Destination: Books

Fresh Offerings

Here are some of the fresh new titles Destination: Books will be bringing to the Freedom Farmer's Market at the Carter Center on Saturday morning, May 28th. 

You can appreciate how exotic fungi can be by thumbing through the 40 color illustrations in the book Fungi from the Royal Botanical Garden’s Fungarium. Fungi features the work of Elsie Wakefield (1886 -1972), a pioneer female scientist and artist who was the President of the British Mycological Society. (Did you know that children’s author Beatrix Potter was also a mycologist?)

You don’t know beans until you’ve read Susan Young’s Growing Beans: A Diet for Healthy People and Planet a slim reference book that covers the basics: bean types, growing beans, soil preparation, cooking tips, proper seed storage and a guide to beans around the globe with lots of color photographs. (I was so inspired I ran out and planted half a dozen Carson Bush Beans.)

Consider the shrub when planning a more environmentally friendly garden. Martin Crawford’s Shrubs for Gardens, Agroforestry and Permaculture is a complete reference book to identifying the qualities of useful shrubs ranging from common fruit bushes to those that have medicinal parts. According to Crawford, you cannot underestimate the ability of shrubs to fight climate change. The book covers over 60 varieties of shrubs and it identifies which plants grow well in the Southeastern parts of North America. (I am thinking blueberries bushes.)

For a more complete list of Destination: Books's pop-up inventory, visit here. 

 

Electrify

Electrify: An Optimists Playbook for a Clean Energy Future (MIT Press, 2021) by Saul Griffith is a briskly paced book advocating that the best way to slow climate change is to shift the electric grid away from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. Included in this strategy is connecting our day-to-day necessities (especially electric cars) into that grid. 

Griffith writes that the transmission lines that move the electricity generated by wind and solar energy to the population centers needs to be upgraded.  What makes Griffith's argument compelling is how he uses data to solidify the points he is trying to make. In the appendix, he provides succinct answers to address the main concerns that people will have.

Coincidently, there is one question about utilities that caught my attention:

Appendix A, page 198

Georgians for Renewable Energy

Griffith's sentence "If you really want to make a difference, get yourself elected to the board of your state's utility commission and steer it in the right direction"  really resonates because Georgians now have an opportunity to do something meaningful.

The Georgia Public Service Commissioners (PSC) is a committee of five members that make recommendations on Georgia Energy Policy. On May 25, 2022, the PSC is holding hearings on the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) which is mapping out Georgia's energy future. 

One important way you advocate for clean energy renewables is to comment on the PSC public comments page, but the form has to be filled out properly. Fortunately, a group Decatur Cares About Climate has made that easier by providing step by step instructions HERE. 

If enough people comment,  these commissioners will take notice because they are probably not used to being flooded by citizens input.

 

Additional References

A lengthy radio interview with Saul Griffith from October 29, 2021 on the NPR show Climate One.

The NPR show 1A aired a show on the topic, "Our Climate Is Heating Up and We Know How to Stop It, But Will We?." Members of the panel reinforce Griffith's arguments that the technology is now available for significantly cleaner energy, but the two main obstacles are the transmission line issue and the political will to make it happen.

And finally, you should read Electrify. Order a copy here from Destination: Books. 

Gardening Respite

I am taking a brief respite from my own gardening toil-in-the-soil activities to set up the Destination: Books pop-up stall at the Freedom Farmers Market at the Carter Center on Saturday morning, April 30th.   

Gardening-wise, this is my fourth year "curating" a small 9' by 8' plot at the Scott Community Garden in downtown Decatur.  The status report so far:

-- The snow peas are looking good.

-- The carrots look good above ground, but below the surface they have the length and circumference of a toothpick.

-- The eggplants are in, and I have planted radishes alongside them to attract some of the same pests that chomp on eggplants. Fortunately, I have good luck in this space in the past growing the slender Oriental variety. If only I can keep them healthy enough to get some real foliage. 

My biggest concern is always tomatoes. You think it's just summer and they will grow automatically, but I find them a challenge with poor production or the appearance of the dreaded Blossom End Rot (BER). This spring I have been reading Epic Tomatoes: How to Select & Grow the Best Varieties of All Time by Craig LeHoullier. Not only does it include tips on controlling cutworms, proper staking, and a history/comparison of the many varieties, but there are many large, colorful pictures. I am thinking about cutting the pictures out and putting little signs near my Cherokee Purples and Big Boys to inspire them.

Here's a sampling of some of the books that you can expect to see at the next Freedom Farmers Market. And you have my word that none of the books will have the pages torn out.

 

 

Destination Books at Edgewood Garden Earth Day

The Destination: Books popup book stall will be at the Wylde Center's Edgewood Community Garden Earth Day Festival from 4 to 7 p.m. on Friday, April 22, 2022. We will be featuring books on gardening, sustainability and some children's books.

Destination Books at the Wylde Center -- Maybe

The Destination: Books' pop-up book stall with its books on gardening and sustainability is scheduled to be at the Wylde Center's Spring Plant Sale Festival at Oakhurst Garden on Saturday, April 16th from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The Wylde Center is located in the Oakhurst neighborhood of Decatur.

Of course, the weather forecast is iffy at the time of this posting, and one thing we've learned is that rain, wind and books don't mix, and we might have to take a rain check. But that shouldn't dampen the headliner—plenty of plants will be available.

Our Destination: Books online store will still be open where you can order many of our favorites for delivery through Bookshop.org, which supports independent booksellers like us.   

Gardening Book Comparisons

While working at our popup booth we are sometimes asked to explain the differences between our variety of gardening books. It's a good question and to better prepare ourselves we did some further review of the books we carry on the topic. These books range in price from $19.95 to $24.95, but each book is written for a specific readership and have noticeable differences in the topics covered and approach. 

These books will be available at our next Destination: Books popup at the Wylde Center from 9 to 3 p.m. on Saturday, April 16 as part of their annual Spring Plant sale located in the Oakhurst neighborhood of Decatur (weather permitting). We will also have books on other garden topics, sustainability, and some children's books.

If you have trouble reading this on your cellphone, just go our website at destinationbooks.net where you can click on the image for a better view.

 

 

Popup Home Opener

Destination: Books begins its second full season at the Freedom Farmer's Market at the Carter Center with its first popup of the year on Saturday morning, March 26th. 

We will have many of our standards on gardening and sustainability, along with books on food culture, travel, and children's books. We have also brought in many new titles for your browsing pleasure. For a better sense of what we'll be bringing, visit the Popup Inventory page. 

 

 

Fermentation: Home and Abroad

Destination: Books has brought in two books in preparation for the upcoming pop-up book stall season, which begins weather permitting on Saturday, March 26th at the Freedom Farmers Market at the Carter Center in Atlanta.

Sara Bir’s The Fruit Forager’s Companion is a guide to the local fruit that is available in your neighborhood and how you can preserve it through fermentation, freezing or turning into tasty desserts. The book has an informal you-can-do-this tone without being arrested for trespassing or giving yourself a gut ache for failing to recognize what exactly you are picking. The Companion includes harvesting and storage tips on standard fruits like apples, concord grapes and blueberries, but also includes the lesser-known prickly pear and the pawpaw. (Another proud addition to the Destination: Books paw-paw book inventory, which is second to none.) Interspersed with recipes are sidebar stories with Bir’s personal accounts that keep the book light and entertaining. It is gorgeously printed with lots of pictures of irresistible fruit.

The food writer Sandor Katz’s name is synonymous fermentation —Wild Fermentation, The Art of Fermentation, — and with his latest book Fermentation Journeys: Recipes, Techniques, & Traditions from Around the World (in ~60 recipes) he has now earned the moniker as being the Anthony Bourdain of Fermentation. Palm wine in Myanmar, mezcal in Oaxaca, fermented vegetables in China, chicha in South America and cheese making in Australia are just a few of the places, stories and recipes that Katz shares in this food travelogue.

Gardening Techniques

Time to Start Planning

Not that I have been gardening that long, but I have learned a few things about gardening books as we begin our third year selling:

1.)  There are many different gardening approaches and philosophies ranging from Square Foot Gardening for the more industrious to the Lazy-Ass Gardening which advocates “maximize your soil; minimize your toil.” (Note: there is a link below to all those books mentioned.)

2.) There are different gardening books based on your available space. The right book large depends on whether you have a limited yard (Fresh Food from Small Spaces), a patio with a few containers (Tiny Victory Gardens: Growing Food Without a Yard) or just a windowsill (Year-Round Indoor Gardening).

3.) Gardening knowledge is cumulative. You are not going to learn it all in one year, or two years…so that’s why we “recommend” investing in different approaches (of course, consider the source of this advice – a bookseller). Then again, maybe you just need a little inspiration found in books like: The Tao of Vegetable Gardening or Grounded: A Gardener’s Journey to Abundance & Self Sufficiency.  

At Destination: Books we have put together a list of books to get you started in your garden this Spring. Our first popup at the Freedom Farmer’s Market at the Carter Center is Saturday, March 26, 2022, where you can thumb through them at your leisure, or you an order them online through our Bookshop Portal .  Those books will be shipped directly to your door. A more detailed description of each book is at the ordering portal.

Ammo for Eco-Poopers

As defined in the last posting an Eco-Pooper is a person that brings up the negative environmental ramifications of any product or activity being considered or discussed (like Jason in the ABC sitcom Abbott Elementary). If you are that person, or want to be that person, or you would prefer just being better informed, Tatiana Schlossberg’s Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don’t Know You Have merits some of your attention. (An updated paperback version is available in March at the Destination: Books online store via Bookshop.org.)

Schlossberg, the climate beat reporter for The New York Times has compiled a comprehensive list of what we buy, the way we buy it and how we live impacts the environment. She connects the dots from all over -- Mongolia, Columbia, and Iowa to our front porch.

She divides the topic into sections on Technology and the Internet, Food, Fashion, and Fuel and then parses them into shorter chapters. For example, Fashion is divided into “Thirsty for Denim”, “Athleisure Forever!”, “Fast Fashion, but Going Nowhere”, “It’s Not Wood, It’s Rayon" and “The Yarn That Makes the Desert.” In the latter piece Schlossberg shows how the consumer lust for inexpensive cashmere had caused climate chaos in Mongolia that has resulted in the expansion of the Gobi Desert and rising ozone levels in California.

Similarly, in "The Great Big Cargo Route in the Sky" Schlossberg uses roses grown in the South American country of Columbia to illustrate the impact of air freight on the environment. She writes:

"In 2017, 4 billion flowers (roses and others) weighing 200,000 tons total (about one-tenth of pound per flower) were flown from Columbia to the United States… Carrying all of those flowers (and just the flowers, not including their packaging) used 114 million liters of fuel and released 360,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide, according to an estimate from the International Council on Clean Transportation."

Two takeaways from this excerpt: 1.) Schlossberg includes her statistics and references throughout the book (mostly in the footnotes) and 2.) If you don’t want to buy your sweetheart roses this Valentine’s Day you have a readymade excuse (even though they have probably have already landed stateside).

And roses are nothing compared to coal ash, the highly toxic by-product of burning coal in power plants that is primarily stored in water near lakes and streams, until it is not. (The disaster at the Kingston, Tennessee Fossil Plant in 2008).

And then there is most unfavorite revelation in the “The Greediest Crop” piece which is about environmental problems surrounding corn. (I grew up in the town known as the Buckle on the Corn Belt and I love corn-on-the-cob). Too much corn is being grown partially for use as the gasoline supplement ethanol and for the feeding of livestock. Moreover, how the corn is grown exacerbates the problem.  Besides the fossil fuel burned to grow the corn/ethanol, corn is being grown as a monoculture crop requiring larger amounts for fertilizer and it is more susceptible to disease and insects (more pesticides needed). She explains how the endless acres of corn creates droughts and floods as well. News reports of violent flooding with thunderstorms that destroy crops and livelihoods in the Midwest are serving as constant reminders.

If there is a bright spot in Schlossberg’s book is that it does not have an overly bitter or condemning tone and she has lighter moments to keep it in perspective. She quips, “My love for disappointing facts as perhaps you have come learn is endless.”

Inconspicuous Consumption is simply a one stop shop, summarizing the role each consumer plays in harming and perhaps changing some habits to save the planet.