If there is one thing I know, it is about books. I started reading as we all do, first by listening to my parents reading me stories for a good-night, then moving to my first short stories and novels. And here I am, 19 years later, running around town delivering, recommending and discussing books. Let me recommend some to you, and let them be your guides in the sustainable adventure. After all it is more demanding to publish a book, than it is to write a Wikipedia article and books tend to be more fact checked.
Here go my top choices on sustainability, less waste, conscious consumption, and much much more. Links under graphics are not only their source, but will also direct you to the place, where you can get your very own copy.
1. „Hunger” by Martín Caparrós
This book covers oh so many topics by covering that main one. It’s huge, which may by discouraging, but don’t get scared just yet! Argentinian author takes us around the world. We will visit Niger, Mexico, Chicago, Argentina, and even past centuries. It is structured a bit like a school book, so you can pick your favourite chapters and leave the rest for later. Breathtaking stories from big towns and deserts and waste dumps are intersected with more scientific, historical, and statistical parts. It is the book to keep you going and to make you think. And then make you ask questions.
2. „Metropolis: What The City Can Teach The Country About Sustainability” by David Owen
I live in the countryside, but I’ll be moving to quite a huge, global city in a month. And I know what the non-city people think of the cities, when it comes to sustainability. let’s be real – we consider ourselves a bit superior, having more green areas and all. But reading this book is a big reality check. It definitely made me look differently both at my life now and at my friends out in the „big world”. Highly recommended to all city and non-city people.
3. „The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff is Trashing the Planet” by Annie Leonard
Out of many positions on the overconsumption, that one definitely struck me the most. Annie Leonard focuses on the economy, health, and the environment, all of it using the examples of our everyday objects. Makes us overthink the never-thought-through parts of our lives. it received the Green Prize for Sustainable Literature. Let the critics make you choose just this one time, take your picnic blanket, and read about Stuff somewhere on the grass.
4. „Wardrobe Crisis” by Clare Press
If you read more than one of our posts, you know how much we hate fast fashion. It isn’t just a pose – we did our research and we know the facts. And many of the facts are present in this book, written by one of the icons of fashion revolution. Clare Press is a fashion insider. She worked for Vogue, for NYTM, for many many of the giants, and she knows fashion from the inside out. She also has a podcast with the same title, which I just couldn’t recommend enough. She’s the only fashion giant I can accept.
Those books are interesting and educative. I hope you’ll at least read around the topics they cover. Take a moment and remind yourself of some of the books that made you change your standpoint or expanded it one way or another. And then pass them on.
Youth For The Planet 