Free Shipping until December 12, 2008!

Give the gift of a greener world with our special offer just in time for the holiday season. With every order placed on our website between now and December 12^th, the shipping (within Canada & the U.S.) is on us! Need some inspiration? See our gift section below for ideas that will suit even the most hard-to-buy-for person on your shopping list.

Pedaling Away to Margaritaville

The bicycle is one of the most beautiful, elegant and functional machines ever designed. However, most people are under the erroneous assumption that the only function of a bike is to move a person from point A to B. In The Human-Powered Home: Choosing Muscles Over Motors, Tamara Dean shows many more uses for bicycles and other human-powered machines – from blenders to washing machines and everything in between. Many plans are included in this fabulous compendium of unique devices. Juicycle anyone?

• Contents
• Plan for Making a Pedal-Powered Blender

Rhetoric for Radicals

Perhaps no-one has proved more effectively than George W. Bush ("Rarely is the question asked—is our children learning?") the importance of good communication in getting your message across. In Rhetoric for Radicals: A Handbook for Twenty-First Century Activists, Jason Del Gandio examines how to harness the power of language and rhetorical skills to create the conditions for profound social change. Learn the ability to communicate coherently and effectively and help change the world!

• Contents
• A Call to Rhetorical Action

A Hive of Activity

The bee hive is an example of a very complex social structure which is made up of thousands of individuals acting together as a single organism. In Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligences for the Human Hive, Marilyn Hamilton explores the city as a human hive through the concept of "meshworking"—giving rise to strategies that will allow our cities to evolve intelligently beyond the challenges of the 21st century.

• Contents
• Emerging Intelligences: Seeing Wholeness in the Human Hive

The Urban Homesteading Bible

Just re-released by New Catalyst Books, The Integral Urban House: Self-Reliant Living in the City by Sim Van der Ryn and the Farallones Institute staff is an incredibly timely and comprehensive practical guide to achieving a completely sustainable urban lifestyle. In the early seventies, residents of the Integral Urban House in Berkeley, California created a mini-ecosystem where they grew their own fruits and vegetables, raised chickens, rabbits, and fish, recycled 90% of their waste, solar heated their hot water, and used a variety of other alternative technologies—all on a 1/8-acre city lot.

Transforming the Urban Landscape

Another recent re-release by New Catalyst books, the classic text Sustainable Communities: A New Design Synthesis for Cities, Suburbs and Towns by Sim Van der Ryn and Peter Calthorpe is a practical vision of how different types of communities can make the transition to a sustainable way of life that balances production and consumption, reduces resource waste and produces long-term social and ecological health.

Great Gift Ideas to Build a New Society

The do-it-yourself types on your list will love How to Build with Gridbeam, a complete guide to a simple and innovative system that uses standard, modular pieces, uniform materials, and interchangeable parts to build almost anything. Alternative energy enthusiasts will appreciate SVO — the definitive practical guide to designing a system and converting an engine to run on waste vegetable oil. Don't forget the Special 30th Anniversary edition of the Real Goods Solar Living Sourcebook—the ultimate guide to renewable energy, sustainable living, green building, homesteading, off-the-grid living, and alternative transportation. And with spiraling energy costs, now is the time to give the gift of energy savings with The Carbon Buster's Home Energy Handbook and Consumer Guide to Home Energy Savings.

We have several titles that will appeal to those concerned about Peak Oil. Depletion and Abundance focuses on the family—the new "home front"—and shows how to pull communities together to adapt to energy, food and housing shortages and economic recession. The Long Descent examines the roots of the Peak Oil crisis and provides practical solutions for constructive adaptation to massive change. Plan C introduces a realistic community-based strategy for food, health, housing and transportation in a post-Peak Oil world. And in Reinventing Collapse, the analysis of parallels between the United States and the former Soviet Union leads to the development of strategies for personal and cultural transformation as we slide down Hubbert's Peak.

For the green and natural builders and homeowners on your list, consider Prescriptions for a Healthy House—this completely revised and updated guide reveals the dangers of chemical exposure and demonstrates safe building and remodeling techniques for creating healthy indoor and outdoor spaces. Choosing Green shows how opting for an energy-efficient, non-toxic, healthy home can be good for the planet and your wallet. Stoneview includes the plans, materials list, and illustrated, step-by-step instructions to build an eco-friendly 300 square foot octagonal guest house with cordwood masonry, timber-framing and a living roof, all for less than $6000. And Building with Awareness combines an award-winning 5 hr DVD with a fully-illustrated color guidebook to show the step-by-step construction of a solar straw bale home.

Give your favorite activist gifts that inform, inspire and support! The completely revised and updated The Better World Shopping Guide: 2nd Edition by Ellis Jones is the perfect stocking-stuffer — a pocket-sized guide to becoming a responsible consumer. For anyone concerned about exposure to toxic chemicals in their everyday lives, Not Just a Pretty Face takes a damning look at the not-so-pretty practices of the cosmetics industry and shows how activists and entrepreneurs are leading the way to a healthier, safer future. Anthony Weston's How to Re-Imagine the World is a guide for "practical visionaries" and a must-read for anyone who sees their glass as half-full. Still stumped? Our 101 Solutions series includes Cancer: 101 Solutions to a Preventable Epidemic, Building an Ark: 101 Solutions to Animal Suffering, Enough Blood Shed: 101 Solutions to Violence, Terror and War, and Stormy Weather: 101 Solutions to Global Climate Change. Each book is jam-packed with useful information and practical ideas to guide, inspire, empower and create change.

Give the gift of a green Christmas to those who would walk lightly on the earth with one of our many sustainable living titles. Help your loved ones to get food secure with Food Security for the Faint of Heart, or point them towards a greener, more satisfying career with Ecoprenuering, and Making a Living While Making A Difference. Relocalization advocates will be fascinated by Small is Possible and gardeners (or gardener wannabes) will find a wealth of fascinating, useful information for growing food in hard times with Gardening When it Counts. And your favorite cook can explore dozens of exquisite, tantalizing dishes using wholesome, local, organic ingredients in ExtraVeganZa.

Give a gift from the heart to the parents, teachers and caregivers in your life. The Natural Child Audiobook offers a consistent and loving approach to raising a loving, trusting, and confident child. Our Teaching Green collection includes Teaching Green—The Elementary Years, Teaching Green—The Middle Years, Teaching About Climate Change and Greening School Grounds. Each book is packed with practical ideas for educators and parents who seek to foster environmental literacy and global awareness in young people. And children of all ages will have a ball with the more than 150 team-building games and activities in the new edition of Josette and Ba Lumvour's Everyone Wins.

For more details on these and other great gift ideas check out our website at newsociety.com. Happy Holidays!