The Green List: Recommended Eco-Titles

• Local Interest | How-To
• General Non-Fiction | Fiction
• DVDs

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• Local Interest

• Legacy: Portraits of 50 Bay Area Environmental Elders.
  Nancy Kittle.
  Profiles of extraordinary locals who defended the open spaces of the Bay Area.
• Golden Gate Gardening: The Complete Guide to Year-Round Food Gardening in the San Francisco Bay Area and Coastal California.
  Pam Peirce.
  Definitive source on local vegetable gardening tailored for the many climates in the region.
• Plants and Landscapes for Summer-Dry Climates of the San Francisco Bay Region.
  Nora Harlow.
  What to plant to conserve water, provide wildlife habitat and reduce fire hazards.
• Designing California Native Gardens: The Plant Community Approach to Artful, Ecological Gardens.
  Glenn Keator and Alrie Middlebrook.
  Easy to use book includes sample plans, drawings, color photographs and plant lists.
• The Art of Simple Food: Notes and Recipes From a Delicious Revolution.
  Alice Waters.
  Bay Area natural food revolutionary presents her principles and recipes for good eating.
• The Country in the City: The Greening of the San Francisco Bay Area.
  Richard Walker.
  A history of local environmental politics from the late 1800s to the present.

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• How-To

• The Great Neighborhood Book: A Do-it-yourself Guide to Placemaking.
  Jay Walljasper.
  Offers techniques to revive a community by transforming public spaces.
• Ecovillages: A Practical Guide to Sustainable Communities.
  Jan Martin Bang.
  A manual for planning, establishing and maintaining a sustainable community, using a permaculture approach.
• 1,001 Ways to Save the Earth.
  Joanna Yarrow.
  This handbook provides practical and simple ideas for every budget and every day.
• Don’t Throw It Out: Recycle, Renew and Reuse to Make Things Last.
  Lori Baird.
  Extend the life of your treasured possessions and maximize the value of everything you own.
• The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Hybrid and Alternative Fuel Vehicles.
  Jack R. Nerad.
  In jargon-free language, explains the advantages and disadvantages of each kind of car.
• Consumer Guide to Home Energy Savings: Save Money, Save the Earth.
  Jennifer Thorne Amann.
  A one-stop resource to improve home energy performance and reduce costs.

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• General Non-Fiction

• Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder.
  Richard Louv.
  Extols importance of exposure to nature for physical and emotional development.
• The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century.
  James Howard Kunstler.
  Apocalyptic vision of a post-oil future details economic, political and social changes.
• The World Without Us.
  Alan Weisman.
  Paints provocative scenario of what would happen to earth if all humans disappeared.
• The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics.
  Riane Eisler.
  Ecofeminist promotes practical plan to solve environmental and social problems.
• Encounters with the Archdruid.
  John McPhee.
  McPhee describes conservation champion David Brower going head to head with three natural enemies.
• Blue Frontier: Dispatches from America’s Ocean Wilderness.
  David Helvarg.
  Charts ongoing ecological crisis of the marine environment, emphasizing public policy and activist efforts.
• The Sixth Extinction: Journey Among the Lost and Left Behind.
  Terry Glavin.
  St. Martin’s Press, 2006. How globalization contributes to the loss of diverse cultures, languages and local traditions.
• Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry.
  Stacy Malkan.
  Warns of hazardous chemicals in products of profit-driven, unregulated U.S. cosmetics industry.
• Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry Of Everyday Products—Who’s At Risk And What’s At Stake For American Power.
  Mark Schapiro.
  Spurning precautionary practices damages us, our ecosystems and American competitive advantage.
• Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash.
  Elizabeth Royte.
  Travel the fascinating trail trash takes—with experts.
• Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature and Climate Change.
  Elizabeth Kolbert.
  Expansion of author’s cogent New Yorker series on the urgent global warming crisis.
• Food Fight: The Citizen’s Guide to a Food and Farm Bill.
  Daniel Imhoff.
  Tell-all on subsidies distorting our food system, our bodies and our future.
• The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals.
  Michael Pollan.
  Discusses the ecology of the food we eat in a remarkable journey up and down the food chain.
• The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring.
  Richard Preston.
  Explores previously unknown ecosystem in the canopy of Northern California’s redwoods.
• Totem Salmon: Life Lessons from Another Species.
  Freeman House.
  In lyrical writing, describes effort to save the salmon in one Humboldt County river.
• Cool Green Stuff: A Guide to Finding Great Recycled, Sustainable, Renewable Objects You Will Love. Dave Evans
  Ecostyle from all over Earth!
• Walden.
  Henry David Thoreau
  The 1854 classic with an introduction and annotations by Bill McKibben.
• The Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman, and the Struggle To Save the Red­woods.
  Julia Butterfly Hill
  Her two years of civil disobedience succeed in promoting the survival of primal forest.

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• Fiction

• The Monkey Wrench Gang.
  Edward Abbey
  A comic and incendiary call to protect the American wilderness.
• A Friend Of The Earth.
  Coraghessan T. Boyle
  A riff on the mores and manias of environmental crusaders, blending idealism and satire.
• Earth.
  David Brin
  Ecological disasters threaten the entire planet.
• Ecotopia: The Notebooks and Reports of William Weston.
  Ernest Callenbach
  The Northwest secedes from the Union to form a socially and ecologically responsible state.
• After the Deluge.
  Chris Carlsson
  Full Enjoyment Books, 2004. A teen arsonist threatens utopian San Francisco’s sustainable direct democracy.
• Virtual Light.
  William Gibson
  Viscerally convincing dystopia of homeless living on Bay Bridge.
• Into The Forest.
  Jean Hegland
  Two sisters survive in the Northern California forest when fuel deliveries to the area cease.
• Always Coming Home.
  Ursula K. Le Guin
  Complex portrayal of a yet-to-exist society in Northern California.
• Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit.
  Daniel Quinn
  Records philosophical conversa­tions that take place between a man and a gorilla.
• Future Primitive: The New Ecotopias.
  Kim Stanley Robinson ed.
  Notable short works of visionary fiction incorporate elements of primitivism and eco-anarchism.
• The Fifth Sacred Thing.
  Starhawk.
  Ecofeminist’s epic novel pits San Francisco utopia against Southern California dystopia.
• Earth Abides.
  George Rippey Stewart
  Classic of last man on earth after epidemic—and he lives in Berkeley!

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• DVDs

• Baraka.
  Magidson Films, Inc., 2001.
  Captures the harmony and the calamity that humans and nature have visited upon the Earth.
• The End of Suburbia.
  Electric Wallpaper Co., 2004.
  Will the end of cheap and plentiful petroleum mean the end of suburbia as we know it?
• Fed Up!: Genetic Engineering, Industrial Agriculture and Sustainable Alternatives.
  Wholesome Goodness Produc­tions, 2002.
  An entertaining and informative overview of America’s contemporary food production system.
• Global Warming: What’s Up With the Weather?
  WGBH Boston, 2000.
  Explores the possible relation­ship between rising global temperatures and extreme weather events.
• Planet Earth: The Complete Series.
  BBC Video, 2007.
  A beautifully filmed nine hour exploration of the habi­tats and natural wonders of our world.
• Oil on Ice.
  Warner Home Video, 2005.
  Discusses conflict between the oil industry and environmentalists over the future of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
• The Future of Food.
  Lily Films, 2004.
  Reveals the devas­tation genetically modified crops have wreaked upon farmers, crops, foods and communities, and shows new solutions.
• The Day After Tomorrow.
  Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, 2004.
  Climatologist Jack Hall must fight to survive the elements when global warming triggers the onset of a new Ice Age.

Green List: Recommeded Eco Titles at the San Francisco Public Library - 2009