The Reader's Loft recognizes the importance of book groups as a way of creating community around the written word in these modern and often too-busy times.
We've created our book group registry to offer you and your book group the greatest support we can.
When you register your book group at The Reader's Loft, you receive:
15% OFF Book Group Purchases for Each Member, Online Listing of Your Group's Title Selections, Free Reading Group Guides and any other discussion materials you need, guaranteed availability and connection with other reading groups in the area, for great book suggestions. Click here to download our Book Group Registration Form.
Green Books Group |
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The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century By James Howard Kunstler
Grove/Atlantic Friday, January 15 The depletion of nonrenewable fossil fuels is about to radically change life much sooner than anticipated. This title describes what to expect after the honeymoon of affordable energy is over, preparing readers for economic, political, and social changes of an unimaginable scale. 
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When the Rivers Run Dry: Water - The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-First Century By Fred Pearce
Not Open To Public Saturday, May 15 It was with the Colorado River that engineers first learned to control great rivers. But now the Colorados reservoirs are two-thirds empty. Great rivers like the Indus and the Nile, the Rio Grande and the Yellow River are running on empty. And economists say that by 2025, water scarcity will cut global food production by more than the current U.S. grain harvest. Veteran science correspondent Fred Pearce traveled to more than thirty countries while researching When the Rivers Run Dry; it is our most complete portrait yet of the growing world water crisis. Deftly weaving together the complicated scientific, economic, and historical dimensions of the crisis, he shows us its complex origins, from waste to wrong-headed engineering projects to high-yield crop varieties that have kept developing countries from starvation but are now emptying their water reserves. And Pearces vivid reportage reveals the personal stories behind failing rivers, barren fields, desertification, water wars, floods, and even the death of cultures. Finally, Pearce argues that the solution to the growing worldwide water shortage is not more and bigger dams but greater efficiency and a new water ethic based on managing the water cycle for maximum social benefit rather than narrow self-interest.
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The Ecology of Commerce By Paul Hawken
Not Open To Public Tuesday, June 15 The bestselling author of Growing a Business presents a visionary new program which businesses can follow to help restore the planet. "A daring, urgent vision of a kind of 21st century Canaan that Hawken yet believes we can reach.
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Seedfolks By Paul Fleischman
Not Open To Public Friday, July 30 2010 One Book, One Community Read A vacant lot, rat-infested and filled with garbage, looked like no place for a garden. Especially to a neighborhood of strangers where no one seems to care. Until one day, a young girl clears a small space and digs into the hard-packed soil to plant her precious bean seeds. Suddenly, the soil holds promise: To Curtis, who believes he can win back Lateesha's heart with a harvest of tomatoes; to Virgil's dad, who sees a fortune to be made from growing lettuce; and even to Mariclea, sixteen and pregnant, wishing she were dead. Thirteen very different voices — old, young, Haitian, Hispanic, tough, haunted, and hopeful tell one amazing story about a garden that transforms a neighborhood.An old man seeking renewal, a young girl connecting to a father she never knew, a pregnant teenager dreading motherhood.Thirteen voices tell one story of the flowering of a vacant city lot into a neighborhood garden. Old, young, Jamaican, Korean, Hispanic, tough, haunted, hopeful. Newbery Medal winner Paul Fleischman weaves characters as diverse as the plants they grow into a rich, multi-layered exploration of how a community is born and nurtured in an urban environment.
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Energy Unbound: A Fable for America's Future By L. Hunter Lovins
Sunday, August 8 7:30 PM at Daily Buzz in the Historic Bellin Building Downtown 130 E. Walnut Street Here is a wealth of information about energy, its efficient use and our choices, presented as a fable of sorts. The technique does not work. The authors, who are alternative energy spokesmen, introduce an ordinary Iowa housewife, Eunice Bunnyhut, newly appointed Secretary of Energy (the President wants a fresh, commonsense approach). Bewildered by the conflicting views of her assistant secretaries relayed at their first official meeting, she soon meets Duncan Jefferson Holt, an Energy Department scientist, who offers to enlighten her. For two weeks he discusses energy topics in detail, and Eunice responds with simple analogies from her own life (bake sales and the like). If the authors intended to show that anybody can learn about energy, perhaps they have succeeded. This energy primer is condescending"she rolled the thought of a greenhouse around her housewifely brain"and irritating. It will take a determined reader to stick with Eunice and Duncan; at the end, she uses her new knowledge to shake up the department and set it on the right path. Illustrations not seen by PW. Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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