Green Books: A Great Way to Get Started on the Path to Eco-Wellness

If you are thinking about adopting a greener lifestyle, but you're just not sure how to do it, perhaps picking up a green-themed book might help get you started on the path to wellness and healthier living.
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If you are thinking about adopting a greener lifestyle, but you're just not sure how to do it, perhaps picking up a green-themed book might help get you started on the path to wellness and healthier living. And for goodness sake, if you are going to buy something these days, please buy a book! Yes, they're made from trees, but nothing has more wonderful staying power. You can pass them around to your friends, save them for future generations, use them as beautiful accessories in your home, and curl up with them at all times of the day for comfort and inspiration. Oh, and nothing against movies, but for the same price as a couple of tickets to see one flick, you can enjoy a book for a lifetime of reading.

Here are my top choices for terrific ways to go green through what you read, which will, in turn help you in all areas of your life.

Gorgeously Green: 8 Simple Steps to an Earth-Friendly Lifestyle by Sophie Uliano:
Hollywood environmentalist Sophie Uliano's Gorgeously Green is a glamorous guide to sustainable living. This girlishly and globally compassionate book has fun written all over it, and contains eco-friendly tips on dieting, exercise, shopping, home design, cosmetics, fashion and more. I could spend weekend after weekend just mixing up the potions and practicing the ideas between the covers. Uliano's suggestions are simple, her advice is approachable and readers will find themselves looking and feeling better and surely greener in short order. Uliano teaches us that by following a few simple guidelines, we can easily reduce our carbon footprint, and without sacrificing one drop of style!

Living Green by Greg Horn:
Greg Horn's Living Green not only gives helpful information on how to improve our environment, but also provides valuable insight into the benefits of an organic lifestyle. Horn's book is a practical guide to why going green right now might be the healthiest change you have ever made in your life. Here's why: Horn highlights the staggering rise in cancer, arthritis, and Alzheimer's since the onset of the industrial age, and links the chemical and toxin releases into the atmosphere and nearly everything we consume to those ailments. But don't worry too much, there is help on the way in these pages. This book is a great basic starter book for somebody who still doesn't quite know why this issue is one of urgency. Read this book, and you'll get it.

The Green Collar Economy by Van Jones:
Van Jones is a rock star in the world of environmentalists.Jones is the founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Color for Change, and, most recently, Green For All, all nonprofit organizations with goals of social justice and/or sustainability. In his book, Jones discusses a new trend for our ailing world, both environmentally and economically. Jones looks at the creation of "green collar" jobs: careers devoted to the environment. With unemployment at its highest rate in decades and global warming showing no signs of letting up, getting a heads up on where we are headed and how we can make the most of the future is all within the pages of The Green Collar Economy.

The Green Bible, edited by Stephen Scharper and Hillary Cunningham:
This uniquely beautiful, environmentally friendly edition of the Bible reminds us that the Scriptures are full of references to the holiness of the earth and man's duty to preserve and protect it. Earth friendly passages are highlighted in green, and some of the world's most prominent Christians - Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Pope John Paul II among them - have contributed essays on humanity's obligation to promote and integrity of all of God's creations. If you've been in the market for a new bible, and want something that's as beautiful as it is current, this brilliant publication is a must have for your book shelf. The cover is made from cotton and linen, the verses are printed with soy based ink, and the bible is printed on recycled paper.

Dreaming Green: Eco-Fabulous Homes Designed to Inspire by Lisa Sharkey and Paul Gleicher:
I confess, this is my book, co-authored by my husband Green Architect Paul Gleicher. Including our own totally eco-friendly place in Manhattan we show you not only seventeen extraordinary houses decorated in beautiful, totally earth friendly ways, but Dreaming Green: Eco-Fabulous Homes Designed to Inspire also gives you the resources to help you create green living spaces for yourself. In addition to the stunning photography of these diverse and beautiful homes, arranged in three sections Rural, Urban and Suburban, my coffee table (or chai table depending on your preference) book includes tips on how to redesign your own place while conserving resources and limiting environmental impact. The suggestions work in all sorts of homes designed in all sorts of aesthetics. There are plenty of tips as well for low cost greening of your home life. There are more than two hundred green resources and hundreds of glorious photographs from green homes across America.
You can see the photos on my web site www.dreaminggreenbook.com

Saving Planet Earth by Tony Juniper:
Written by the highly respected and very popular former director of Friends of the Earth UK, Saving Planet Earth reveal's man's truly obnoxious impact on the planet and reports on the dwindling state of ecosystem health all around the globe. Juniper chronicles the glorious abundance of life on earth, then describes in great detail the detrimental effects we've had on it thus far through processes like logging, over-fishing, and pollution. The final section of the book concerns itself with the uncertain nature of the earth's future, and advice on what people can do to have a positive influence on the lands and species we have detrimentally affected for centuries. Highly informative and visually beautiful, this book has a lot to teach us about how to be responsible citizens of the earth.

Green is the New Black by Tamsin Blanchard:
This adorable, chic and and enjoyable book is a complete guide to being sustainably fashionable. Blanchard's tips help you keep your makeup and wardrobe organic, inexpensive, and beautiful. A section at the back called "The Little Green Book" compiles websites where readers can find products that are vintage, fair trade, recycled, organic, and/or vegetarian. This book doesn't just give you the tools to live a greener life, it gets you excited to do it too! This book was first published in England, and it has a jolly good feel to the pages, the design and is a lovely book to pick up a read in bits and pieces every day. I love this book.

Green Clean by Linda Mason Hunter and Mikki Halpin
If you are not frightened about the toxins in the cleaning products you use now... after reading this book you will be, and for good reason. This book is not for the faint of heart. Hunter and Halpin point out all the harmful chemicals found in scores of common household cleaning products and the effects such chemicals can have on you over time. In under 200 pages, this book will have you throwing out half your household cleaning materials in no time. They'll also give you the best alternatives which will keep you busy cleaning, and not worrying while you freshen up your home.

The Global Warming Survival Handbook by David de Rothschild
I read this book on the subway all the time and everyone is always looking at it over my shoulder.The official companion to the Live Earth concert series of July 2007, this handbook is a visually stimulating paperback chock full of environmental facts and tips that you will remember, and be inspired to do something about. Containing plenty of serious science and peppered with tongue-in-cheek humor, this handbook is both informative and fun to read. The 77 strategies for lowering your impact on the planet are smart and easy. This book will give you the sad facts and help you conquer them with a smile.

Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough and Michael Braungart
In this classic approach to environmentalism, McDonough and Braungart call for nothing short of a new industrial revolution, founded not on the principle of reducing waste, but of literally eliminating it all together. They make the persuasive case that recycling, while minimizing the damage in our current society, is not a long term solution to the issues of sustainability. McDonough and Braungart highlight the achievements of a few companies that work on their waste-free ideals, and demonstrate that the business model is actually highly profitable, if somewhat unconventional. As worthy a read for the green-conscious as for the less environmentally informed.

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