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Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times (Mother Earth News Wiser Living Series)

Childrens Toy Shop > Books > Outdoors and Nature
by: Steve Solomon

April 01, 2006
This book is easy to read and comprhensive. It even tells a person how to start a garden in the spring. Great for first timers who didn't know to get the garden prepared the Autumn before. It also provides lists on which veggies are easy to grow and hearty and which require more care and are delicate.

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Collapse (Allen Lane Science)

Childrens Toy Shop > Books > Outdoors and Nature
by: Jared M. Diamond

January 17, 2005
I loved the first half of the author's "Guns, Germs, and Steel". So I bought this book. Unfortunately this book is just awful.(However, if you especially liked the second half of that book, you are likely to like this book too!)

In terms of content, some key facts are more contested than Diamond assumes, e.g. the Easter Island case. That makes one question other chapters as well.

In terms of style the book is just awful. I don't know what makes the book very, very tedious to read. Maybe the number of pages. Maybe because I get the feeling that the author is preaching his message to the audience. There is nothing surprising, interesting that springs out of this text.

My recommendation is to read "Guns, Germs, ... Read More:

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The Daily Coyote: A Story of Love, Survival, and Trust in the Wilds of Wyoming

Childrens Toy Shop > Books > Outdoors and Nature
by: Shreve Stockton

December 02, 2008
Shreve - I loved your book. I couldn't stop reading and as someone else said when I got to the last chapter I yearned for a dozen more. I couldn't get enough. I wanted to know every detail of your lives and Eli and Chloe and Mike too. I know that I would not be up to raising a coyote but I am in complete awe of what you are doing and am grateful that I can experience it vicariously. Shreve you are so unusual I just scratch my head and say"Who are you and where did you come from." I think you were sent here to teach us all something. I am awed by few but you knock my socks off. You are everything, afraid and fearless at the same time. Open and a mystery at the same time. Thank you so much for sharing your life and Charlie with us. The first ... Read More:

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The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World

Childrens Toy Shop > Books > Outdoors and Nature
by: Michael Pollan

May 28, 2002
It is a rare science book that evokes such an emotional response in me. "Beak of the Finch" by Jonathan Weiner is one, and "The Botany of Desire" is another. Pollan's discussion of four archetypal plants (apple, tulip, marijuana and potato) and our shared history with them makes for some wonderfully interesting reading. He has a great gift for allegory and metaphor, and these plants became real characters that I cared about deeply. Sprinkled with just the kind of details that I love most, the book reads like a daydream of a letter from home. Here are some examples of what I mean: the fact that without flowers there would be no mammals, which is likely the reason we human beings are partial to flowers, the overpowering smell of a marijuana hothouse in Amsterdam, ... Read More:

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Blue Book of Gun Values: 29th Edition (Blue Book of Gun Values)

Childrens Toy Shop > Books > Outdoors and Nature
by: S. P. Fjestad

April 15, 2008
This reference book is absolutely the definitive guide for gun values. It is the standard by which all other reference works are measured. There is background information on the manufacturers, historical references, grading guides, and a very well constructed set of tables for each gun listed showing current values. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in determining the value of their guns.

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Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things

Childrens Toy Shop > Books > Outdoors and Nature
by: William McDonough, Michael Braungart

April 22, 2002
McDonough & Baumgarten have re-envisioned how companies might redesign their manufacturing processes to actually leave the environment better than they found it. And create better products in the end, products that people will want to buy because they are well-designed.

What I love about this book is that their vision is mostly a PRIVATE sector solution. They believe that business is the solution, not the problem. They say entrepreneurs are the ones best suited to develop creative solutions to environmental issues, and ultimately better, less expensive products. That is, cheaper in the truest sense--no externalities, nothing in the landfill, no costs of disposal foisted off on the taxpayers to clean up. Materials would go back into manufacturing more ... Read More:

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Finding Beauty in a Broken World

Childrens Toy Shop > Books > Outdoors and Nature
by: Terry Tempest Williams

October 07, 2008
This is a magical book....from Italy to Bryce Canyon to Rwanda...all along the path Terry took following her own muse, the same that took her to Spain (LEAP) and to Great Salt Lake (Refuge). This time her path led her to Louis Gakumba, a young Rwandan man, now living in Utah thanks to this book and Terry's inquiry. This book is the real thing. I couldn't get enough of it.

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Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster

Childrens Toy Shop > Books > Outdoors and Nature
by: Jon Krakauer

2003-07
I enjoyed the actual book much more than the audiobook, mainly because Krakauer reads the text so fast that he takes a lot of the emotion out of the story.

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Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why

Childrens Toy Shop > Books > Outdoors and Nature
by: Laurence Gonzales

October 30, 2004
This book is not only extremely well written, but offers much scientific insight. The stories of survival provide flavor for his text and illustrate well his concepts. What I found most surprising is the applications of survival stories to everyday life. Gonzales concludes by offering practical advice for surviving in business and personal daily life. This book far exceeded what I expected.

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Life: The Classic Collection

Childrens Toy Shop > Books > Outdoors and Nature
by: Editors of Life Magazine

October 21, 2008
I am completely satisfied with my purchase of Life's Classic Collection. I remember seeing many of these photographs when my parents subscribed to the weekly copies of Life in the 1950s and I have already framed and mounted several photos on the wall of my study. They make a great addition to my collection.

Steve Wasserman