Hillary Jordan has written a fast paced thriller, an ‘unputdownable’ novel.

The book opens with the main character, Hannah Elizabeth Payne, being found guilty of the crime of murder and hearing that she is to go to prison for 30 days where she will become a Red for a period of sixteen years. The next thing she knows is that she is waking up and discovering that she is red, the solid red of a stop sign, the colour of newly shed blood.

When Hannah is released from the prison, where she had seen no one and talked to no one for thirty days, she realizes that she is free but is still filled with trepidation. Where can she go? Certainly not home. Her mother had made that clear. She would be shunned by the community as a Chrome, a Red.

It is revealed that Hannah loves a married man named the Reverend Aidan Dale. Hannah’s love for this man is so great that she chose prison and ‘chroming’ (becoming red) rather than give his name as an accomplice to the charge of ‘murder’. The reader wonders what kind of man lets someone he professes to love sacrifice her life for him…and that is just one of the many provocative questions raised by this novel.

Feeling she has no choice, Hannah begins a journey towards freedom in Canada. Her journey is filled with terrifying dangers and she has to decide who can be trusted and who is will betray her. Through all these challenges, Hannah discovers her inner strength and her true self.

When She Woke shows what can happen with a totalitarian government and how society behaves towards people who are “judged ” to be of a lesser moral standard by leaders in the community. This book is a gripping read and raises many questions about the effects of narrow values and unforgiving judgements.

The next book is an international bestseller, titled “The Happiness Project” by Gretchen Rubin – $17.99

We’ve never done this before but we’re 20 years old this year and so we thought we’d offer it as a gift for your ongoing support.

We’re already thinking of the great ideas we have for the spring and we want to give you the opportunity to help us make room for them and, at the same time, get some great bargains.

Here’s some of what you will find:

• A variety of items – up to 80% off
• Bamboo and organic cotton towels – 50% off
• Organic cotton sheets – 50% off
• Selected silk, linen, bamboo, organic cotton and wool clothing – 50% off
• Selected organic cotton baby clothes – 50% off
• Fabulous throws – 50% off
• All books – 20% off
• Greentainers – BOGO – (Buy One Get One Free)

…and free gift with purchase if you buy $100 or more!!!!

Come early for the best selections. We look forward to helping you find some special bargains.

All sales final.

This novel is full of tension – between various family members and between environmentalists and big business.

One of the main characters, Scottie Wilson, portrays some of this tension when he says:  “Some people say my wife’s sister is a witch. My sister-in-law is not a witch, at least not literally. She along with my wife and mother-in-law is a dowser. An ability even now being developed by our daughter Miranda. These females in the family are capable of divining underground water with a stick. And unlike my wife and mother-in-law, my sister-in-law, Patience, is an active dowser. She does not merely have the power; she uses it and uses it profitably. Patience is a well-paid dowser. According to her logbook and diary she has now dowsed 1,812 wells, of which 1,500 are in Vermont.”  Even with this amazing track record, not everyone respects or trusts the powers of dowsers!

Alongside fascinating characters, the novel brings together the natural beauty of a mountain, a serious drought, and the greed of big business.  The mountain: in size, in sheer accessibility there may be no more perfect mountain in the world than Mount Republic, one of the higher mountains in Vermont. It is the highest of the cluster of mountains that comprise the Powder Peak Ski Resort. But now the whole ski industry is on the verge of bankruptcy. The resort needs more snowmaking capacity, which requires water, but drought is a serious problem in Vermont and people’s well are drying up.

Expansion plans are underway. The plan is to tap the Chittenden River for a new snowmaking machine. Scottie, who never expected to represent ski resorts when he went to law school, is representing Schuss Limited, the corporation that owns Powder Peak. Scottie is arguing that the expansion plans will bring more jobs to the community and if the resort does not expand, it may not survive, pitted against him and the corporation, though, are his wife, daughter, mother-in-law, sister-in-law (Patience, the dowser) and Patience’s fiancée, all environmentalists. Vermonters are already concerned with the damage to the river and vegetation because of the nightmarish drought and argue that the river cannot tolerate being drained further to make snow.

And so the question emerges as to whether Scottie’s family and friends can convince him to put his energies into preserving of the river rather than destroying it for monetary gain.

This novel for will appeal to anyone who has ever considered the dilemmas created when business expansion and preserving nature are at odds with one another.

P’lovers’ Book Club’s next book is “When She Woke” by Hillary Jordan

The Bird Totas and Tree of Life hangings and Pillow Covers available at P’lovers come from The Barefoot College (www.barefootcollege.org), founded in 1972 in Tilonia, Rajasthan, one of India’s largest, driest, and poorest states. The Barefoot College is based on the belief that solutions to rural problems lie within the community. The programs and initiatives of the Barefoot College are designed to benefit the ‘poorest of the poor’ and improve their lives by addressing basic needs for water, electricity, housing, health, education and income.

The Barefoot College encourages learning by doing and focuses on practical knowledge and skills. It many programs include training and service delivery in solar electrification, rainwater harvesting, environmental restoration, health promotion, and education.

For example, hundreds of ‘solar engineers’ have been trained who can now help communities use the sun to provide electricity throughout not only India but also communities in Africa, Bhutan, and Afghanistan. Over 3000 solar lanterns have been manufactured at the Barefoot College to support this work.

In the realm of education, over 250 night schools have been established in communities throughout India which enable over 6000children who have to tend cattle during the day to attend school at night. They learn by solar lantern and commit to attending school for five years.

The Barefoot College is redeveloping 500 hectares of wasteland into useful pastureland. The aim is to ensure that this redeveloped land is drought resistant and able to be productive for years.

Over 200 health centres and all the health workers trained by the Barefoot College have improved the health of thousands of people and have reduced the rates of infant and maternal mortality in those communities to well below the national average.

The Barefoot College’s main campus occupies 80,000 square feet and includes a residence, library, dining room, meeting halls, 10-bed hospital, pathology lab, water testing unit, teacher training unit, craft store, internet café and a 700,000 litre rainwater harvesting unit. The campus is fully solar electrified.

In 2006, the Barefoot College won the prestigious $1 Million Alcan Prize for Sustainability.

P’lovers is proud to be a tiny part of the Barefoot College story.

The Barefoot Approach: Empowering Rural Women to Light up the World

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Barefoot Rural Women Solar Engineers of Africa

A rural family in Africa burns around 60 liters of kerosene a year to light their home, and the average kerosene lamp in Africa spews out more than a ton of carbon dioxide every decade. Most families also cook indoors over wood fires. The health effects of burning kerosene, coal, and wood are devastating: Toxic smoke causes respiratory diseases that kill 1.6 million women and children per year and causes severe respiratory problems for tens of millions.

Solar power is not only clean, it is also sustainable, and there are tens of thousands of villages across the African continent that can benefit from being solar electrified. The Barefoot College is taking it one village at a time.

Nearly 180 rural grandmothers have solar electrified over 10,000 remote rural homes in 32 countries. As a result of their collective efforts, they have managed to save 1.3 million liters of kerosene per month, a saving of enormous proportions for a population that is hardest hit by fuel and energy crises.

To learn more about The Barefoot College, check out www.barefootcollege.org; or www.tilonia.com; or read pages 359-362 in Worldchanging: A User’s Guide to the 21st Century; or log on to www.WorldChanging.com.

For more Videos see: http://www.youtube.com/user/barefootcollege

Plover’s Book Club had a night in which each member could pick any book they wanted by Pema Chodron.

“The Wisdom of No Escape”; ” Comfortable with Uncertainty”; “When Things Fall Apart”; “Start where You Are”; and “Taking the Leap” were five of the books read. (Prices range from $16.00 to $24.00)

Everyone agreed that Pema Chodren comes across as a gentle woman herself, one who has lived her basic messages of “be gentle with yourself” and “practice ‘loving kindness’ to yourself”.

Chodren, a Buddhist nun, argues that we don’t have to be perfect, therefore we shouldn’t be hard on ourselves if we falter or fall on our path.

Life is sometimes inconvenient and painful, but once we know the purpose of our lives is simply to walk forward, trying to do our best, and using our lives to wake up (rather than fall asleep), then it is easier to remember that nothing is permanent…even mistakes. One can embrace things like inconvenience and suffering knowing they are, like all things, temporary. Pema encourages readers to remember to take a breath, be aware of the shifts and movements of our thoughts and emotions, and to be gentle with yourself.

Pema Children’s books are written from the tradition of Tibetan Buddhism and she writes in a very approachable way. Her teachings seem somehow familiar and completely applicable to every day living and every day challenges. Members of the P’lovers’ Book Club all recommended these books as ones which would enlighten readers’ minds and enrich their lives.

The next book is “Water Witches” by Chris Bohjalian

This book chronicles Lawrence Scanlon’s real life experiences, living and helping volunteer organizations in different parts of the world, a month at a time. While some chapters are a bit longer than necessary to make his points, this book is an inspiration, an insight into different opportunities; a starting point for anyone interested in volunteering their time and energy for the benefit of society.

The January chapter recounts Scanlon’s volunteer work at the St. Vincent de Paul Society-Loretta Hospitality Centre in Kingston, Ontario, feeding, housing and clothing, men, women and children. Scanlon gets to know daily visitors and he tells us about Judy, a middle aged woman from a middle class background. Then after twenty years of marriage every thing fell apart in Judy’s life. Divorce led to depression and self-medication with alcohol and drugs and within three years Judy was living on the streets.

A chapter that provoked a great deal of discussion was Scanlon’s time volunteering at the Kingston Penitentiary. He asked one of the older inmates, “What is it like inside?”. The inmate answered, “I can tell you about the rapes, especially of the young. Going inside a Mr. Tough Guy attitude doesn’t cut it in prison because there is always someone tougher than you.” And when he asks how prison personnel work daily with the incarcerated, dealing with the risks and enforcing the rules, he is told they form an impersonal, remote, protective shield.

September is a chapter at The Onguanada Resource Centre in Kingston where no one uses language to communicate but all communicate in their own way. All at Onguanada are profoundly challenged in mind and body.

October chronicles a stint with Habitant for Humanity in New Orleans.

In December, Scanlon spends the month in Dakar exploring the obstacles to improving education of females, and coming to understand the prevalence of poverty, deep and widespread corruption on all levels, and the uncertain economy. But he also talks about his appreciation of the Senegalese tight and meaningful family ties, their neighborhood connections and their generous hospitality.

Every chapter in Lawrence Scanlon’s, A Year of Living Generously provides eye-opening insights into the world of philanthropy and the rich returns to those who choose to give of their time to help others.

The first thing that knocks one over the head about this book is “So many bees!!!” Who knew there are seven bee families and almost sixty species of bees between these seven bee families!

Anyone interested in the world’s eco-system and bees’ place in the eco-system would find Packer’s, “Keeping the Bees”, fascinating, detailed and informative. He takes the reader from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia to Australia, Europe, Central America and the United States, giving the reader in depth information on the lives of the different species in their different geological habitats.

With the essential role bees play in the eco-system, the decline of bees is a warning sign that bad things are going on in the environment. Bees are necessary both in providing a food source (honey) and as pollinators. We should be aware that without bees many of our food sources would collapse. One of the key problems that affect bees negatively is the worldwide use of pesticides; it has been shown to have the effect of decimating the bee population.

We all need to do our part in reversing the threatened life span of the bees. Packer recommends the following:

• Do not use pesticides
• Encourage bee friendly practices at all government levels.
• Buy local and organic food whenever possible.
• Make neighbourhood habitats bee friendly…walk on the grass to make friendly nesting places and grow raspberries and other pithy stemmed plants thus encouraging bees to make their homes.

Analytical and detailed, “Keeping the Bees” is a book which gives readers reason to pause and think about how these tiny insects contribute to our world.

Next meeting is on Monday, August 29 and the book is A Year of Living Generously.

The author of Hope For Wildlife: True Stories of Animal Rescue, the best-selling Nova Scotian book of the past two weeks, will be in Mahone Bay this coming weekend for a signing, reading, and discussion. Ray MacLeod will be accompanied by Nicole Payne, a staff member of the Hope for Wildlife Society (www.hopeforwildlife.org), the organization on whose work the book is based.

MacLeod & Payne will be at P’lovers, Mahone Bay, on Sunday June 19th from 2:00-3:30.

From Nimbus Publishing of Halifax, the book includes 14 stories of wildlife taken under the wing of the Hope for Wildlife Society over its 13 year history. It also features colour photographs from society founder Hope Swinimer’s personal collection of shots taken by staff and visitors.

The book has been listed for the past two weeks by The Chronicle-Herald as the most popular local publication. In the first three weeks of its release, it sold out three times at Dartmouth’s largest book store and is either signed out or on hold at all 20 Halifax municipal libraries.

MacLeod is a freelance writer and life-long outdoorsman. He is also a retired teacher and former journalist who won a Hilroy Fellowship, Canada’s top award for outstanding educational innovation, for use of journalism in the classroom. He lives in Waverley.

For more background, see:
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Books/1246873.html

Contact: Jane Smith | E-mail: junglejanesmith@gmail.com | Tel: 902-624-1421

Grace River is set in a smelter town in interior British Columbia. In this fast-paced novel, the author takes the reader on a journey into the lives of four friends.

(a) Jessie: she lives with her husband Daniel and daughter Lily and works at Nick’s Diner, a cafe frequented by workers of Axis, the town’s smelter plant.
(b) Jackson: he is a smelter worker and is married to Caroline. Jackson and Caroline have two boys, Travis and Brooks.
(c) Kali: she is a newcomer to Grace River, having moved there with her daughters (following a break-up with their father) from Vancouver Island. Kali works part time at Earth’s Bounty Health Foods and has a boyfriend Mike, who works at the smelter plant.
(d) Daniel: he is the husband of Jessie and is also a smelter worker.

Grace River is a small town, full of redneck workers. The town is unhealthy and polluted, largely as a result of the Axis Smelter Plant, the main source of income for the town.

Life is going on as usual on a hot summer day; men go to work or hang out at Nick’s Diner, the local bar and home for lives which revolve around the plant workers’ shifts. Axis runs twelve-hour shifts, day and night, seven days a week.

One early morning at Nick’s Diner, a newcomer shows up. Immediate speculation begins: who is he and why is he in Grace River? It turns out his name is Liam and he is an American environmentalist. He is in town to take samples from the Grace River. Lead pollution from Axis is a grave concern.

The four friends are also concerned about pollution from the plant but the plant also their source of income. Axis routinely does blood testing for toxins on its workers but it is suspected that the blood test could be skewed in the plant’s favour. Jackson gets tested at another location and finds out that his toxic levels are high.

Then there’s an incident at Axis, which results in a worker being hospitalized with what could be a life threatening sickness caused by exposure to the toxins. As well, Mike starts to act strangely and his friends are worried about him.

With the intrusion of Liam, the environmentalist, into this close-knit community, life in Grace River takes a turn to drama and violence. Insecurities are revealed and in some cases acted on, fueled further by toxic poisoning.

This is a powerful novel, which explores the damage we all do to our environment and the damage, unintentionally, we do to our families and friends.

This readable and informative book by author Gillian Deacon provides well-researched knowledge about many popular beauty products that contain toxins. A very helpful list of the most used toxic substances in personal care products is provided for quick and easy reference as well as a chapter on Label Reading 101. (For those who want details on every cosmetic and how safe it may or may not be, the Cosmetic Safety Database can provide this information – www.cosmeticsdatabase.com.

A chapter on Greenwashing discusses one of the author’s pet peeves. Many well-intentioned consumers buys products because they have been led into believing they will be better for the planet and their family’s health. Greenwashing is corporate trickery. Many companies (a) make claims that mean nothing; (b) commit the sin of omission; and/or (c) create fanfare over certain ingredients while omitting others.

The P’lovers Book Club compared notes about how each of us have been mislead by reading a list of ingredients, believing we were purchasing ‘green’ ingredients, only to find, in small print at the bottom, a list of toxic elements. The author tells consumers to be vigilant about label reading.

Another chapter on ‘Pinkwashing’ is very disturbing! Popular and longtime cosmetic companies put out information about giving part of their profits to Breast Cancer or other cancer groups for research and yet, all the while, their products contain toxic, and often cancer-causing substances.

On a practical level Gillian Deacon gives us recipes for non-toxic and effective products we can make in our home. She reminds us that there is no need to buy overpriced and dangerous products. Also included is a list of safe green companies and products that can be purchased locally.

The book gives a comprehensive overview of what lies beneath the gloss of the beauty industry and how we can reduce the chemical burden on our bodies and the bodies of our loved ones and on our planet.

P’lovers’ next book is ‘Grace River’ by Rebecca Hendry, a novel about the people of a smelter town in the interior of British Columbia and what happens when a young environmentalist arrives in town to investigate the toxin levels in the river.