If you’re wondering what to do with all your spare time over the holidays, I strongly endorse reading “Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America” by Heather Cox Richardson, an academic historian and professor at Boston College. It’s a current New York Times best seller and makes sense of the current state of politics in the U.S. The worst thing you can do is get disgusted and tune out the next 12 months; this book will help you understand and tune back in. Your local, independent bookstore has it.

Much of the community engagement work that we do involves environmental issues in one way or the other. (Authentic public participation was largely born under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) when that federal law was enacted in 1969.) The highest rated university of its kind is the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA) at Indiana University. Dr. Marc Lame, a professor emeritus at SPEA recently published a contemporary, practical environmental management textbook and manual for people actively involved in or aspiring to this work. I confess a little bias because I’ve taught at SPEA for several years, and the public and community engagement portions of the textbook are based on the principles and skills that we teach there and to you. If you’re curious, your local, independent bookshop should be able to get this book, but you can also use the embedded link to purchase it. We think this manual will help shape and define this work for years to come.