Now that the book has been on the shelves for a few weeks and I am beginning to get out and talk about it, there is some news being generated. I actually got reviewed this week and it was a terrific first for me. Matt May gave me high marks in the same column where he panned Tom Friedman’s new book by comparison.
Last week I appeared on the Leonard Lopate show on WNYC, the New York NPR station. This was my first exposure to this medium. In addition to his prepared set of questions, Lopate had tuned into this blog and asked me about a couple of posts. All sorts of emails showed up after the show, some from long-lost folks who wondered if this was the John Ehrenfeld they once knew.
Here’s a comment I picked off Lopate’s website from a listener of our interview. A little hyperbole, but I love it.
John Ehrenfeld is brilliant and he is right on! He tells it like it is. Our current “sustainability models” are a band-aid approach to a much greater problem/dilemma: humans are by their very nature destructive animals and we are destroying the planet. Our consumerism is an addictive illness. We are addicted to buying junk and it is what keeps our economy afloat. We need a major shift in our thinking about how we are living and what our economy means with respect to our very survival on this planet. This will require a radical shift in how we live and build societies. John Ehrenfeld is a prophet for our times. He (and Al Gore) should be part of any administration that is serious about solving our current environmental crisis. Thank you Leonard for having him on your show. I hope you invite him back!
I have been visiting bookstores, looking for my book on the shelves, and have found it in most places, but tucked away in the far reaches of the stores in the nature section. It is difficult to match it to the usual categories in the stores. I need to figure how to get them to put it into the bestsellers stacks. Any ideas are welcome. I also discovered that purchasing a few copies on Amazon to give to my colleagues can move my ranking up by 100,000 or so.
I have a few book talks coming up and a couple of academic lectures on the calendar. Even with lots of academic writing under my belt, this process is all new to me.
For those interested in getting a flavor of the book, I have put one of the chapters on the Book page. I also have added a Reviews section to the Book page.