the fascinating story of human innovation and explores new and old approaches to food production while charting the growth of a movement that could redefine sustainable food on a grand scale. She meets small permaculture farmers and "Big Food" executives, botanists studying ancient superfoods and Kenyan farmers growing the country's first GMO corn. She travels to places that might seem irrelevant to the future of food yet surprisingly play a critical role--a California sewage plant, a U.S. Army research lab, even the inside of a monsoon cloud above Mumbai. Little asks tough questions: Can GMOs actually be good for the environment--and for us? Are we facing the end of animal meat? What will it take to eliminate harmful chemicals from farming? How can a clean, climate-resilient food supply become accessible to all?Throughout her journey, Little finds and shares a deeper understanding of the threats of climate change and encounters a sense of awe and optimism about the lessons of our past and the scope of human ingenuity.
The Secret Surrogate
Stephanie Mitchell - 2021
Married, successful and living a life she created from scratch, Brooklyn only needs one thing to feel complete- a baby. Unable to have one, she hires a surrogate in secret. And then she gets a positive pregnancy test of her own. But, just weeks before their due dates, Brooklyn’s surrogate vanishes and her perfectly crafted life begins to crumble.Desperate and running out of time, she does everything she can to find her missing baby before it is too late. But as she also tries to keep the disappearance, and her connection to the surrogate, under wraps, the media pounces on the story.Almost immediately the headlines turn against her in a flurry of secrets and lies. Her life, her business, and her family are all under attack. Why was the owner of an exclusive adoption center keeping a surrogate a secret? What happened to the heavily pregnant surrogate and Brooklyn's unborn child? Does her agency have anything to do with it?Does her husband?Does she?
Worthy McGuire
Tim McGee - 2013
Time is not on the side of the gruff World War II veteran racing to fulfill a promise he made amid the horrors of the D-Day invasion in Normandy. As he plans a pilgrimage from Michigan to the site of both his best and worst day, Worthy now must rely on those he trusts the least-his family. With no one else to help him meet the physical demands of the trip, Worthy grudgingly includes his grandchildren, David and Shannon, who are each battling their own insecurities. His controlling son, Ted, and his manipulative daughter-in-law, Angela, follow Worthy and his grandkids to France, and they have one goal: to drag the aging war vet back to Michigan where they hope to take command of his finances and place him in a nursing home. As Worthy searches for a family from his past, only time will tell if he can patch the crumbling relationships with his family before it is too late. In this historical tale, a World War II veteran takes a journey of honor and courage as he sets off to complete the most important mission of his long life.
Diet for a Dead Planet: Big Business and the Coming Food Crisis
Christopher D. Cook - 2004
Cook contends in this powerful look at the food industry, we are not in good shape. The facts speak for themselves: more than 75 million Americans suffered from food poisoning last year, and 5,000 of them died; 67 percent of American males are overweight, obesity is the second leading cause of preventable death in the United States and supersizing is just the tip of the iceberg: the way we make and eat food today is putting our environment and the very future of food at risk.Diet for a Dead Planet takes us beyond Fast Food Nation to show how our entire food system is in crisis. Corporate control of farms and supermarkets, unsustainable drives to increase agribusiness productivity and profits, misplaced subsidies for exports, and anemic regulation have all combined to produce a grim harvest. Food, our most basic necessity, has become a force behind a staggering array of social, economic, and environmental epidemics.Yet there is another way. Cook argues cogently for a whole new way of looking at what we eat—one that places healthy, sustainably produced food at the top of the menu for change. In the words of Jim Hightower, “If you eat, read this important book!”
Rukmini: Krishna's Wife
Saiswaroopa Iyer - 2021
Rukmini nodded with a confident smile. ‘Trust me, Acharya. In addition to the mayhem I fought against in my own family, I also fought against the fear of uncertainties that would envelope my life, if, all gods willing, I wed Krishna. I am no stranger to the fact that life would become only more challenging at Dwaraka.’A Princess. A Lover. A GoddessAn overreaching emperor thought he would use her as a pawn.Her eldest brother became a tool of her enemy.In her own family, she had none to call her own.But Rukmini, the princess of Vidarbha, made a choice.She would not bow down to patriarchy.The story of Rukmini is often overshadowed by the glorious exploits of her charismatic husband, Krishna Vaasudeva. For the very first time, this novel gives Rukmini her due. It portrays the life of the feisty bride who made bold choices not only while eloping with her beloved but all through her life to become a resplendent goddess, a fitting partner to the most beloved god of the land.
After the Crash
Emma Davies - 2021
But each morning she wakes to find his side of the bed cold is more painful than the last, and she’s struggling to make ends meet as a writer. She must admit defeat and move into the crumbling seaside guest house her daughter just bought. Perhaps it might help put what’s left of their broken family back together…There, Louisa is offered a final chance to save her career by writing an article on a local sand artist, Isaac. Except, when he turns to greet her – tall, handsome and weather-worn – something about him feels disturbingly familiar. Why, when he looks into her eyes, does she feel like he knows exactly who she is and everything she’s been through?As they explore the rugged coastline’s hidden coves together – living and laughing like she never thought she would again – Louisa is fascinated by this man who creates beautiful sculptures on the shoreline, but deep down she knows he’s keeping a secret from her. The discovery of a charcoal scribble in one of his sketchbooks linking him to the death of her husband, confirms her deepest fear. Is she ready for what he will tell her, and will letting him in tear her family and her heart apart all over again?A heartbreaking, page-turning and completely unforgettable family drama you will read in one sitting. Perfect for anyone who loves Amanda Prowse, Kerry Fisher and Jodi Picoult.
All Your Lies
O.C.S. Francis - 2021
Even now she can’t escape the memories - the secluded cottage, a figure in the distance on a deserted beach, and the face that will always haunt her.She’s tried hard to forget what happened and now feels sure her terrible secret is buried forever.Until the messages start…Someone is watching. Someone is waiting. Someone has the power to expose the truth, and to destroy everything that Amber loves.
The Daughter She Lost
Lauren Westwood - 2020
Amanda was always told there was no one she could ask about Angie, but finally she has a chance to find out about the family she lost...When Amanda arrives at the stark white house with her children, she begins to feel uneasy. There are religious quotes etched into the walls of the hallway and a jewelry box full of letters hidden in her mother’s room. She tries talking to Linda and Frances, the women she meets in town, but they are guarded not just about Angie, but about the identity of Amanda’s father.Because Linda and Frances know secrets about Amanda’s family that could have devastating consequences. And as Amanda digs further into the past, it’s not just her own happiness at stake but that of her teenage daughter.Soon Amanda will have to decide: will she risk losing everything to find out the truth?A gripping and emotional novel about what it means to belong. The Daughter She Lost is perfect for fans of Kerry Fisher, Diane Chamberlain and Liane Moriarty.
American Canopy: Trees, Forests, and the Making of a Nation
Eric Rutkow - 2012
This fascinating and groundbreaking work tells the remarkable story of the relationship between Americans and their trees across the entire span of our nation’s history. Like many of us, historians have long been guilty of taking trees for granted. Yet the history of trees in America is no less remarkable than the history of the United States itself—from the majestic white pines of New England, which were coveted by the British Crown for use as masts in navy warships, to the orange groves of California, which lured settlers west. In fact, without the country’s vast forests and the hundreds of tree species they contained, there would have been no ships, docks, railroads, stockyards, wagons, barrels, furniture, newspapers, rifles, or firewood. No shingled villages or whaling vessels in New England. No New York City, Miami, or Chicago. No Johnny Appleseed, Paul Bunyan, or Daniel Boone. No Allied planes in World War I, and no suburban sprawl in the middle of the twentieth century. America—if indeed it existed—would be a very different place without its millions of acres of trees. As Eric Rutkow’s brilliant, epic account shows, trees were essential to the early years of the republic and indivisible from the country’s rise as both an empire and a civilization. Among American Canopy’s many fascinating stories: the Liberty Trees, where colonists gathered to plot rebellion against the British; Henry David Thoreau’s famous retreat into the woods; the creation of New York City’s Central Park; the great fire of 1871 that killed a thousand people in the lumber town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin; the fevered attempts to save the American chestnut and the American elm from extinction; and the controversy over spotted owls and the old-growth forests they inhabited. Rutkow also explains how trees were of deep interest to such figures as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Teddy Roosevelt, and FDR, who oversaw the planting of more than three billion trees nationally in his time as president. As symbols of liberty, community, and civilization, trees are perhaps the loudest silent figures in our country’s history. America started as a nation of people frightened of the deep, seemingly infinite woods; we then grew to rely on our forests for progress and profit; by the end of the twentieth century we came to understand that the globe’s climate is dependent on the preservation of trees. Today, few people think about where timber comes from, but most of us share a sense that to destroy trees is to destroy part of ourselves and endanger the future. Never before has anyone treated our country’s trees and forests as the subject of a broad historical study, and the result is an accessible, informative, and thoroughly entertaining read. Audacious in its four-hundred-year scope, authoritative in its detail, and elegant in its execution, American Canopy is perfect for history buffs and nature lovers alike and announces Eric Rutkow as a major new author of popular history.
"I'll Get You!" Drugs, Lies, and the Terrorizing of a PTA Mom
Sam Rule - 2016
When a school parent angrily accused Kelli of keeping her son waiting during the afterschool pick-up, it appeared to be a simple confrontation with an overprotective mother. Kelli soon learned, however, that she was the target of a twisted plot against her that involved drugs, lies, schemes, and a campaign to ruin her life. The vendetta led to reputations tarnished, careers lost, secret lives uncovered, two parents in jail, families destroyed, and a $5.7 million civil judgment.
"I'll Get You!" Drugs, Lies, and the Terrorizing of a PTA Mom
is the true story of an ordinary American woman who survived an evil conspiracy that turned her life upside down and shook her hometown to its core.
unWanted: Husband
Sandra D. Bricker - 2000
Charlotte has unlimited travel benefits to offer in return for the extra income she needs to pay for her elderly father's care...and Seth has a thriving business which costs nearly as much in travel expenses as he earns. That's how two people who vow to never tie the knot find themselves in the back seat of a pink convertible at a drive-thru wedding chapel saying, "I do!" But when they actually start falling head over heels in love—neither one knows what to do. Can they make this love work?
High School Bites
Rachael Alcobia - 2017
I guess they forgot to mention the crazy girl who thinks you're after her boyfriend or the wolf that attacks you in the woods during the senior class camping trip. Between strange dreams that border on nightmares and Kodi Barrett, a fellow senior that I've been inexplicably drawn to for years at the center of it all, i was positive that life at Mountain Falls High School was about to get much more complicated. I didn't need my senior year to be perfect; I just needed to survive it!
FeMALE TRAITS "The Trilogy"
Lurea C. McFadden - 2011
She is married to a successful, loving husband but somehow she requires more attention than this fine upstanding man can offer. She plays hard; in fact she is a playa in her own right. But Grace forgets that Game recognizes Game when she runs into Sonia, her husband’s best friend. This is the tale of Grace’s extra-marital love affair, love and support of good friends, and lessons learned along the way.