climate change booklist from Mitchell Thomashow

Mitch Thomashow - author/educator/new president of Maine's Unity College sends this list of books to help understand climate change:

Tim Flannery's The WeatherMakers is an outstanding, compellingly written introduction to the biospheric changes that are already underway. This is the best biodiversity oriented introduction to the challenge of climate change.
William F Ruddiman - Plows, Plagues and Petroleum - suggests that significant climate change commenced during the agricultural era, and that by inadvertantly warming the planet we may have avoided global cooling! Ruddiman neatly incorporates climate change science with global environmental history. It's a smooth read, too.
For a first-hand journalist's account, read Elizabeth Kolbert's Field Notes From A Catastrophe.
and two older books:
Climate change makes much more sense when you understand the earth's biogeochemistry. Read Tyler Volk's imaginative, well crafted book Gaia's Body for a fine introduction.
Thinking about paleoecology helps, too. Read E C Pielou After the Ice Age for an accessible naturalist-oriented approach to climate and biogeography, with a focus on the return of life to glaciated North America.

climate change booklist from Mitchell Thomashow

Mitch Thomashow - author/educator/new president of Maine's Unity College sends this list of books to help understand climate change:

Tim Flannery's The WeatherMakers is an outstanding, compellingly written introduction to the biospheric changes that are already underway. This is the best biodiversity oriented introduction to the challenge of climate change.
William F Ruddiman - Plows, Plagues and Petroleum - suggests that significant climate change commenced during the agricultural era, and that by inadvertantly warming the planet we may have avoided global cooling! Ruddiman neatly incorporates climate change science with global environmental history. It's a smooth read, too.
For a first-hand journalist's account, read Elizabeth Kolbert's Field Notes From A Catastrophe.
and two older books:
Climate change makes much more sense when you understand the earth's biogeochemistry. Read Tyler Volk's imaginative, well crafted book Gaia's Body for a fine introduction.
Thinking about paleoecology helps, too. Read E C Pielou After the Ice Age for an accessible naturalist-oriented approach to climate and biogeography, with a focus on the return of life to glaciated North America.

Jack Collom

Poet Simon Pettet gave a wonderful reading of his poetry at our store the other night, and gave us a copy of Jack Collom's new book of poems: Exchanges of Earth and Sky. A poetic ornithology, Joanne Kyger described it this way:

Birds are souls that communicate
between divinities and humans.
They let us know what's going on
- a little bird told me so.
They foretell the future, their perspective
is free and unique and quick,
just like Jack Collom in this
Field Guide to Birds for Poets.

It is that and more - with poems for 96 different birds, quotations from Birds of America, Poultry for Profit, Swine Husbandry and more, -
and speaks on out into the air:
"....................................However, by
now, within the ecology of the planet, the reach
of our power far exceeds the
reach of
our understanding. Within
the planet's ecology, we're like
a bomb in a bus"

remembering Gennady Aygi

a poem in remembrance of Chuvash poet Gennady Aygi, one of the outstanding Russian language poets of the 20th century, friend of Pasternak, translator of literature into Chuvash, and editor of a Chuvash poetry anthology, who passed away recently - his poem:

Beginning from the field

all day - the wind's repetition
of itself
from the edge - of the nearby field

visibly - lightly - widely!-

but here - among peasant
buildings
its stumbling steps
even deeper - like a meeting
with "Someone" - of the soul!-

no clarity - no distinction

Lists: food, Montana and more...

Sandor Katz, author of Wild fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition and Craft of Live-Culture Foods, and the soon to be published The Revolution will not be microwaved - Inside America's food underground, sends us a list on The Politics of Food :

Tangled roots: Women, work and globalization on the Tomato trail Deborah Barndt
Shattering: Food, Politics and the loss of genetic diversity Fowler and Mooney
Sustainable Agriculture and resistance: Transforming food production in Cuba Funes et al.
Exotic appetites: Ruminations of a food adventurer Lisa Heldke
Some like it hot: food, genes and cultural diversity Gary Nabhan
Holy cows and hog Heaven: The food buyer's guide to farm-friendly food Joel Salatin
Tastes of Paradise: A social history of spices, stimulants and Intoxicants Wolfgang Schivelbusch
The Untold Story of Milk: Green Pastures, Contented cows and Raw Dairy Foods Ron Schmid
Stolen Harvest: the hijacking of the global food supply Vandana Shiva
Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and government lies about the safety of genetically engineered foods you're eating Jeffrey Smith
From the fryer to the fuel tank Joshua Tickell
Urban Wilds : Gardeners stories of the struggle for land and justice Cleo Woelfle-Erskine


From Montana, poet/carpenter David Thodal sends us a Montana booklist:

Indian Creek Chronicles Pete fromm
The Lochsa story Bud Moore
A River Runs Through It Norman MacClean
The Book of Yaak Rick Bass
One Round River Richard Manning
Homestead Annick Smith
Big Sky Reader: A treasury of the best writing from the Big Sky Journal, edited by Alan Jones and Jeff Wetmore

and a list from poet/educator Connie Vogel

The House of Paper Carlos Maria Dominguez
The Life You Save May Be your own: an American pilgrimage Paul Elie
The Pursuit of Happiness Justin Cartwright
Ditter grounds Sandra Benitez
Namesake Jhumpa Lahiri

booklist from Gary Snyder

Five books on one subject "Examples of being in place"

1 Ray Hudson Moments Rightly Placed "An Aleutian memoir" How to learn to see the Aleutian Islands, while working as a schoolteacher and there for some years. Delicate, solid, careful attention to native peoples and landscape.

2 Sage Birchwater, ed. Chiwid This is about the life of a remarkable native woman of the Chilcotin Valley in interior BC. She lived outdoors and single almost her whole life, summer and winter. A lot of people both white and native, all through the big valley, knew her. She fished, hunted and trapped in and all around the ranches. As a younger woman she was quite beautiful. This is reading for your own survival instincts and spiritual inspiration.
The remarkable (white) wanderer of interior B C who goes by the name Chundee said of her "But I could never impose on someone who was living like that...if you're living like that you're living as a spirit. You're not living as a body. If you're living as a body, you're not going to be able to live like that."

3 Rick Rubin Naked Against the Rain Chinook life on the lower Columbia River in the early 19th century o.p.

4 Freeman House Totem Salmon

5 Peter Nabokov Where Lightning Strikes "The lives of American Indian Sacred Places"
Just out. Remarkable.

and two more:

Aguilar When the River Was Wild Warm Springs, Yakima and Wasco Indian peoples life with the Columbia River in the upper gorge, before the dams went in

Thomas Buckley Standing Ground Yurok spiritual training, strong & clear.

booklist from Gary Snyder

Five books on one subject "Examples of being in place"

1 Ray Hudson Moments Rightly Placed "An Aleutian memoir" How to learn to see the Aleutian Islands, while working as a schoolteacher and there for some years. Delicate, solid, careful attention to native peoples and landscape.

2 Sage Birchwater, ed. Chiwid This is about the life of a remarkable native woman of the Chilcotin Valley in interior BC. She lived outdoors and single almost her whole life, summer and winter. A lot of people both white and native, all through the big valley, knew her. She fished, hunted and trapped in and all around the ranches. As a younger woman she was quite beautiful. This is reading for your own survival instincts and spiritual inspiration.
The remarkable (white) wanderer of interior B C who goes by the name Chundee said of her "But I could never impose on someone who was living like that...if you're living like that you're living as a spirit. You're not living as a body. If you're living as a body, you're not going to be able to live like that."

3 Rick Rubin Naked Against the Rain Chinook life on the lower Columbia River in the early 19th century o.p.

4 Freeman House Totem Salmon

5 Peter Nabokov Where Lightning Strikes "The lives of American Indian Sacred Places"
Just out. Remarkable.

and two more:

Aguilar When the River Was Wild Warm Springs, Yakima and Wasco Indian peoples life with the Columbia River in the upper gorge, before the dams went in

Thomas Buckley Standing Ground Yurok spiritual training, strong & clear.

Borders Slogan

Borders is planning to open a bookstore here in Brunswick, just out of town at the Cooks corner mall hell. There is already a good bookstore, Brunswick bookland, out there. Ane we (Gulf of Maine Books) are downtown on Maine Street. We don't need another store, and should just ignore them. We are looking for a slogan to put on a bumpersticker, and are open to suggestion (either leave it as a comment under this post or email us at info@gulfofmainebooks.com
The winner gets cool stuff from Gulf of Maine!
Some examples:
No Borders
Recognize no Borders
Respect No Borders
Abolish all Borders
Borders won't hold us
Borders won't stop us.

ned mudd's lists

muddite activist musician writer lawyer doctor of phiosophy Ned Mudd writes us from the deep South with two lists:

5 Books to Sleep With:

Black Sun Edward Abbey
Poets on the Peaks John Suiter
A Place in Space: Ethics, Aesthetics, and Watersheds Gary Snyder
Dalva Jim Harrison
A Friend of the Earth T C Boyle

and 5 books to wake up with:

Collected Songs of Cold Mountain Red Pine, translator
Nanao or Never: Nanao Sakaki Walks Earth A Gary Lawless, editor
Miles Beyond: Electric Explorations of Miles Davis 1967-1991 Paul Tingen
Lancelot Walker Percy
Rules for Radicals Saul Alinsky

Octavia Butler

Artist Susan Beebe reminds us of the recent passing of author Octavia Butler with a recommended list of five essential Octavia Butler titles:
The Xenogenesis Trilogy:
Dawn
Imago
Adulthood Rites
Kindred
Wild Seed

more booklists from all over

Etain Addey, whose book A Silent Joy we just published (it was originally published in Italian) writes from Pratale Farm, near Gubbio, Umbria, Italia, with this list:

Arrows in Flight - sahort stories from New Ireland - edited by Caroline Walsh
Darwin's Black Box - Michael Behe
Kneeling Orion - poems by Kate Barnes
Irish Fairy Tales - James Stephens
Passion of the Western Mind Richard Tarnas


from Montana poet/carpenter David Thodal recommends:

On the Wild Edge: In Search of a Natural Life - David Petersen
Being Caribou - Five Months on Foot with an Arctic Herd - Karsten Heuer
Walking the Big Wild - from Yellowstone to the Yukon on the Grizzly Bears Trail - Karsten Heuer
Against the Grain - How Agriculture has Hijacked Civilization - Richard Manning
Walking It Off - A Veteran's Chronicle of War and Wilderness - Doug Peacock

and from poet/photographer/farmer Eero Ruuttila, who will read poetry at the bookstore with Simon Pettet, comes a short list of this month's reading:

Baghdad Journal - an artist in occupied Iraq Steve mumford
Semina Culture - Wallace Berman & His Circle eds. Duncan &McKenna
No Man's Land Eduardo Antonio Parra's Mexican border stories

moving days at gulf of maine books

Our first moving day, 1980, above, and our second moving day, 1995, to our present location, below (we have had 3 locations over the course of 27 years)

book lists from the West Coast

Emiko Morita, a "humble book peddler living on the Pacific Northwest Coast" sends this list:
The Highest Tide - Jim Lynch
Chasing Clayoquot: A Wilderness Almanac David Pitt Brook (called "the Thoreau of Clayoquot Sound")
Sointula Bill Gaston
Love Medicine and One Song poetry by Native American/Metis Gregory Scofield
The Sweet Edge - debut novel by poet Alison Pick


and from Dennis Fritzinger in Berkeley, coordinator of the Warrior poets Society, poetry editor of Earth First! journal:
Dire Elegies edited by Karla Merrified first book of poetry entirely about endangered species (and yes, including poems by Dennis Fritzinger and gary Lawless)
Speaking of Earth - Environmental Speeches that moved the world Alon Tal, editor
Grandmother Says J D Whitney
Turtle Island Gary Snyder
A Sand County Almanac Aldo Leopold

more book lists

From Gloucester author Peter Anastas (his latest novel No Fortunes set at Bowdoin College in the late 1950s)
Gustave Flaubert - Sentimental Education
Ford Madox Ford Parade's End
A E Ellis The Rack
Richard Yates Revolutionary Road
Pat Barker Union Street


from Tom Butler, editor of Wild Earth Magazine, and a book collection of work from the magazine, also called Wild Earth -

Overshoot - The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change - Willam catton
The Coming Plague - Newly Emerging Diseases in a World out of Balance - Laurie Garrett
The Long Emergency James Howard Kunstler
A Sand County Almanac Aldo Leopold
Aldo Leopold - His Life and Work Curt meine
Jayber Crow Wendell Berry