June 18 - Value Village

There's some good stuff to be found in The Village's books section, when you've got 45 minutes to yourself (sans Junior asking to be read to from any of ten dozen children's books, most of which I've already read at least once whilst there). Today's haul:

• Gregg Easterbrook, A Moment on the Earth: The Coming Age of Environmental Optimism ($3.99: from 1995, "a 745-page exercise in sophistry" [Sauder & Rampton, Toxic Sludge is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies, and the Public Relations Industry])
  
• C.J. Guiguet, The Birds of British Columbia: Sparrows and Finches ($0.99: BC Provincial Museum Handbook, and therefore a gem)
• Robert Kroetsch, The Words of My Roaring ($0.99: the day's random purchase, a 2000 reprint of a 1966 novel about a novice Alberta would-be MP who promises rain by election day -- during a drought)
• Hugh MacLennan, Rivers of Canada ($1.99: gorgeous, and one of the few early coffee-table books that counts as legitimate environmental philosophy)
• Edward O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life ($3.99: he's won two Pulitzers, not bad for a Harvard biologist; his theories have led to enmity from those as esteemed as his Harvard colleague Stephen Jay Gould; and one of my few published writings appears in a book that contains one of his own essays. Past time to read something by the guy, in other words. Oh, and Wikipedia tells me that he argues that "belief in God and rituals of religion are products of evolution." Interesting...).