Deep Economy:
The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future

Bill McKibben (Henry Holt // $25.00)

Does more equal better? Not necessarily, says author and environmental activist Bill McKibben. In his latest book, McKibben argues that a consumer-centric, market society of “more” not only contributes to the planet’s failing ecology but actually makes people less happy. McKibben suggests that after sacrificing our natural resources to the god of efficiency with disastrous results, only a local economy can strike a balance between growth and sustainability. Citing examples of innovative agriculture and business practices, McKibben shows how growing and buying local begets a community of active participants in place of passive consumers. And the stakes are high. “In the face of energy shortage, of global warming, and of the vague but growing sense that we are not as alive and connected as we want to be ... we’ve started to grope for what might come next.”  Deep Economy could be it.

—Michael McCauley

 
The Sespe Wild

Bradley Monsma (University of Nevada // $18.95)

To slake an ever-burgeoning thirst for fresh water, the state of California has used dams and dikes to wrestle its rivers into submission—a precious few still run wild. In The Sespe Wild, author Bradley Monsma, a backpacking, kayaking English professor, goes in search of one that does. With little but a compass and his passion to guide him, Monsma chases the life of Sespe Creek—the last undammed river in Southern California—from its headwaters to its confluence. Less than 50 miles northwest of Los Angeles, but worlds away from civilization, the Sespe has played host to all manner of species, including condor and grizzly, sheep and steelhead. But when the rugged landscape is threatened in a fiery finale, Monsma recognizes that the city and the Sespe stand side by side, equally valuable, equally vulnerable.

—Jennifer Winger

 
Soaring with Fidel

David Gessner (Beacon Press // $24.95)

When the air in Cape Cod begins to chill, ospreys leave their summer nests in favor of warmer wintering grounds in Venezuela. One fall, David Gessner abandons his job, his family—and perhaps his sanity—to follow. As Gessner pursues a flock down the Eastern Seaboard and even into Cuba with a BBC-documentary team at his heels, a lively tale of fish-eating raptors, broken embargoes and a nail-biting race to the finish line ensues. In his quest to track Fidel, his favorite sea hawk, Gessner discovers that “humans are never happier than when they are chasing something.” And, indeed, Gessner finds his Mecca not in the thrilling launch or triumphant end of his own 7,000-mile migration, but in the living done in between.

—Jennifer Winger