Sustainable Libraries Initiative

Douglas W. Tallamy’s first book, Bringing Nature Home, awakened thousands of readers to an urgent situation: wildlife populations are in decline because the native plants they depend on are fast disappearing. His solution? Plant more natives. In this new book, Tallamy takes the next step and outlines his vision for a grassroots approach to conservation. Nature’s Best Hope shows how homeowners everywhere can turn their yards into conservation corridors that provide wildlife habitats. Because this approach relies on the initiatives of private individuals, it is immune from the whims of government policy. Even more important, it’s practical, effective, and easy—you will walk away with specific suggestions you can incorporate into your own yard.

If you’re concerned about doing something good for the environment, Nature’s Best Hope is the blueprint you need. By acting now, you can help preserve our precious wildlife—and the planet—for future generations.

We know fungi are important, for us as well as the environment. But how they live, and what they can do, remains mysterious and surprising. Filled with stunning photographs, The Lives of Fungi presents an inside look into their hidden and extraordinary world.

The wonders of fungi are myriad: a mushroom poking up through leaf litter literally overnight, or the sensational hit of umami from truffle shavings. Alexander Fleming cured infections with mold and spiritual guides have long used psychedelic mushrooms to enhance understanding. Then there are the tiny threads of fungi, called hyphae, that create a communications network for the natural world while decomposing organic matter. Combining engaging and accessible text with beautiful images, The Lives of Fungi lays out all the essential facts about fungi for the mycologically curious.

How do you recognize healthy soil? How much can your existing soil be improved? What are the best amendments to use for your soil? Let Building Soil answer your questions and be your guide on gardening from the ground up. Fertilizing, tilling, weed management, and irrigation all affect the quality of your soil. Using author Elizabeth Murphy’s detailed instructions, anyone can become a successful soil-based gardener, whether you want to start a garden from scratch or improve an existing garden.

If you want methods that won’t break your back, are good for the environment, and create high-yielding and beautiful gardens of all shapes and sizes, this is the book for you! Create classic landscape gardens, grow a high-yielding orchard, nurture naturally beautiful lawns, raise your household veggies, or run a profitable farm.

A soil-based approach allows you to see not just the plants, but the living system that grows them. Soil-building practices promote more ecologically friendly gardening by:
 

• Reducing fertilizer and pesticide use
• Sequestering greenhouse gases
• Increasing overall garden productivity

With a detailed discussion and comparison tables on a range of organic fertilizer choices, Building Soil is a simple book full of practical, up-to-date information about building healthy soils. Simple methods perfect for the home gardener’s use put healthy, organic soil within everyone’s reach. You don’t need a degree in soil management to understand this book; you only need a yard or garden and the desire to improve it at the most basic level.

An investigation into the damage wrought by the colossal clothing industry and the grassroots, high-tech, international movement fighting to reform it

What should I wear? It’s one of the fundamental questions we ask ourselves every day. More than ever, we are told it should be something new. Today, the clothing industry churns out 80 billion garments a year and employs every sixth person on Earth. Historically, the apparel trade has exploited labor, the environment, and intellectual property—and in the last three decades, with the simultaneous unfurling of fast fashion, globalization, and the tech revolution, those abuses have multiplied exponentially, primarily out of view. We are in dire need of an entirely new human-scale model. Bestselling journalist Dana Thomas has traveled the globe to discover the visionary designers and companies who are propelling the industry toward that more positive future by reclaiming traditional craft and launching cutting-edge sustainable technologies to produce better fashion.
 
In Fashionopolis, Thomas sees renewal in a host of developments, including printing 3-D clothes, clean denim processing, smart manufacturing, hyperlocalism, fabric recycling—even lab-grown materials. From small-town makers and Silicon Valley whizzes to such household names as Stella McCartney, Levi’s, and Rent the Runway, Thomas highlights the companies big and small that are leading the crusade.
 
We all have been casual about our clothes. It's time to get dressed with intention. Fashionopolis is the first comprehensive look at how to start.

Make your own pantry staples, cleaning products, pet food, health and beauty supplies, and hundreds of other household items—fast, fresh, and more naturally.

Here are low-cost, all-natural replacement recipes for more than 700 name-brand products that you buy week in and week out at the supermarket, pharmacy, or discount store. Save a fortune making your own everyday cooking, cleaning, and toiletry products! At the same time, you’ll fill your cabinets with fresh, super high-quality products that work or taste great—without all the chemicals and preservatives of store-bought versions. Plus, ‘think green”—you will greatly reduce the amount of useless, environment-damaging waste and garbage—spray bottles, jars, and cans. For cleaning, laundering, and polishing, the compounds are much gentler and less damaging to drains, sewage, and septic systems.

The ingredients in most brand-name products account for only pennies of the purchaser’s dollar and rest of what you spend covers advertising, packaging, shipping, and the retailer’s overhead.

Try these easy to make recipes:

Food Staples: mayonnaise, peanut butter, breakfast cereals, soft drinks, pasta sauce, pickles, and jellies—save 50% on homemade salsa

Beauty and Health Supplies: moisturizers, facials, lip balm, aftershave, decongestant, foot powder, and PMS tea—save 90% on aftershave

Household Compounds: glues, wood stains, ant traps, and houseplant food

Cleaning Supplies and Polishes: carpet fresheners, cleaners, mildew remover, dishwasher detergent, and fabric softener—save 95% on homemade bathroom cleaner

Pet Supplies: liver snaps, dog shampoo, flea dip, cat litter, pet bird honey treats, and hamster fruit cup—save 73% on cat treats

Garden Products: fertilizer, soil conditioners, weed killer, deer repellents, and snail traps

And much more

Making low-cost, more natural versions of your favorite name brand grocery items is simple when you know the secrets. Homemade is your guide to saving a small fortune by making everyday household items yourself.

Sustainable investing is booming. The investment industry is fast approaching a point where one-third of global assets under management are invested with a sustainable objective.

But do sustainable investment products do what investors expect them to do?
How can an investor tell if their investments are having the social impact they want?
Does that impact come at a financial cost?
And how can investors weave their way through the web of confusing acronyms, conflicting agency ratings, and the mass of fund offerings, confident that they can recognize and avoid corporate greenwashing?

Larry Swedroe and Sam Adams cut through the fog and bring clarity on all of this and more―providing investors with a firm plan for truly sustainable investing.

The authors first define sustainable investing, illuminating the differences between ESG, SRI and impact investing, and reveal who is currently investing sustainably and why.

They then move on to a comprehensive review of the academic research. What does the data really say about risk and return in sustainable investing? What performance can you genuinely expect from sustainable investments? And how are today’s sustainable investors using their influence to drive positive changes for society and the environment?

Finally, this book arms you with a practical guide to investing sustainably, including how to effectively choose your asset allocation strategy, and select the managers and funds through which your money can create the change you want to see in the world.

Discover the art and science of creating your own inks from nature with Make Ink: A Forager’s Guide to Natural Inkmaking. This beautifully illustrated guide transforms everyday plants, berries, and minerals into vibrant, sustainable inks―perfect for artists, calligraphers, and anyone passionate about handmade creativity.

Author Jason Logan, founder of the Toronto Ink Company, shares step-by-step instructions for sourcing natural materials, preparing pigments, and crafting inks that are both eco-friendly and deeply personal. Alongside practical recipes, you’ll find tips on tools, techniques, and color variations, plus inspiring stories from the growing community of natural ink makers.

Whether you’re a seasoned artist seeking unique hues or a beginner curious about sustainable art practices, Make Ink offers everything you need to start foraging, experimenting, and creating. This book is more than a manual―it’s an invitation to reconnect with the natural world through color.

Bring your art to life with colors born from the earth. Make Ink is your essential guide to turning nature into art. Features a foreword by Booker Prize-winning author Michael Ondaatje

Chapters include:

• A Forager’s Checklist
• What Is Ink and How Is It Made
• Natural Ink: A Basic Recipe
• Colors and Recipes
• The Ground Rules of Natural Inkmaking
• Testing Ink on Paper

Why You’ll Love This Book:

• Learn how to identify and gather plants, nuts, and minerals for ink making.
• Follow clear, tested recipes for creating a spectrum of natural colors.
• Explore the history and cultural significance of ink in art and writing.
• Embrace sustainable, eco-conscious creativity with minimal tools and materials.

Plundering Appalachia is a collection of photographs and essays detailing the grim realities of mountaintop removal mining: the effects of the blasting on the environment and the people and animals in its wake; the irreversible devastation of the natural landscape of Appalachia; how mountaintop removal is or is not regulated; and the true costs of the practice over time. Most people in the United States are connected to mountaintop removal in some way, whether they live in the affected areas, consume products derived from the mining haul, or are dealing with the effects that mining has on their ecosystem. Plundering Appalachia is a clarion call to action, asking Americans to get past the rhetoric of the coal industry and see the real Appalachia. Supported by science and common sense, the book is a plea for a region whose natural beauty deserves to be enjoyed by future generations.

From award-winning writer Leila Philip, Beaverland is a masterful work of narrative science writing, a book that highlights, though history and contemporary storytelling, how this weird rodent plays an oversized role in American history and its future. She follows fur trappers who lead her through waist high water, fur traders and fur auctioneers, as well as wildlife managers, PETA activists, Native American environmental vigilantes, scientists, engineers, and the colorful group of activists known as beaver believers.
 
Beginning with the early trans-Atlantic trade in North America, Leila Philip traces the beaver’s profound influence on our nation’s early economy and feverish western expansion, its first corporations and multi-millionaires. In her pursuit of this weird and wonderful animal, she introduces us to people whose lives are devoted to the beaver, including a Harvard scientist from the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana, who uses drones to create 3-dimensional images of beaver dams; and an environmental restoration consultant in the Chesapeake whose nickname is the “beaver whisperer”.
 
What emerges is a poignant personal narrative, a startling portrait of the secretive world of the contemporary fur trade, and an engrossing ecological and historical investigation of these heroic animals who, once trapped to the point of extinction, have returned to the landscape as one of the greatest conservation stories of the 20th century. Beautifully written and impeccably researched, Beaverland reveals the profound ways in which one odd creature and the trade surrounding it has shaped history, culture, and our environment.

Funeral expenses in the United States average more than $10,000. And every year conventional funerals bury millions of tons of wood, concrete, and metals, as well as millions of gallons of carcinogenic embalming fluid. There is a better way, and Elizabeth Fournier, affectionately dubbed the “Green Reaper,” walks you through it, step-by-step. She provides comprehensive and compassionate guidance, covering everything from green burial planning and home funeral basics to legal guidelines and outside-the-box options, such as burials at sea. Fournier points the way to green burial practices that consider both the environmental well-being of the planet and the economic well-being of loved ones.

Creative Book Awards 2024 Winner - Best Upcycling Book and Best New Author from Crafts Beautiful Magazine

Every year, tons of clothing are sent to landfill, much of it owing to fast fashion and our desire to throw away clothes that aren’t considered 'fashionable'. In this book, learn how to alter or completely deconstruct once-loved clothes to create edited or entirely new garments and accessories that are not only chic but saving the planet.
 

• Beginning with advice on how to source and analyze existing clothes
   
• Founder of The Refashioners movement and sewing designer Portia Lawrie will then take you step by step through a collection of inspirational garments that she has reworked to show you just how easy it is to refresh and renew any piece of clothing you come across.
   
• In every project, accompanied by stage-by-stage photographs and invaluable tips, see how you can adapt and cut away at tops, trousers, dresses and more to build a stylish, modern capsule wardrobe that you can wear throughout the year.

America was once a country that did big things. But today, even while facing a host of pressing challenges—a housing shortage, a climate crisis, dilapidated infrastructure—we feel stuck. As Marc J. Dunkelman reveals, America is the victim of a vetocracy that allows nearly anyone to stifle progress. While conservatives deserve some blame, progressives have overlooked an unlikely culprit: their own fears of “The Establishment.” A half century ago, reformers began to put speaking truth to power ahead of exercising that power for good. Now, the ensuing gridlock has pummeled faith in public institutions of all sorts and opened the door for MAGA-style populism. Why Nothing Works uncovers the roots of this predicament, and boldly shows how progressives can once again build a better future for all.

To trace the history of the twenty-first century so far is to trace a history of unaffordability and shortage. After years of refusing to build sufficient housing, America has a national housing crisis. After years of limiting immigration, we don’t have enough workers. Despite decades of being warned about the consequences of climate change, we haven’t built anything close to the clean-energy infrastructure we need. Ambitious public projects are finished late and over budget—if they are ever finished at all. The crisis that’s clicking into focus now has been building for decades—because we haven’t been building enough.

Abundance explains that our problems today are not the results of yesteryear’s villains. Rather, one generation’s solutions have become the next gener­ation’s problems. Rules and regulations designed to solve the problems of the 1970s often prevent urban-density and green-energy projects that would help solve the problems of the 2020s. Laws meant to ensure that government considers the consequences of its actions have made it too difficult for government to act consequentially. In the last few decades, our capacity to see problems has sharpened while our ability to solve them has diminished.

Progress requires facing up to the institutions in life that are not working as they need to. It means, for liberals, recognizing when the government is failing. It means, for conservatives, recognizing when the government is needed. In a book exploring how we can move from a liberalism that not only protects and pre­serves but also builds, Klein and Thompson trace the political, economic, and cultural barriers to progress and propose a path toward a politics of abundance. At a time when movements of scarcity are gaining power in country after country, this is an answer that meets the challenges of the moment while grappling honestly with the fury so many rightfully feel.

A globe-trotting work of relentless investigative reporting, this is the first major book to expose the catastrophic reality of the multi-billion-dollar global garbage trade.
                                                                                          
Dumps and landfills around the world are overflowing. Disputes about what to do with the millions of tons of garbage generated every day have given rise to waste wars waged almost everywhere you look. Some are border skirmishes. Others hustle trash across thousands of miles and multiple oceans. But no matter the scale, one thing is true about almost all of them: few people have any idea they're happening.

Journalist Alexander Clapp spent two years roaming five continents to report deep inside the world of Javanese recycling gangsters, cruise ship dismantlers in the Aegean, Tanzanian plastic pickers, whistle-blowing environmentalists throughout the jungles of Guatemala, and a community of Ghanaian boys who burn Western cellphones and televisions for cents an hour, to tell readers what he has figured out: While some trash gets tossed onto roadsides or buried underground, much of it actually lives a secret hot potato second life, getting shipped, sold, re-sold, or smuggled from one country to another, often with devastating consequences for the poorest nations of the world. 

Waste Wars is a jaw-dropping exposé of how and why, for the last forty years, our garbage — the stuff we deem so worthless we think nothing of throwing it away — has spawned a massive, globe-spanning, multi-billion-dollar economy, one that offloads our consumption footprints onto distant continents, pristine landscapes, and unsuspecting populations. If the handling of our trash reveals deeper truths about our Western society, what does the globalized business of garbage say about our world today? And what does it say about us?

Hailed in the New York Times as “a naturalist who can unfurl a sentence with the breathless ease of a master angler,” Robert Macfarlane brings his glittering style to a profound work of travel writing, reportage, and natural history. Is a River Alive? is a joyful, mind-expanding exploration of an ancient, urgent idea: that rivers are living beings who should be recognized as such in imagination and law.

Macfarlane takes readers on three unforgettable journeys teeming with extraordinary people, stories, and places: to the miraculous cloud-forests and mountain streams of Ecuador, to the wounded creeks and lagoons of India, and to the spectacular wild rivers of Canada―imperiled respectively by mining, pollution, and dams. Braiding these journeys is the life story of the fragile chalk stream a mile from Macfarlane’s house, a stream who flows through his own years and days.

Powered by dazzling prose and lit throughout by other minds and voices, Is a River Alive? will open hearts, challenge perspectives, and remind us that our fate flows with that of rivers―and always has.

The North American prairie is an ecological marvel, a lush carpet of grass that stretches to the horizon, and home to some of the nation’s most iconic creatures—bison, elk, wolves, pronghorn, prairie dogs, and bald eagles. Plants, microbes, and animals together made the grasslands one of the richest ecosystems on Earth and a massive carbon sink, but the constant expansion of agriculture threatens what remains.

When European settlers encountered the prairie nearly two hundred years ago, rather than a natural wonder they saw an alien and forbidding place. But with the steel plow, artificial drainage, and fertilizers, they converted the prairie into some of the world’s most productive farmland—a transformation unprecedented in human history. American farmers fed the industrial revolution and made North America a global breadbasket, but at a terrible cost: the forced dislocation of Indigenous peoples, pollution of great rivers, and catastrophic loss of wildlife. Today, industrial agriculture continues its assault on the prairie, plowing up one million acres of grassland a year. Farmers can protect this extraordinary landscape, but trying new ideas can mean ruin in a business with razor-thin margins, and will require help from Washington, D.C., and from consumers.

Veteran journalists and midwesterners Dave Hage and Josephine Marcotty reveal humanity’s relationship with this incredible land, offering a deep, compassionate analysis of the difficult decisions as well as opportunities facing agricultural and Indigenous communities. Sea of Grass is a vivid portrait of a miraculous ecosystem that makes clear why the future of this region is of essential concern far beyond the heartland.

Take the proper steps to live more sustainably. Learn how to reduce waste, use wind and solar energy to power your home, and grow your own food. Written by BBC personalities Dick and James Strawbridge, this manual for the modern age is complete guide to a simpler, greener, and cleaner lifestyle. With step-by-step guidance and techniques, Self Sufficiency for the 21st Century combines traditional skills and crafts with modern technological advances to help you live a more eco-friendly lifestyle. Perfect for both urban and rural readers, Self Sufficiency for the 21st Century has detailed illustrations and authoritative advice for tried-and-tested projects, including foraging for wild plants, finding natural remedies, composting, using green cleaners, and conserving energy at home. Learn how to can vegetables, garden in urban spaces, and the basics of animal husbandry. Self Sufficiency for the 21st Century is the perfect book to show you just how easy and rewarding green living can be with simple changes that have a major impact.

Heard the buzz? Beekeeping is back! Neighborhoods across the country have embraced it as a source of sustainable food and environmental goodness. For those who want to join the "hive" of keepers, Ashley English has the lowdown on the key issues, from space and time considerations to local ordinances to the basics of acquiring, housing, maintaining, and caring for bees year round. Plus, get 10 tested honey-centric recipes!

Author Megean Weldon, aka The Zero Waste Nerd, gently guides you on an attainable, inspirational, mindful, and completely realistic journey to a sustainable living lifestyle with tips, strategies, recipes, and DIY projects for reducing waste—presented in one approachable, beautifully designed, and illustrated guide.

What is zero waste living? Although the practice has been around for generations out of necessity, it is making a comeback as concerns grow about the fate of our environment. To put it simply: it is attempting to send no waste to landfills. Although you may have read or heard about “zero waste,” “sustainable,” or “green” living, the concept can sometimes seem too complicated, the author’s tone a bit self-righteous, or riddled with advice geared for people with 5 acres of land in the country with dreams of raising livestock and homesteading. This is not that book.

Can a “regular” person do this? Absolutely! Zero waste isn’t necessarily about zero, but more about changing or altering the way we see the world around us, how we consume, and how we think about waste. It’s about making better choices when we can, and working to reduce our overall impact by reducing the amount of packaging and single-use plastics we bring into our life. 

Focusing on the positive, An (Almost) Zero-Waste Life presents simple ways to reduce waste in every aspect of your life:

• Cleaning: Recipes for natural cleaner and how to ditch paper towels for good.
• Meal plans: Weekly menus and recipes for zero-waste meals that use bulk pantry staples.
• Shopping: How to shop zero waste at big chain stores and ways to reduce food packaging.
• Bathroom: Sustainable beauty routine and zero-waste showering.
• Recycling: Ingenious ways to repurpose old clothing and how to recycle small metals, like bottle caps and razor blades.
• Gardening/Compost: Tips on finding heirloom seeds, seasonal produce, and the basics of composting.
• And much more!

An (Almost) Zero-Waste Life will change the way you see the world around you, how you consume, and how you think about waste for a healthier planet and happier you.

If you dream of growing, harvesting and eating your own produce, here's how to begin. Author Nicki Trench, who has created her own backyard farm from scratch, shares with you everything there is to know about growing crops, keeping bees, and rearing hens. Here's how to make compost, grow vegetables and fruit, collect honey, rear chickens for fresh eggs, and make preserves and chutneys, along with natural remedies and cleaning products for a natural life inside and outside your home. The benefits of creating your backyard farm are not just economic--the energy you once obsessively expended on the exercise bike can now be channelled more productively by digging your vegetable patch, turning your compost, or cleaning out the hen coop. Communitites are reappearing over backyard fences as neighbors share their harvest of zucchini, spinach, or eggs. Whatever you choose to grow or rear on your backyard farm, this book offers a taste of the good life that is easy, satisfying, and inexpensive to achieve.