Time Magazine Environmental Hero Casson Trenor

Casson Trenor’s life passion is ocean conservation. With rising concern over unsustainable fishing practices and recent alerts about the rapidly shrinking bluefin tuna population worldwide, consumers may finally be waking up to the state of our oceans. Because of his involvement in opening one of North America’s first fully sustainable sushi restaurants, and his expertise in marine resource management (as highlighted in Sustainable Sushi: A Guide to Saving the Oceans One Bite at a Time), Trenor was honored as one of Time magazine’s “Heroes of the Environment 2009!” I can’t think of a more ideal recipient!

Jacqueline Church of The Leather District Gourmet and The Nourish Network spoke with Casson Trenor just moments after he learned of the Time magazine environmental hero honor.

When did you first learn that you won this honor?

About four hours ago, sitting here in my hotel room in Amsterdam.

Describe the moment you picked up the magazine and saw/or learned about the award?

I haven’t seen the magazine yet!  But I got a google alert in my email, checked it, and… I dunno, I still can’t really believe it.  I’m so happy.

What started you on the path of sustainable sushi?

I love sushi… and I also love the ocean.  I guess it kind of grew out of that.  I realize that the ocean is in serious trouble, and the art of sushi will be lost if we can’t heal our planet.  I don’t want that to happen… it seems like such a dismal prospect.  I want my children and their children to know both the beauty and magnificence of a healthy ocean and the taste and experience of sushi.

CLICK HERE to read the rest of this conversation and learn the 5 best sustainable sushi options, and the 5 everyone should avoid.

CLICK HERE to read more about Time magazine’s “Heroes of the Environment 2009.”

CLICK HERE to learn more about Sustainable Sushi: A Guide to Saving the Oceans One Bite at a Time.

CLICK HERE to visit Casson Trenor’s SustainableSushi.net.

Find a Solution In Our Newest Books This September

This month’s titles are all about solutions, but the issues being resolved couldn’t be more diverse. Everything–from family conflicts to issues threatening the environment to the personal psychology behind the Zionist struggle–is explored this month. So whether you are concerned with your personal health and well-being or with the many issues we face globally each day, you will find exactly what you are looking for in our newest selection of books.

To order, please visit www.northatlanticbooks.com

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Everywhere a Guest, Nowhere at Home: A New Vision of Israel and Palestine
By Kim Chernin

The title of this book invokes one of the central arguments for the creation of the state of Israel. Kim Chernin suggests that the Zionist struggle has made Palestinian people, too, guests in their former homeland. Chernin tries to reconcile her desire for a Jewish homeland with the reality of the violence carried out in order to secure it.

Following an in-depth examination of the perspectives of both Jews and Palestinians, Chernin writes of the process by which she learned to hear once-ignored Palestinian voices. Combining her knowledge of Jewish history with her insights as a psychotherapist, Chernin discovers the psychological mechanisms that have kept her and other Jews from fully comprehending the suffering of both parties. She argues that by overcoming the mental blocks that prevent so many from seeing the Palestinian point of view, Jews can learn to feel empathy for them without diminishing their love and support for Israel.

$14.95
Trade Paperback
978-1-55643-820-2
160 pages; 5-1/2 x 8-1/2
On Sale September 1, 2009

Click HERE for author’s website.

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Gaia and the New Politics of Love: Notes for a Poly Planet
By Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio

Gaia theory argues that the flora and fauna of the planet operate in a self-regulating web that keeps the world livable. According to the theory, humankind is the most powerful species in this web and also its biggest threat. This provocative book explores ways to minimize and ultimately eliminate this threat with love and intimacy. Controversial Italian author Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio has authored the first global ecology study based on an analysis of human health. Anderlini-D’Onofrio identifies her remedy within the context of Gaia theory, re-envisioning it as a more inclusive philosophy that positively impacts not only relationships, but world ecology under duress.

Gaia and the New Politics of Love is bracing in its range, weaving together issues of human and global health; the relationship of politics, sexuality, and ecology; the changing roles of eroticism and gender in our lives; and polyamory, bisexuality, and the AIDS reappraisal movement.

$16.95
Trade Paperback
978-1-55643-821-9
272 pages; 6 x 9
On Sale September 8, 2009

Click HERE for author’s website.

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Family Constellations: A Practical Guide to Uncovering the Origins of Family Conflict
By Joy Manne

Mapping out a “family constellation,” explains Dr. Joy Manné, encompasses exploring previous powerful life events from accidents to adoptions and accessing the deepest dynamics in that family system. This process helps us recognize and resolve deeply seated family patterns. For example, in order to understand a person’s inability to trust, the family history of betrayal must be uncovered and released. These insights replace resentment with respect, pain with understanding.

Dr. Manné uses the knowledge gained from her own practice as well as her educational experiences with Bert Hellinger, the founder of Family Constellations therapy, to clearly describe this technique. Through the use of real-life examples of family constellations, Dr. Manné makes this increasingly popular practice understandable and relatable.

$12.95
Trade Paperback
978-1-55643-832-5
96 pages; 5 x 8
On Sale September 22, 2009

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Green Design: Creative Sustainable Designs for the Twenty-First Century
By Marcus Fairs

Author Marcus Fairs helps readers understand the shift of green design from marginal to mainstream by featuring products and buildings that address immediate concerns about global warming and environmental degradation. Through vast architectural projects to modest one-off pieces of salvaged furniture, the book shows how the design world is responding to the environmental challenges of this century. Fairs demonstrates key developments in sustainable design as seen in lighting, houseware, furniture, textiles, products, interiors, architecture, and transportation.

The book shows how the introduction of eco-friendly materials is changing the products around us and charts the rise of low-energy lighting sources and their impact on lighting design. Emerging trends in green design are also covered, from recycling to ethical sourcing. By presenting existing green innovations as well as visionary projects, Green Design paints a bright future in which technology and ethics merge for the benefit of people and the planet.

$25.00
Trade Paperback,
978-1-55643-836-3
256 pages; 7-3/10 x 9-3/10
On Sale September 22, 2009

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The Martian Codex: More Reflections from Mars
By George J. Haas and William R. Saunders; Foreword by Greg Orme and Randolfo Pozos Ph.D.

Did an extraterrestrial race once visit Earth? George Haas and William Saunders use archaeological discoveries and photographs from NASA and other space programs to document the uncanny similarities between Martian and now-extinct Earth cultures. The Martian Codex begins with the thirty-year history of documenting the famous “Face on Mars” from NASA’s first photographs in 1976 to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE shots in 2007. Detailed analysis shows it as a split-faced structure that precisely resembles masks from a temple in Cerros, Mexico.

Haas and Saunders explore a series of recurring motifs by providing side-by-side views of the Martian geoglyphs with their terrestrial counterparts. The results substantiate a commonality between two worlds in that both depict specific gods and characters from the creation mythology of the Mayan people. This fact-based book represents the most persuasive argument yet that extraterrestrials may indeed have appeared on Earth during an earlier era.

$19.95
Trade Paperback,
978-1-55643-814-1
264 pages; 7 x 9-1/4
On Sale September 22, 2009

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Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia, Revised and Expanded: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings
By Rob Brezsny

Readers were instantly beguiled by Rob Brezsny’s new approach to the humble horoscope when his “Free Will Astrology” column first appeared in 1996. Instead of the generic, one-size-fits-all style of similar columns, Brezsny used witty parables, tender rants, cultural riffs, pagan wisdom, and lively rituals in his playfully positive readings. He brings that same sensibility—and the same message of a smiling universe—to this self-help book for people who may be skeptical about self-help books. Brezsny persuasively advises readers to go along with the universe’s good intentions, but his rejection of cynicism and a bleak view of human nature isn’t rooted in denial. On the contrary, he makes a case for a cagey optimism that requires a vigorous engagement with the dark forces. He asks us to rethink life as a sublime game created for our amusement and illumination.

$21.00
Trade Paperback
978-1-55643-818-9
400 pages; 8-1/2 x 11
On Sale September 22, 2009

Click HERE for author’s website.

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Healing Pandora: The Restoration of Hope and Abundance
By Gail Thomas

The story of Pandora is one of the most resonant in Greek mythology. As Healing Pandora shows, it’s also one of the most relevant. Psychologist Gail Thomas has used Pandora in her practice for two decades, often with profound results. Typically cast as the evil bringer of doom to humanity, Pandora, in Thomas’ view, is a much more complex character, with enormous healing powers. Thomas shows Pandora’s true nature as the dark but all-giving feminine. Pandora’s task is to help us transform our overwhelmingly material civilization into a culture of undivided participation and engagement.

Part one discusses Pandora’s multifaceted persona as both beautiful evil and divine benefactress. Here Thomas contextualizes Pandora in the cycle of myth and archetype. In part two, the author proposes a series of healing rituals inspired by Pandora. Healing Pandora argues persuasively for manifesting our inner work concretely on the cultural, not just personal, level.

$16.95
Trade Paperback
978-1-55643-839-4
240 pages; 6 x 9
On Sale September 29, 2009

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Nothing in This Book Is True, But It’s Exactly How Things Are, 15th Anniversary Edition
By Bob Frissell

Nothing in This Book Is True, But It’s Exactly How Things Are is an account of humankind’s function within the grand celestial battle between internal and external knowledge. Author Bob Frissell gives a compelling account of our planetary ascent into higher consciousness, presenting a big-screen view of the Earth through the experience of the Ascended Masters, Thoth, Babaji, and Drunvalo Melchizedek.

Pulling in all manner of conspiracy theories from the Secret Government to the Philadelphia Experiment, Frissell proposes both a core transdimensional shift based on the Mayan calendar and a personal Rapture mediated through the connected, affirmed breaths of rebirthing that his teacher Melchizedek used to travel from the other side of the universe to here.

The 15th anniversary edition of this cult classic is revised and expanded with new illustrations and 50 pages of important new information.

$17.95
Trade Paperback,
978-1-55643-831-8
336 pages; 5-1/2 x 8-1/2
On Sale September 29, 2009

Click HERE for author’s website

Nature: Original Green Designer

This post is the first of many from one of our new interns, Lizette Faraji, who will be contributing to our blogs for the Fall season. You can also check out her posts on our martial arts blog for Blue Snake Books.

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Sustainability and the Green Revolution are hot topics right now. Being eco-friendly is in, over-consumption is out. We hear about companies and individuals making efforts to “go green”—instead of personalized Hummers, now we have personalized reusable grocery bags.  In order to supply this new demand, designers are currently experimenting with different methods of producing greener products. It is from these green designers that we get chandeliers made out of unwanted eyeglass lenses, or low-energy lightbulbs, or chairs made out of a single piece of plywood with practically no wasted material (think of a wooden jigsaw puzzle that turns into something three dimensional and usable). Designers are divided when it comes to technology: some believe that it can help make products greener (like the CFL lightbulb or the hybrid car), others believe that it is part of the problem. Those in the latter camp believe that we can turn to nature for answers to our environmental problems.  And this is the idea behind Alan Marshall’s Wild Design: Ecofriendly Innovations Inspired by Nature.

The creativity in Wild Design is evident on every page: a sturdy intertidal dwelling takes inspiration from the intermingling carbonaceous and protein layers of an abalone shell—ideal for coastal dwellers faced with the problem of rising water levels; extreme sports participants can now jump from great heights and glide to the ground below thanks to the Hakea Glider, inspired by “helicopter” seeds—seeds with small wings attached that allow for the wind to carry them great distances and increase the plant population.

Solar Petals: just one of many innovative green ideas presented in Wild Design: The Ecomimicry Project

Lights in Full Bloom

Marshall, in his reflection on nature and our future, says: “If the industrialized world is to survive, then most environmentalists believe some reconciliation with ecological principles is vital…this has involved casting Nature into the role of both mentor and muse. But what exactly does it mean to learn from the natural world? Does it mean we emulate technological solutions found out there in Nature, or could we learn from less technical (more generic) principles, like rebirth and recycling? In this project, both approaches have led to insightful, and often rather playful, results.

Wild Design tells us that technology is neither the only problem nor the only solution, and that learning from Nature requires both emulation and inspiration.

So the next time you hear a news pundit or a CEO talking about greener efforts, think of learning from the original green designer: Nature.

Symbiosis Gathering 2009

Yes, Burning Man’s a blast. However, for some of us Bay Area folk, getting gas money and time off from work to make a long trek up to the harsh Nevada desert can be a little impractical. That’s why this year I’m opting for the 2009 Symbiosis Gathering in Yosemite’s Camp Mather. It’s a synaestesia of mind-blowing artwork, transformational learning, and sustainable living with a huge lineup of musical guests. They’ll have daily yoga classes, loads of dancing, nature walks, ancient rituals, and workshops on everything from ‘Learning from Leonardo DaVinci’ to ‘Shamanic AstroDrama.’

North Atlantic Books’ own Alex Grey, author of Art Psalms, will be holding workshops and creating art right before our eyes. He does some pretty far-out, cosmic pieces creating bodies out of grids of fire and infinite galactic swirls.  Click here to check out his website and artwork.

Bob Frissell, rebirther, teacher, and author of several underground spiritual classics, is getting ready for the September 29th release of the 15th Anniversary edition of Nothing In This Book Is True, But It’s Exactly How Things Are, exploring the celestial battle between internal and external knowledge. Attendees will have access to Frissell’s workshops as well as exclusive information from his upcoming release that is, in itself, worth the 3 hour drive from San Francisco (6 hours from L.A.).

Even if you somehow survive this year’s Burning Man, take a couple of weeks to recover and saddle up for the slightly tamer, but just as amazing Symbiosis Gathering, September 17-21.

For lineup and Symbiosis Gathering homepage click here, or follow Symbiosis Gathering on Twitter!

Outstanding New Books Available in July

Don’t fret that summer seems to be quickly passing and no foreseeable opportunity for R&R exists. Instead, feed your inner desire for a fun, creative hobby, a spiritual journey, and a healthy lifestyle with these new titles for July. Whether you want to try a new recipe for a guest-pleasing dish, seek a peaceful meditation practice, or take a first step into the philosophy of alchemy, you will find that perfect book to top your summer reading list.

To order, please visit www.northatlanticbooks.com
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Isaac Newton and the Transmutation of Alchemy: An Alternative View of the Scientific Revolution
By Philip Ashley Fanning

Isaac Newton was a dedicated alchemist, a fact usually obscured as unsuited to his stature as a leader of the scientific revolution. In Isaac Newton and the Transmutation of Alchemy, author Philip Ashley Fanning has diligently examined the evidence and concludes that the two major aspects of Newton’s research—conventional science and alchemy—were actually inseparable. Fanning reveals the surprisingly profound influence that Newton’s study of this hermetic art had in shaping his widely adopted scientific concepts. Alchemy was an ancient tradition of speculative philosophy that promised miraculous powers, such as the ability to change base metals into gold and the possibility of an elixir of life. Fanning compellingly describes this carefully tended esoteric institution, which may have found its greatest advocate in the career of the father of modern science. Relegated to the fringes of discourse until its twentieth-century revival by innovative thinkers such as psychiatrist Carl Jung, alchemy offers a key to understanding both the foundations of modern knowledge and important avenues in which we may yet discover wisdom.

$18.95
Trade Paper
978-1-55643-772-4
272 pages, 6 x 9

On sale July 7, 2009

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TAO of Letting Go: Meditation for Modern Living
By Bruce Frantzis

What is known from the Tao Te Ching, I Ching, and other Taoist texts is almost entirely literary. When Bruce Frantzis studied these texts with his main teacher, Grandmaster Liu Hung Chieh, he was taught their practical application: “This is what they say; this is what they mean; this is how to do them.” In The Tao of Letting Go, Frantzis offers a bridge to this pragmatic approach for living a spiritual life. Spirituality is not just an aspiration for which people strive, he says, but a genuine, accomplishable reality. Frantzis shows how to expend maximum effort and yet not use force—the gentle way of the Water method—to enrich personal health and energy systems. The author shows how to completely let go of the blockages that bind and prevent the seeker from reaching full spiritual potential. Short, direct chapters and exercises cover such topics as breathing and awareness; Taoist meditation; fog and depression; modern anxiety; love and compassion; and more.

$19.95
Trade Paper
978-1-55643-808-0
175 pages, 6 x 9

On sale July 7, 2009

Click HERE for the author’s website.

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The Passionate Mind Revisited: Expanding Personal and Social Awareness
By Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad

The Passionate Mind Revisited takes readers on a liberating inner journey into the workings of their mind, transforming the way people look at themselves and the world. Expanding on Joel Kramer’s The Passionate Mind (1974), this book shows how the world’s life-threatening dramas are largely a function of people’s beliefs and experiences, and how humanity is on an evolutionary cusp requiring expanded awareness and conscious social evolution. In exploring what it is to be human, the book offers new vantage points on life’s core issues: the nature of thought, belief, fear, desire, love, relationships, freedom, meditation, violence, and evolution. By demonstrating how to inwardly see and break through one’s conditioning, Kramer and Alstad reveal deep aspects of the nature and processes of the mind, including how subjectivity materializes through different ways of filtering perception. The Passionate Mind Revisited also presents an evolutionary perspective on personal and global issues to help readers facilitate the shift to conscious social evolution.

$16.95
Trade Paper
978-1-55643-807-3
384 pages, 6 x 9

On sale July 14, 2009

Click HERE for the authors’ website.

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Wild Design: Ecofriendly Innovations Inspired by Nature
By Alan Marshall

In Wild Design, environmental designer and scientist Alan Marshall presents a manifesto on nature-inspired designs, including visionary concepts as well as exhibits of actual products, landscapes, and artwork from around the world. With elegant photographs and drawings, the book incorporates the ethos of sustainability by documenting many of the results of the Ecomimicry Project, an international experiment in ecodesign that marries the skills of local artists and ecologists from Western Australia and the Carpathian mountains in eastern Europe. All the designs treat nature as an inspiration for ecofriendly innovations. Among the fascinating possibilities:a bike helmet based on the crustacean exoskeleton, a heliotropic house, and a car fueled by algae. Marshall argues that design should be the responsibility of all, not just a technological elite, and it is in this spirit that he offers this timely, important book.

$18.95
Trade Paper
978-1-55643-790-8
168 pages, 5-1/2 x 8-1/2

On sale July 14, 2009

Click HERE for the author’s website.

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Daily Kabbalah: Wisdom from the Tree of Life
By Gershon Winkler

From sorcery to animal totems, talking trees to magical stones, sacred circles to healing rituals, the Kabbalah brings readers a rich body of ancient wisdom that has been long neglected and even longer misunderstood. The Kabbalah celebrates a quality of consciousness that enables one to experience magic in the ordinary, miracles in the natural course of events, and spirituality in the physical. Its roots are as old and rich as most aboriginal shamanic traditions, sharing in common with many of them the belief that all of creation is alive. The uniqueness of Daily Kabbalah: Wisdom from the Tree of Life lies in its selections from this rare tradition of Jewish mystery wisdom. Culled from ancient and medieval Hebraic and Aramaic sources, much of this material has been hidden in dusty archives or obscure translations. These short selected readings are intended as contemplative, inspirational, and even entertaining extracts, accessible to readers of all backgrounds and spiritual paths.

$17.95
Trade Paper
978-1-55643-794-6
384 pages, 5-1/2 x 8-1/2

On sale July 21, 2009

Click HERE for the author’s website.

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Edible and Medicinal Mushrooms of New England and Eastern Canada
By David L. Spahr

This beautifully illustrated guidebook provides specific, easy-to-understand information on finding, collecting, identifying, and preparing the safer and more common edible and medicinal mushroom species of New England and Eastern Canada. Author David Spahr, a trained commercial photographer, here combines his mycological expertise and photographic skill to produce an attractive and detailed overview of his subject. Based on decades of practical experience and research, the book is written in a clear and forthright style that avoids the dry, generic descriptions of most field guides. Edible and Medicinal Mushrooms of New England and Eastern Canada also provides useful ideas for cooking mushrooms. Rather than simply providing recipes, the book discusses the cooking characteristics of each variety, with advice about matching species with appropriate foods. Many mushrooms contain unique medicinal components for boosting the immune system to fight cancer, HIV, and other diseases, and Spahr offers practical and prudent guidelines for exploration of this rapidly emerging area of alternative therapeutic practice.

$19.95
Trade Paper
978-1-55643-795-3
248 pages, 7 x 9-1/4

On sale July 21, 2009

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Raw Family Signature Dishes: A Step-by-Step Guide to Essential Live-Food Recipes
By Victoria Boutenko

While the raw food diet is the fastest growing alternative approach to eating because of its health benefits, preparing raw food dishes is so new that many people don’t know where to start. With 500 color photos, Raw Family Signature Dishes is a friendly, step-by-step guide that gently walks readers through recipes to create amazingly delicious and nutritious meals. Victoria Boutenko and her family are known worldwide as the Raw Family, living on a raw diet and teaching classes since 1994. Throughout the years they have perfected scores of scrumptious recipes with the idea of not only spreading the gospel of the diet’s health benefits, but also making the raw foods lifestyle realistically possible and enjoyable. Mouth-watering rather than medicinal, simple rather than complicated, the recipes presented here include jams, scones, soup, crackers, nut milk, truffles, chocolate cake, and more. Complete, illustrated directions make it simple for both avid raw foodists and novice cooks alike to embrace the diet favored by Demi Moore, Donna Karan, and other celebrities.

$18.95
Trade Paper
978-1-55643-797-7
176 pages, 8 x 10

On sale July 21, 2009

Click HERE for the author’s website.

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Heavenly Tree, Northern Earth
By Gerrit Lansing

A senior figure of American letters whose works span more than five decades of creativity, Gerrit Lansing has been an icon of the American cultural underground since the late 1950s and has been a friend and mentor to generations of creative people. Lansing was a close friend and colleague of legendary folklorist and filmmaker Harry Smith and literary giant Charles Olson (who acknowledged Lansing’s influence), among countless others. Poet Robert Kelly has characterized him as “the most learned among us, and the most fun.” Like Emily Dickinson, Lansing has patiently crafted a body of poetic work that includes brilliant and memorable high spots. His work in Heavenly Tree, Northern Earth also represents an integrated whole whose lasting place in the canon of American literature is assured. With themes at once personal and universal, spiritual and esoteric, human and erotic, Heavenly Tree, Northern Earth captures the creative spirit of an unsung master of modern poetry.

$35.00
Trade Paper
978-1-55643-754-0
248 pages, 6 x 9-1/4

On sale July 28, 2009

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On the Origin of Form: Evolution by Self-Organization
By Stuart Pivar

On the Origin of Form presents a new account of evolution and the origin of life based on the premise that the body form of any species is encoded not in the DNA but in the patterned structure of the primordial germ plasm—the universal predecessor of the egg. Two hundred years after Johann von Goethe’s Faustian quest for the Urform, the archetypal design underlying all living form, comes the recent discovery that organic forms are derived from a unique, self-organized, pre-embryonic structure. This explanation of evolution is an alternative to the now widely questioned Neo-Darwinist theory of natural selection of random mutations. This new model is based on known, relatively uncomplicated scientific principles and is easily accessible to the interested layman.

$24.95
Trade Paper
978-1-55643-886-8
208 pages, 8 x 10

On sale July 28, 2009