{"id":385800,"date":"2010-03-03T03:00:37","date_gmt":"2010-03-03T08:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.grist.org\/article\/2010-03-02-ask-umbras-book-club-launches\/"},"modified":"2010-03-03T03:00:37","modified_gmt":"2010-03-03T08:00:37","slug":"ask-umbras-book-club-launches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/385800","title":{"rendered":"Ask Umbra&#8217;s Book Club launches"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\tby Umbra Fisk <\/p>\n<p>Dearest<br \/>readers,<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/astore.amazon.com\/gristmagazine\/detail\/0982053932\/102-1183543-3665742\"><\/a>You know<br \/>what an extraordinary book nerd I am.<br \/>And the secret&#8217;s out: I know many of you are, too. That&#8217;s where the<br \/>splendiferous new Ask Umbra&#8217;s Book Club comes in, because there&#8217;s just too much book<br \/>love to keep all to myself.&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s how<br \/>it&#8217;ll work: I&#8217;ll announce a juicy eco-minded book at the beginning of each<br \/>month, giving you a few weeks to track it down and drink it in. Then we&#8217;ll have<br \/>a no-holds-barred, message-board-style<br \/>discussion for four days at the beginning of the next month. &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>This isn&#8217;t<br \/>your standard, granola-snorting (ouch!) green<br \/>book club; there&#8217;s absolutely no requirement for &#8220;green&#8221; or &#8220;eco&#8221; in the title. Sometimes a book&#8217;s author may not even have<br \/>had an intentional eco-slant in mind.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll pose questions,<br \/>interesting tidbits, and quotes from the book to help spark discussion and then<br \/>open the floor to you. Bonus: You don&#8217;t<br \/>even have to get out of your bathrobe. And<br \/>if you have books you&#8217;d like to suggest for the club, <a href=\"mailto:askumbra@grist.org\">shoot me an email<\/a>. I&#8217;d love to hear from<br \/>my bookish comrades.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>For our<br \/>inaugural Ask Umbra&#8217;s Book Club selection, I give you truly an oldie but a goodie, <a href=\"http:\/\/astore.amazon.com\/gristmagazine\/detail\/0982053932\/102-1183543-3665742\">Possum Living: How to Live Well Without a<br \/>Job and With (Almost) No Money<\/a>, originally published in 1978&#8212;difficult<br \/>to find for many years&#8212;and rereleased by <a href=\"http:\/\/tinhousebooks.com\/catalog\/catalog_c_pl_intro.shtml\">Tin House<br \/>Books<\/a> in January 2010 with a foreword by David Gates and an afterword from<br \/>the now 30-year-older author.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Read more<br \/>about the book and pseudonymous author Dolly Freed below. And then, get<br \/>reading! We&#8217;ll begin our Possum Living chat Tuesday, April 6.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Book<br \/>synopsis from <a href=\"http:\/\/possumliving.net\/\">Possum Living website<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>In the late &#8216;70s, at the age of 18, and<br \/>with a seventh-grade education, Dolly Freed wrote Possum Living about the five years she and<br \/>her father lived off the land on a half-acre lot outside of Philadelphia. Known<br \/>for its plucky narration and no-nonsense practical advice on how to live<br \/>frugally while keeping up a middle class facade, at the time of its original<br \/>publication, Possum Living became an instant classic.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>About the author from <a href=\"http:\/\/possumliving.net\/\">Possum Living website<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Following her success as an author, Dolly Freed grew up to<br \/>become a NASA aerospace engineer. She aced the SATs with an education she<br \/>received from the public library and put herself through college. She&#8217;s been an<br \/>environmental educator, business owner, and college professor. She now lives in<br \/>Texas with her husband and two children.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Page-turnily,<br \/> Umbra<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related Links:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.grist.org\/article\/2010-03-01-jeff-biggers-talks-about-his-new-book-on-coal\/\">Jeff Biggers talks about his new book on coal<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.grist.org\/article\/2010-02-26-could-novels-about-climate-change-shake-us-to-our-senses\/\">Could novels about climate change shake us to our senses?<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.grist.org\/article\/2010-02-16-two-books-that-blew-my-mind\/\">Two books that blew my mind<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<br clear=\"both\" style=\"clear: both;\"\/><br \/>\n<br clear=\"both\" style=\"clear: both;\"\/><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/ads.pheedo.com\/click.phdo?s=b986529ce88bc99f41704c3001e3da8b&#038;p=1\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" style=\"border: 0;\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/ads.pheedo.com\/img.phdo?s=b986529ce88bc99f41704c3001e3da8b&#038;p=1\"\/><\/a><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" height=\"0\" width=\"0\" border=\"0\" style=\"display:none\" src=\"http:\/\/a.rfihub.com\/eus.gif?eui=2223\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Umbra Fisk Dearestreaders, You knowwhat an extraordinary book nerd I am.And the secret&#8217;s out: I know many of you are, too. That&#8217;s where thesplendiferous new Ask Umbra&#8217;s Book Club comes in, because there&#8217;s just too much booklove to keep all to myself.&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; Here&#8217;s howit&#8217;ll work: I&#8217;ll announce a juicy eco-minded book at the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":765,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-385800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/765"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385800\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}