Planet Home: Conscious Choices for Cleaning and Greening

In this slightly preachy but comprehensive guide Hollender, cofounder of the ecofriendly household cleaner and personal care company Seventh Generation, offers a detailed "roadmap for anyone who wants to green clean a home." But the book's mission is grander than that; Hollender wants us to go beyond protecting our personal environments to see the consequences of heating with coal or throwing out the garbage. After an impressively readable guide to cleaning products and chemicals, including a section on how to make your own cleaning products with everyday household items, Hollender takes a walk through the house, analyzing each room for issues and objects that need renovation, replacement, or rethinking, always beginning with a "conscious ritual" (a sort of meditation on the meaning of the room, its contents, and how it is connected to and affects the greater world) and a checklist of "the pieces that make up" the "conscious" room, be it a kitchen, basement, bedroom, or office. Arranged for maximum reader-friendliness with ample illustrations and sidebars, the book helps busy and disorganized readers clean up their houses nook by nook, and might even inspire them to revision the world as well. (Jan.)