Flanagan’s Smart Home by Barbara Flanagan

Released November 2008

This book is well-organized and no-nonsense. Following Flanagan’s advice could probably build you a very clean and efficient home. It could probably also empty your wallet and strip you of items whose value is basically sentimental.

I liked how the book is laid out, the sections are divided up by room. While it was fun to day dream about dumping out every drawer in the kitchen and starting over… that’s not terribly practical. This book would be useful to come back to again and again as a reference to help you re-populate various rooms when appliances die or it’s redecorating time.

Flanagan certainly knows her stuff and picks interesting and useful looking items to populate her super-house. — Sara Wedell, Adult Services Librarian

Earth Day Title: The Green Book by Elizabeth Rogers, Thomas Kostigen

Released June 2007

This book provides steps for a simple approach to living less wasteful lives. Reading this book doesn’t make you feel guilty and it doesn’t preach. Instead, it shows you how simple changes can help you use the resources we take for granted more efficiently.

This book provides steps for a simple approach to living less wasteful lives. Reading this book doesn’t make you feel guilty and it doesn’t preach. Instead, it shows you how simple changes can help you use the resources we take for granted more efficiently.

I also found this book to be a useful reference guide for making informed decisions. It contains an index and is arranged by topic, such as “home”, “school” and “shopping” so you get specific pointers for distinct areas of life rather than as broad generalizations.

Between each section, there are celebrity testimonials. I found all of these unimpressive, from Owen Wilson mumbling that he likes driving a Prius to Tyra Banks telling me to keep my life simple. The celebrity pages are easy to ignore, but the many tips to help you reduce waste in your life are not.

This is a great resource for anyone interested in cutting back for the greater good. — Sara Wedell, Adult Services Librarian

Earth Day Title: “Living Like Ed” by Ed Begley, Jr.

Released February 2008

I found Ed Begley Jr.’s guide to green living very accessible to people getting more into this lifestyle. The overall tone of the book was very positive – Ed’s enthusiasm for all things eco-friendly is pervasive. He shares his approach to energy saving or recycling, and gives good explanations for the why this each is a useful conservation habit.

I found Ed Begley Jr.’s guide to green living very accessible to people getting more into this lifestyle. The overall tone of the book was very positive – Ed’s enthusiasm for all things eco-friendly is pervasive. He shares his approach to energy saving or recycling, and gives good explanations for the why this each is a useful conservation habit.

I found that I liked the additional voices included in the book, Ed’s wife Rachelle chimes in occasionally and “Ed’s Green Friends” have sections where they explain the benefits of specific products and practices. I appreciated Rachelle’s point of view as someone who is adapting from a life of “regular” consumption to a more environmentally-aware lifestyle. I also liked that Ed left some of the more technical explanations to experts in his “Green Friends” sections. He clearly knows his stuff and has crunched the numbers and has a big-picture mentality when it comes to consumption, but he doesn’t sound like a know-it-all, he sounds more like someone passing along helpful hints from their experience.

I jotted down notes about the types of recyclable plastics and found his recylcing sorting guide very useful. I do think that this book is most helpful in Ed’s own southern California area, because I took his advice and Googled my area and “hazardous waste” only to find that getting rid of it responsibly is not as easy as Ed makes it sound. Also, ridding my life of e-waste is not going to be convenient or free. Still, he answers a lot of valuable questions and lays out solid reasoning for cutting consumption. Thanks, Ed! — Sara Wedell, Adult Services Librarian