The Secret Life of Stuff

Sep 21, 2024 6:46 PM

Author:Julie Hill

Wouldn't you like:

- Products that don't damage the environment?

- A better way of life without agonising about your 'footprint'?

- To really know your stuff?

Climate change? Biofuels? Nuclear power? Landfills? Recycling? Renewable energy? Environmental issues can feel overwhelming. But, in fact, it is simple; it all comes down to one thing - stuff.

Our use of the Earth's resources - whether a crisp packet or a cargo ship, a T-shirt or a wind turbine - has an inescapable impact on our future. In The Secret Life of Stuff, Julie Hill uncovers the origins and the true cost of what we use. Her inventory of over-consumption may shock but it is the first step towards overcoming waste. The misuse of stuff is not your fault, it's a product of history. But it is only by understanding what has gone wrong, that everyone - politicians, business people and us as consumers - can create a new and better material world.

Reviews

Hill is refreshingly, defiantly optimistic... The more you read this book, the more you come to realise that the future she describes isn't the pie-in-the-sky environmentalist wish-fulfilment fantasy it first appears - it's within our grasp

—— Roger Cox , Scotsman

Worldly but erudite... Enlightening

—— Independent

Instead of piling doom and gloom onto the shoulders of readers, Julie Hill outlines a positive plan for a world spring clean...the result makes fascinating reading

—— Daily Echo

Rip-roaring... Kealey's gallop through capitalism, sociology, history, economics and science is a stimulating and splendid read

—— The Times

An entertaining canter through global history...energy and muscular prose are much in evidence

—— The Times Higher Educational Supplement

Extraordinary... a brilliant, counter-intuitive argument in favour of individualism and market forces

—— Mail on Sunday

Kealey writes with enthusiasm and panache... exhilarating and exciting

—— Lancet

Thrillingly original memoir ... extraordinary

—— Lynn Barber , The Sunday Times

To write a book about a year's bird-watching as keenly observed as this, you have to be dedicated to the point of obsession; to write one as transcendent, you must be a poet

—— Christopher Somerville , The Times, Christmas Books

As unexpected as it is brilliant... A moving, powerful meditation on the natural world that envelops us, even in the heart of our cities

—— Helen Dunmore , Guardian Summer Reading

Haunting and passionate.... in graceful, poetic prose, compels us to look again and marvel at the 'storm of life over our heads

—— Huon Mallalieu , Country Life, Christmas round up

The year's most unusual travel book

—— Tom Chesshyre , The Times

[An] eye-opening and hugely enjoyable book

—— Daily Telegraph

Written in a delectable prose that scatters flashes of poetry over a sardonic undertow of social comment, Edgelands is a lyrical triumph. On Britain’s grotty margins, the duo trace “desire paths” to find beauty and mystery in the rough darkness on the edge of town

—— Boyd Tonkin , Independent

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