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It's time we moved from commuting to community and Superbia!, a MOTHER EARTH NEWS Book for Wiser Living, tells you how. An inspiring book about connecting with our neighbors, connecting our communities to the ecosystem, and connecting our everyday lives to our search for quality and joy.

The book is full of practical ideas for creating more socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable neighborhoods. It is about remaking suburban and urban neighborhoods to serve people better and to reduce human impact on the environment.

The authors first trace the history of the suburbs, showing how they fail to meet many peoples' needs. They then describe how existing neighborhoods can be transformed, offering cohousing and new urbanist communities as examples. The reader is then guided through the transformation of a fictitious neighborhood that adopts the authors' 31 steps. Ideas for the blossoming of the suburb are described in order of difficulty, from easy to boldest, including: the creation of a neighborhood newsletter to foster a sense of neighborhood identity and cooperation; regular community dinners, discussion groups, and babysitting co-ops; the removal of backyard fences to create park-like spaces for community play areas, or gardens; retrofitting homes for energy efficiency, and installing community energy systems.

Examples from all over North America and beyond provide real-life proof that citizen planners can create superbia! And the most comprehensive resource listing imaginable puts all the tools needed at your fingertips.

Well-illustrated and reader-friendly, Superbia! is written primarily for the millions who live in urban areas or existing suburbs. It will also be of major interest to environmentalists, planners, and all who want to create a more humane and nurturing lifestyle.

About the Contributors:

Dan Chiras is the father of two boys, and the author of over 20 books on environmental issues and sustainability. He teaches courses on renewable energy, green building and sustainability at Colorado College. His free time is spent mountain biking, camping, canoeing, kayaking, playing music, and gardening with his boys.

Dave Wann worked with the EPA for a decade and is now a writer and video producer. Widely published in magazines, he is coauthor of the successful book, Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic and two other books about design, as well as six video programs on community.

Today, more than ever before, our society is seeking ways to live more conscientiously. To help bring you the very best inspiration and information about greener, more sustainable lifestyles, MOTHER EARTH NEWS is recommending books to its readers. For more than 30 years, MOTHER EARTH NEWS has been North America’s “Original Guide to Living Wisely,” creating books and magazines for people with a passion for self-reliance and a desire to live in harmony with nature.

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CLEARANCE ITEM. PREVIOUS RETAIL PRICE WAS $16.95 AVAILABLE ONLY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!

This revealing book is the first in-depth journalistic investigation into the growing Christian Rock subculture. Profiles such successful Christian rock bands as P.O.D., Switchfoot, Creed, Sixpence None the Richer and more.

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This vitally important exposé shows how the Bush administration has systematically misled Americans on a wide range of scientific issues affecting public health, foreign policy, and the environment by ignoring, suppressing, manipulating, or even distorting scientific research. It is the first book to focus exclusively on how this explosive issue has played out during the Presidency of George W. Bush and the first to comprehensively document his administration's abuses of science.

In 2001, a group of eminent American scientists affiliated with the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) contacted Seth Shulman, an experienced investigative journalist, to look into charges of serious mishandling of scientific information in the current administration. Shulman's investigation resulted in the groundbreaking report Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policy Making, which served as the basis for a highly publicized UCS scientists' statement accusing the Bush administration of a misuse of science that was signed by dozens of Nobel laureates, National Medal of Science recipients, and members of the National Academy of Sciences. To date, more than 8,000 scientists across the country have signed the statement based upon Shulman's reporting. This book, drawing upon scores of interviews and including never-released information, goes beyond the UCS report to document the Bush administration's suppression and distortion of science, bringing this issue to a wider audience.

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Salons are lively gathering places where people engage in talk that amuses, challenges, amazes and is sometimes passionately acted upon. They have been the incubators of provocative and at times even dangerous ideas: the frontiers of cultural change. This book tells you all you need to know about joining salons, organizing them, how to attract new members, where to meet and what topics to explore.

Out of print. Quantities limited. Gently used.

List price: $16.95. Our price: $8.50

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CLEARANCE ITEM. PREVIOUS RETAIL PRICE WAS $24.95 AVAILABLE ONLY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!

In this rare, behind-the-scenes look at what goes on in hospitals across the country, a longtime medical insider and international authority on childbirth assesses the flawed American maternity care system, powerfully demonstrating how it fails to deliver safe, effective care for both mothers and babies. Written for mothers and fathers, obstetricians, nurses, midwives, scientists, insurance professionals, and anyone contemplating having a child, this passionate exposé documents how, in the most expensive maternity care system in the world, women have lost control over childbirth and what the disturbing results of this phenomenon have been. Born in the USA examines issues including midwifery and the safety of out-of-hospital birth, how the process of becoming a doctor can adversely affect both practitioners and their patients, and why there has been a rise in the use of risky but doctor-friendly interventions, including the use of Cytotec, a drug that has not been approved by the FDA for pregnant women. Most importantly, this gripping investigation, supported by many troubling personal stories, explores how women can reclaim the childbirth experience for the betterment of themselves and their children.

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CLEARANCE ITEM. PREVIOUS RETAIL PRICE WAS $24.95 AVAILABLE ONLY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!

Author Christopher Phillips goes to the heart of philosophy and Socratic discourse to discover what we're all looking for: the kind of love that makes life worthwhile. Love here is not defined only or even primarily as eros, but in all its classic varieties-from love of family and love of neighbor to love of country, love of God, love of life, and love of wisdom. Phillips's explorations take us from New Orleans at Mardi Gras and the gambling dens of Las Vegas to the last evangelical revival presided over by Billy Graham. He talks with moms and dads about "parent love," with inmates of a maximum-security prison about "unconditional love," with Hurricane Katrina refugees and a family who took them in, and with Japanese seniors and schoolchildren in Hiroshima Peace Park. Throughout, he enriches his dialogues with commentary on the great philosophers of love from the ancients to Rumi to Ayn Rand and Anaïs Nin.

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CLEARANCE ITEM. PREVIOUS RETAIL PRICE WAS $24.95 AVAILABLE ONLY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!

Activist and journalist Marisa Handler takes us on a fascinating journey — from her childhood home in apartheid South Africa to Israel, India, Nepal, Ecuador, Peru, and all over the United States — to offer a rare and revealing glimpse inside the global justice movement. She examines the movement's strengths and contradictions, demystifies its confrontational tactics, and explains why it has become such a powerful force for change. Through her gripping coming-of-age story — complete with vivid details of the many characters and events that have influenced her — she shows how, in a globalized society, we each have within us the power to change the world.