The (Pure Green) Joy of Books

Pure Green Magazine IN PRINT (and on cafe table) Volume One

Happy Monday, Internet! We hope you had a lovely weekend—perhaps wandering around outside in this unseasonably pleasant Toronto weather; perhaps sprawled on the couch, dipping nachos in beer and watching Madonna win the World Series (that is what happened, right?). I personally happened to forgo the latter of those options this year (only the sports watching, I still dipped my nachos in beer, of course). I did manage to get out wandering on Saturday, though. My adventures included a visit to a favorite weekend nerd-out destination, Type Books.

At Type I finally picked up a copy of the first PRINT edition of Pure Green Magazine. (Insert authentic nerd squeal here). You may recall us posting about the lovely, sustainably focused magazine, its DIY projects, vintage home decor, green style and ah-may-zing (looking) organic recipes some time ago (I WILL make those honey butter tuiles with caramelized figs and roasted pistachio marscapone soon). You may also recall us promising to keep you posted about the launch of their print version. So, we're a bit behind, but here we are!

The print version of the magazine is a gorgeous, 95 page book, printed locally on 100% post-consumer recycled, chlorine-free paper using vegetable inks. You can read the magazine online here, but it simply doesn't compare to sitting in a sunny cafe, flipping through the lovely matte pages of a real-life, quality printed version. This is how I spent my Super Bowl Sunday. And it brings to mind the debate of print versus digital reading, which you can read more about here. A quick summary: if you read online for more than 30 minutes, studies say you may as well be reading in print if eco-impact is your concern.

I am, admittedly, a sucker for printed material (as you may have gathered above). Luckily, there are constantly new efforts being made in publishing and printing to lessen the environmental impact of printed things. Margaret Atwood's release of her most recent book printed on straw paper in partnership with Canopy was a notable one. On top of also being more appealing to kick back with, subscribing to print versions of magazines like Pure Green or picking up a good old book from your local book store helps support indie publications (and publishing in general) as well as indie book stores. For a nerd like me, that's a good thing.

Subscribe to Pure Green here, or if you're in Toronto, head down to Type.  And if you haven't seen this stop-motion gem that's been floating around the internet, click play below. Made at Type by Sean Ohlenkamp, The Joy of Books peeks into the after-dark adventures of the books in the store. Created by a series of undoubtedly insanely laborious stop-motion shoots (we know, because our shoot for ten seconds of stop-motion was insanely laborious) the short ends on a note that "There's Nothing Quite Like a Real Book". True that.

You can also listen to Type store owner discussing the importance of independent book stores with Jian Gomeshi on CBC's Q recently here.

So many things! Good thing there's no baseball to watch tonight.