Reading for a change!

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

"Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! How I wonder what you're at."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“Who is John Galt?”
– Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Hearing these words makes me want to curl up with a blanket, listen to the rain pitter-patter on the window and dive into a really good book. More and more, books are becoming the go-to entertainment in a down and out economy. Someone who can’t pay their mortgage, take their kids to the movies or just wants to avoid life altogether can easily pick up some old literature or spend a few dollars on modern day authors like Elizabeth Gilbert, Stephenie Meyer and Chuck Palahniuk. The romance alone in some books can sweep you away from reality from hours (I know from experience!). But in this day and age when being “green” and keeping close tabs on how you are contributing to keeping the environment clean, is there a place for books?

Let’s take a quick time-out. The mere idea of taking books out of my life is heart-wrenching. I’m a book junky. In my life, I’ve given away a lot of books (which I regret), bought a TON of books and lost a few. When it comes to books, I have hoarding tendencies – and my book buying habits have created a list that is too long to keep up with on my work schedule. Besides representing intelligence for me, books are memories. When I pick up a book, I am reminded of where I was living when I read it, what subjects I was taking in school, who I was dating and most important what ugly clothes I thought were cool (anyone shop at Rave?).

All of my cookbooks (and Mr. Nutcracker and my brother)

My fiction books, old school books and randoms

Novel writing books (ha) and language books...
still haven't learned Arabic yet.

In efforts to be green and against all of my reservations, I decided to do some research on the book publishing industry. And I wasn’t happy or surprised at what I found. There are at least 4 billion books produced annually in the U.S., which means that at least 30 MILLION trees are cut down to make those books. And these figures are from 2006! Ugh, I think I just threw up in my mouth a little. So what are publishing companies doing about this?

Luckily, they’re doing something. Go to http://www.greenpressinitiative.org/ and take a look around. There’s a treatise slowly being signed by publishers that will proportions of recycled paper to at least 30% by this year; Random House, Simon & Schuster, Scholastic and Hachette Book Group are among those. Most of these publishers are moving up their percentage of recycled paper usage at least 25%...which is awesome! The thing that makes me happiest is that they are aware and they taking proper steps towards creating a green publishing industry. I doubt the industry will switch to all recycled paper for several more years, if not decades, but it’s a start. And that’s all that any of us ask: to care.

Okay Kyrie, stop sticking up for publishing companies just because you love buying Harry Potter in hardback. Seriously. You may be asking, “what are YOU going to do to be more green? Stop buying books?” Now that I am more cogniscent of how much paper is used to make books, I will definitely curb my book-buying habits. And in the meantime, I’ve found a ton of great resources for both you and I to slow down our paper consumption and reduce our carbon footprint.

E-Books
There are tons of sites that offer e-books for free or for a nominal fee. And best of all – no paper! My favorite website is http://www.ebookwise.com/. For those who have iPhones, check out Stanza (free), Classics ($2.99), Free Books ($1.99) and you can even get the Twilight Series for $9.99 a book. Cool!

Kindle
The wireless reading device runs from $250.00 to $500.00, depending on the model. Buying books on the Kindle cost about $10.00 each, and there are half a million books in the Kindle database.

Magazines
Most gossip columns are appearing on regular news websites these days, but if you’re looking for a celebrity fix, go to or download the “People Celebrity News Tracker” on your iPhone for $1.99. For free beauty tips, visit http://www.free-beauty-tips.com/. AND to know which beauty products are earth-friendly, go to http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com (thanks for the link Amanda!).

Printed Materials
If you’re looking to get materials printed for your business, community events, newsletters and the like, go to http://www.gregbarberco.com/ and check out their options and pricing.

With all these options now available to you Mr. or Ms. Reader, what’s stopping you from discontinuing your People subscription and just checking Perez Hilton every day? Nothing…so get on it! I’ve now made an executive decision about my writing career: if I ever do get published, I want my books to be made with 100% recycled paper…even if that means my royalties go out the window. How about that for dedication?!

In honor of Earth Day, I’ll leave you with a funny quote from one of my favorite TV shows (not books) about how clueless people can really be about doing what is right for our environment:

“Well I could put the trash into a landfill where it’s going to stay for millions of years, or I could burn it up, get a nice smoky smell in here and let the smoke go into the sky where it turns into stars.”
-Charlie, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia