Utne receives some 1,200 magazines, newsletters, journals, weeklies, and zines. Add in hundreds of books, CDs, and DVDs, and it's a flood of media that lines the walls of our library and piles high on our desks. All the ideas, people, and stories inspire lively daily chatter, but they can't all fit into our bimonthly magazine. So we share the gems here in our weekly editions of 'From the Stacks.' Check in every Friday for the freshest highlights of the independent and alternative media.

It's an exciting time at GreenPrints, a journal out of North Carolina for the philosophizing gardener in all of us. Spring is approaching, and the quarterly is branching out with a new CD. The spring issue announces the arrival of The GreenPrints Companion, a compilation of some of their favorite stories read aloud, interspersed with songs sung by The Stone Family Singers (the journal is somewhat of a Stone family affair). Among this issue's dirges to daisies and paeans to petunias, you'll find a fascinating (albeit mock) case study of a man with an unusual condition: 'dendranthropy,' the belief that you have turned into a tree. Also notable: 'How to -- Quickly -- Empty a Room Full of Plants,' a short guide to planning a 'Spring Plant Exchange.' -- Nick Rose

Advance uncorrected proofs of Derrick Jensen's two-volume Endgame (Seven Stories Press) arrived in our mail this week. Dedicated to Shawnee organizer/resister Tecumseh, and weighing in at 929 pages, it forcefully, lovingly, despairingly, and tirelessly describes how human civilization -- with its global capitalism, plutocracy, and oil-based economy -- is destroying planet Earth ( Volume 1: The Problem of Civilization) and examines what is to be done to take down civilization and live sustainably ( Volume 2: Resistance). Militant and provocative, Jensen looks at systems of exploitation from many angles and criticizes those who fail to act and refuse to even consider the questions: 'What if those in power are murderous?' and 'What if they're not willing to listen to reason?' Jensen's assertive, aphoristic style demands reader response. ('A primary purpose of the police is to enforce the delusions of those with lots of pieces of green paper,' he writes.) Doing his best to speak for salmon and sturgeon, Jensen asks, 'What would the rivers themselves think?' He nudges readers not only to answer this and other difficult questions themselves ('What will you do when the oil runs out?), but to see their own complicity and act responsibly. Due out in June. -- Chris Dodge