Diversions at UMFK: Audiobooks: Geography, Anthropology, Recreation (G)

The environment has long been the undisputed territory of the political Left, which casts international capitalism, consumerism, and the overexploitation of natural resources as the principle threats to the planet. Roger Scruton rejects this view and offers a fresh approach to tackling the most important political problem of our time. Rather than focusing on global schemes, he argues that we should work to improve local initiatives. Large-scale thinking promotes top-down solutions managed by unaccountable bureaucracies. We shouldn't entrust the environment to unwieldy NGOs and international committees; we must assume personal responsibility and foster local control.

From one of the most beloved and bestselling authors in the English language, a vivid, nostalgic and utterly hilarious memoir of growing up in the middle of the United States in the middle of the last century. Some say that the first hints that Bill Bryson was not of Planet Earth came from his discovery, at the age of six, of a woolen jersey of rare fineness. Across the moth-holed chest was a golden thunderbolt. It may have looked like an old college football sweater, but young Bryson knew better. It was obviously the Sacred Jersey of Zap, and proved that he had been placed with this innocuous family in the middle of America to fly, become invisible, shoot guns out of people's hands from a distance, and wear his underpants over his jeans in the manner of Superman. Bill Bryson's first travel book opened with the immortal line, "I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to." In this hilarious new memoir, he travels back to explore the kid he once was and the weird and wonderful world of 1950s America. He modestly claims that this is a book about not very much: about being small and getting much larger slowly. But for the rest of us, it is a laugh-out-loud book that will speak volumes; especially to anyone who has ever been young.