SLEEPING NAKED IS GREEN

SLEEPING NAKED IS GREEN!

- Vanessa Farquharson -

NO! This book is not for adults only. It is in fact a very serious environmental book giving you wonderful tips on how to reduce that hideous environmental footprint you are leaving on the earth. Like not using toilet paper for one, and switching to environmentally friendly condoms (yes, there is such a thing).

Vanessa, the author, decides to take on a year long challenge, to be more green, and blog about it - Green as a Thistle. Yes, this blog/challenge idea has been overdone lately, but, I still love it. It's like reality TV. They are both easy to relate to and attempt on your own. She starts out by eliminating paper towel, changing the lightbulbs, eating a few organic things - the easy stuff. However, she quickly finds herself getting caught up in green thinking and starts to make bigger changes; unplugging her fridge, getting rid of her car, building a worm composter and storing it in her tiny apartment.

She ends up making 366 changes (on account of the leap year) and most of them were pretty small and unoriginal. The book filters out most of the boring stuff and leaves in the more interesting blog posts and her extended commentary. Some of the more memorable ones included, as above mentioned, the no toilet paper. After extensive research she modifies this to something along the lines of no toilet paper for 'number one'. I'm sure you are wondering about the earth friendly condoms I mentioned in the opening as well? The book does go off on small tangents dealing with the impact of certain changes on Vanessa's personal life. Being a young single gal she does have a love life, a self described small and uneventful one...which is more chic lit than fifty shades. The title is one of the comments she often makes through the book, mostly that she wants to have a reason to sleep naked (other than the environmental one) haha.

Personally, I did not find the green aspect all that informative. I just mean there was nothing that I haven't heard of before (including reusable menstrual pads) or incorporated into my life already. What I did find interesting was her experiences; how some changes were easy, how some changes were hard, how she managed to find a green accountant, etc. It was interesting to see her change from an enviro-cynic to an enviro-mentalist. Near the end you could really tell that every decision she was making dealt with the environmental impact first, then cost or looks or whatever. Which is why it was surprising that she admitted after the challenge she went back to many of her old behaviours. :(

Having said that, I would recommend this book to anyone with a green interest and especially those without...so, pretty much everyone.

RATING: READ

This was my 600s selection for my dewey decimal challenge. I'm headed into the 500s, which is "science"...the pickins at the library under 500 are pretty scarce. You've got books on owls, books on kangaroos, big books on ice, or Science by Asimov. Yikes!