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Title details for You Are Here by Thomas M. Kostigen - Available

You Are Here

Exposing the Vital Link Between What We Do and What That Does to Our Planet

by Thomas M. Kostigen
Thomas M. Kostigen
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available

"A passionate and heartfelt call to care."
—Bruce Feiler, New York Times bestselling author of Walking the Bible and America's Prophet

In You Are Here, Thomas Kostigen, the New York Times bestselling co-author of The Green Book, takes us to the most extreme environmental areas on the planet to show how what we do from the comfort of our own home affects people, places, and things everywhere. A timely, much-needed alarm that recalls Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth combined with a compelling travel narrative reminiscent of Anthony Bourdain with straight ahead Anderson Cooper-like reporting, You Are Here is "an intriguing and insightful account that deserves to be read by everyone" (Mark Plotkin, Time Magazine Hero for the Planet).

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    September 23, 2008

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780061738326
      • File size: 158956 KB
      • Duration: 05:31:09

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Thomas Kostigen, coauthor of THE GREEN BOOK: THE EVERYDAY GUIDE TO SAVING THE PLANET ONE SIMPLE STEP AT A TIME, endeavors to bring home his point that the little things we do matter to our environment by visiting some of the most affected and endangered places on the planet. Kostigen narrates his own book in an earnest, easy-to-understand voice. Overall, his narration works well for this first-person travel narrative. He occasionally rushes his words, mostly at the beginning of the book. And, like many environmental authors, he offers up an overwhelming series of appalling statistics, which can be difficult for the listener to absorb. But his adventures and metaphors are memorable. F.C. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      July 14, 2008
      In a travelogue heavy on statistics but disappointingly pale in atmospherics, Kostigan (The Green Book
      ) invites readers to accompany him on a trip “into the thick of the most environmentally tenuous places on the planet” to observe the havoc caused by human behavior, from Jerusalem, where acid rain and global warming–induced salt weathering are wearing down the Western Wall, to the sewage-logged Great Lakes. He visits “the future”: the “orgy of color, mayhem, flash modernity, and squalor” of Mumbai; Linfen City, China, “the dirtiest place on Earth”; and the Eastern Garbage Patch, a mid-Pacific “lethal marine habitat” of trash “twice the size of Texas.” Post-trip, Kostigen exclaims, “Now I see people in my actions.... I feel differently about what I do and what it does to the planet.” Unfortunately, his feeble powers of description convey little feeling to the reader (the Amazon jungle is “definitely a bit of Survivor
      out here”) and his naïvely optimistic claim that “We have changed the Earth's natural course of development” and “we can just as easily change its course again—for the better” is less than convincing.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      November 24, 2008
      It's not enough to abstractly consider being “green,” in the world today. Kostigen wants listeners to come face to face with the realistic outcomes of overexploitation of the world's resources. Traveling from cities where the pollution is so toxic people must always wear masks to a miles-wide flotilla of trash in the Pacific Ocean or where the rainforest meets industrialization, Kostigen provides listeners with some real evidence of excessive and detrimental waste. His goals are earnest, but though he provides typical and practical advice that people can follow every day to address these issues, his intentions don't translate well into his prose. Kostigen reads his text clearly and smoothly, and his voice and tone are easy to follow and enjoy. However, given the gravitas of his ideas, his voice lacks the passion and emphasis to reinforce his words that one might expect. A HarperOne hardcover.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Funding for additional materials was made possible by a grant from the New Hampshire Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities.