Bookhugger Book Club
Island Press is happy to partner with TreeHugger to offer readers a chance to chat directly with authors through Bookhugger, an online book club. Each month, TreeHugger hosts a live online discussion with the author of a recent Island Press book, offering viewers deeper insight into the author’s ideas and the chance to ask their own questions. Participants also receive a substantial discount on each month's featured book.
Check back soon for upcoming Bookhugger events.
Past Bookhugger Features:
City Rules by Emily Talen
City Rules offers a challenge to students and professionals in urban planning, design, and policy: to change the rules of city-building, using regulations to reinvigorate, rather than stifle, our communities. Emily Talen demonstrates that rules like zoning and subdivision regulation are primary determinants of urban form.
Read the review or watch the discussion.
Seeds of Sustainability edited by Pamela Matson
Seeds of Sustainability is a groundbreaking analysis of agricultural development and transitions toward more sustainable management in one region. An invaluable resource for researchers, policymakers, and students alike, it examines new approaches to make agricultural landscapes healthier for both the environment and people.
Seeds of Sustainability provides unparalleled information about the causes and consequences of current agricultural methods. It also shows how knowledge can translate into better practices, not just in the Yaqui Valley, but throughout the world.
The Case for a Carbon Tax by Shi-Ling Hsu
There's a simple, straightforward way to cut carbon emissions-and we're rejecting it because of irrational political fears. That's the central argument of The Case for a Carbon Tax, a clear-eyed, sophisticated analysis of climate change policy. Shi-Ling Hsu weighs the merits of the four major approaches to curbing CO2: cap-and-trade; command and control regulation; government subsidies of alternative energy; and carbon taxes. He does not claim that a tax is the perfect or only solution, but that it can be implemented immediately and paired effectively with other approaches.
Read the review or watch the discussion, coming soon!
Human Transit by Jarrett Walker and My Kind of Transit by Darrin Nordahl
Public transit is a powerful tool for addressing a huge range of urban problems, including traffic congestion and economic development as well as climate change. But while many people support transit in the abstract, it's often hard to channel that support into good transit investments. In Human Transit, Jarrett Walker supplies the basic tools, the critical questions, and the means to make smarter decisions about designing and implementing transit services.
In My Kind of Transit, Darrin Nordahl argues that like life itself, transportation isn't only about the destination, but the journey. Public transit reduces traffic and pollution, yet few of us are willing to get out of our cars and onto subways and buses. But Nordahl demonstrates that when using public transit is an enjoyable experience, tourists and commuters alike willingly hand in their keys.
Read the review and watch the discussion.
Bottled & Sold by Peter Gleick
Peter Gleick knows water. A world-renowned scientist and freshwater expert, Gleick is a MacArthur "genius," and according to the BBC, an environmental visionary. And he drinks from the tap. Why don’t the rest of us? Bottled and Sold shows how water went from being a free natural resource to one of the most successful commercial products of the last one hundred years—and why we are poorer for it.
Read the review and watch the discussion.
Ideas That Matter, introduction by Mary Rowe
Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) is history's most celebrated urban critic. In addition to her classic, Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jacobs authored another half dozen influential books on urban planning, economics, and design. Ideas that Matter: The Worlds of Jane Jacobs offers students, enthusiasts, and critics unprecedented insights into the work of this seminal thinker.
Read the review and watch the discussion.
Making Healthy Places edited by Andrew L. Dannenberg, Howard Frumkin, and Richard J. Jackson
Like a well-trained doctor, Making Healthy Places presents a diagnosis of-and offers treatment for-problems related to the built environment. Drawing on the latest scientific evidence, with contributions from experts in a range of fields, it imparts a wealth of practical information, emphasizing demonstrated and promising solutions to common problems. Health professionals, planners, architects, developers, elected officials, students, and concerned members of the public will find this book invaluable.
Read the review and watch the discussion.
Let Them Eat Shrimp by Kennedy Warne
In Let Them Eat Shrimp, Kennedy Warne takes readers into the muddy battle zone that is the mangrove forest. Mangroves are supermarkets of the sea, providing shellfish, crabs, honey, timber, and charcoal to coastal communities worldwide. Yet to shrimp farmers and land developers, mangroves simply represent a good investment; the forests are bulldozed, their traditional users dispossessed. Warne's vivid account will make every reader pause before ordering the shrimp.
Read the review and watch the discussion.
The Agile City by James S. Russell
In a very short time America has realized that global warming poses real challenges to the nation's future. The Agile City engages the fundamental question: what can we do about it? Journalist and urban analyst James S. Russell argues that we'll more quickly slow global warming -and blunt its effects- by retrofitting cities, suburbs, and towns. His new book shows that change undertaken at the building and community level can reach carbon-reduction goals rapidly.
Read the review and watch the discussion.
The Death and Life of Monterey Bay by Stephen R. Palumbi and Carolyn Sotka
The Death and Life of Monterey Bay is the biography of a place, but also of the residents who reclaimed it. Monterey is thriving because of an eccentric mayor who wasn’t afraid to use pistols, axes, or the force of law to protect her coasts. It is because of fishermen who love their livelihood, scientists who are fascinated by the sea’s mysteries, and philanthropists and community leaders willing to invest in a world-class aquarium. The shores of Monterey Bay revived because of human passion—passion that enlivens every page of this hopeful book.
Read the review and watch the discussion.
Hope is an Imperative by David W. Orr
For more than three decades, David Orr has been one of the leading voices of the environmental movement. Hope Is an Imperative brings together in a single volume Professor Orr's most important works. The book offers a complete introduction to the writings of David Orr for readers new to the field, and represents a welcome compendium of key essays for long-time fans. It is a must-have volume for every environmentalist's bookshelf.
Read the review and watch the discussion.
Everyday Environmentalism by Jason Czarnezki
Czarnezki compellingly describes the historical and contemporary forces in the United States that have led to a culture of “convenience, consumerism, and consumption.” He also investigates the individual decisions that have the worst environmental impacts, along with the ecological costs of our food choices and the environmental costs of sprawl. Ever aware of the importance of personal choice, Czarnezki offers a thoughtful consideration of how public policy can positively affect individual behavior.
Read the review and watch the discussion.
Urbanism in an Age of Climate Change by Peter Calthorpe
According to Peter Calthorpe, relentless and thoughtless development have created a way of living that brings us to a point of reckoning regarding energy, climate change and the way we shape our communities. The answer to these crises is Sustainable Development, a thoughtful combination of good Urbanism with renewable energy sources, state of the art conservation techniques, new green technologies, and integrated services and utilities. Urbanism in the Age of Climate Change is an exploration of the challenges and potential shifts in our culture, economy, and environment and the ways they can affect the future of our communities.
Read the review and watch the discussion.
