Publishers are snatching up our contributors right and left.
A couple of years back, MOTHER introduction readers to twin sisters and Alaskan homesteaders Julie and Miki Collins (“An Alaskan Way of Life,” January 1996; “Cabin on the Twelve-Mile,” May 1996). The sisters, who make their home in the wilderness 100 miles north of Anchorage–filling their time (and their cupboards) by trapping, hunting, fishing, and growing their own produce–shared with MEN readers some of the awe-inspiring challenges and rewards of their traditional bush lifestyle. Now, in a new book entitled Riding the Wild Side of Denali:Alaska Adventures with Horses and Huskies (Epicenter Press), the Collins sisters expand upon their adventures in the vast and often treacherous landscape they call home.
Also new to bookstores is Healing Plants: A Medicinal Guide to Native North American Plants and Herbs (Lyons Press), by MOTHER author Ana Nez Heatherley (“Medicines as Close as Your Door,” July 1995). A former registered nurse, Heatherley eventually left the field to pursue herbal medicine–an interest inherited from her Celtic grandmother, “a healer versed in the use of herbs,” and her Cherokee mother, also a practitioner of natural healing.
Healing Plants is a concise encyclopedia of medicinal herbs and plants found in North America – from algerita, used to relieve chronic indigestion, fever, and soar throat, to yucca, the dried root of which can be used to make preparations for treating dandruff and other skin problems, sores and sprains.
Accompanying the text are more than 120 vibrant photographs that together comprise a beautiful and useful identification guide appropriate for budding and practiced herbalists alike.
Long-time MOTHER readers may recognize the name Malcolm “Mac” Wells, a pioneer of earth-sheltered and underground buildings and an early contributor to these pages. Well, admirers of Wells will be glad to hear that Chelsea Green Publishing Co. has revived a classic tome by this legendary and visionary architect, newly titled The Earth-Sheltered House: An Architect’s Sketchbook. Originally published in 1990 as Underground Buildings, the book spans 26 years and 192 pages, and makes a cogent case for exploiting the thermal properties of earthen walls in conjunction with passive solar energy to create a home that’s warm in winter, cool in summer, designed intuitively rather than artificially, and is energy efficient year-round.
We’re betting The Earth-Sheltered House is one book that Wells’ fans, old and new, won’t be able to resist digging into.–M.L.